you have the nasdaq up 30. the data that we need to focus on in the next week obviously pc e, the preferred inflation gauge for the fed comes out friday. job, payrolls, next week. hopefully we don't get a huge $300,000 number like we did last time. i think these are the data points i'm going to be focusing on. maria: for the second half after that huge move in a lot of your stocks, nasdaq stocks, what do you do now? >> i'm watching small caps. they are only up 4% year-to-date if they can start to come up that means the rallies broadening out and that be a big positive. maria: todd when there's what's app messages. we'll be focused on. adam johnson, brenda o'connor, todd piro, great to have you thank you so much have a great day everybody and stuart, ashley is in for stuart right now. "varney" & company is right now. ashley: good morning, maria, and good morning, everyone. i'm ashley webster in for stuary varney today. president biden getting ready to take a victory lap during a major speech today. he says his economic policies or

bidenomics is "incredibly popular with voters" despite high inflation, high interest rates and oh, yes high costs of everyday goods. we'll take on the disconnect apparently between the white house and how people are really feeling. by the way, biden's speech is taking place in chicago. a city where crime is surging, businesses are bolting and people simply fleeing. and remember when biden first took the white house? his administration claimed it be the most transparent administration in history. so how come they haven't kept any visitor logs for hunter biden's visits? interesting. we'll get into that. taking a quick look at the markets for you. we were up yesterday a little bit of red today but the dow, s&p and nasdaq down. we've got a big show today congressman byron donalds, liz peek, martha maccallum and gary sinese all joining us for the next three hours and oh, costco is cracking down on membership card sharing. so hopefully stu is not listen ing. stu? hmmm. it's wednesday, june 28, 2023 "varney" & company is about

to begin. ♪ it's a new day and new life for me and i'm feeling good ♪ ashley: how good is that song let's get right to the 2024 elections as we look at the empire state building in midtown manhattan pointing towards partly cloudy skies. so the 2024 elections we've got the latest fox power rankings. good morning, lauren what are the key congressional races? lauren: let's start with the senate. republicans only need to flip two seats to take control of the upper chamber. the best pickup opportunities are in montana, ohio, and west virginia. those three states trump won montana by 16, ohio by 8 and west virginia by 39 points, and all three have democratic senators facing re-election.

all-in, 34 senate seats in play, eight very competitive and in the house, there is no room for error. speaker mccarthy has a very tenuous grip on the gavel. ashley: squeeky close. ben domenech joins me now. good morning to you. the gop only has as lauren pointed out a handful of opportunities to win in the senate and certainly no room for error in the house contest. it doesn't sound very encouraging for 2024. what say you? >> well, first off, i have to complement your song choice. that was our first dance with my wife when we got married so i always prove that. when it comes to power rankings, look. she's exactly right. this is a very tight majority that the republicans are going to have to hold on to in the house but they are bullish on their chances in the senate for very obvious reasons. there are so many seats that democrats have to defend that are very vulnerable and i think

the fact that they have been able to really meet their recruitment goals this time around in terms of putting together some very solid potential general election candidates in each of these states is really critical including of course governor jim just its in west virginia, bernie marino is likely to come out in ohio and of course in montana just the other day recruiting a navy seal candidate who has a lot of backing from the party establishment. all of this gives republicans a lot of hope and certainly, you know, for democrats, they also are going through a period of retirement where they've had so many people around for so long. you saw nancy pelosi endorsing term limits the other day for the supreme court which is pretty laughable considering she's been a member of democratic leadership longer than all but one member of the court has been there, clarence thomas. it's the kind of thing where there is just going to be a natural period, i think, of these kind of 80-something democrats heading to the exits

and democrats are going to have to struggle to replace them. ashley: time for a fresh approach. the white house has omitted any records of hunter biden visits. so i ask a question again. what's happened to this administration claiming it be the most transparent in history? apparently not. >> hunter might as well be the in visible man, except that he's out there in front of us all the time at state dinners, you know, going to all these different places with his father we can see that he's there but it's as if the white house pretends that we can't see any of that going on in front of our very eyes. look. they have not been transparent at all. the obama white house, by the way, in contrast, did keep records of hunter's visits so it's not like he has some kind of family protection privilege or something like that. and yet, they are, you know, continuing to just flaunt it in the voters faces how much they are pretending like all of the different woes that surround hunter don't matter and of course we know better and the congress and the continued

efforts to get to the bottom of how this plea deal was worked out and whether you had the actual ability at doj to advance the kind of charges that mr. weiss wanted to is really going to be something that is a very open question that's going to be resolved in the coming months. ashley: we'll have to leave it there, ben, but thank you so much and i'm have glad we played nina simonne for you. brought back memories. now donald trump is the clear front runner right now to take on president biden in 2024. lauren, how would trump do in that potential matchup? lauren: win by three points so 44-41 according to morning consult, that particular poll. it's the first time trump took the lead in that poll. several republican candidates were stumping in new hampshire yesterday. obviously trump was one of them. there's a new college poll that has trump ahead of desantis by 28 points, 47-19 and here is how the former president feels about his biggest rival.

>> desanctimonius at 19%. >> [applause] >> the question is when will he go to third place. somebody said how come you only attack him and i said because he's in second place. well why don't you attack others because they aren't in second place but soon i don't think he'll be in second place so i'll be attacking somebody else. lauren: wow that's classic trump i had to laugh so whose in third place right now? chris cristi. that be interesting, trump and c risti together on a debate stage. he gets 6% support in that poll of new hampshire voters. nikki haley came in with 5%. ashley: chris cristi says he's ready to duke it out. that be interesting, lauren, thank you very much. now this. a businessman and former navy seal is challenging democrat montana senator john tester for his seat in 2024. watch this. >> whether it was in war or business i see problems and solve them. america needs conservative leaders who love our country and that's why i'm running for the united states senate.

ashley: that's the republican candidate tim sheehey joins me now. great to see you. look, you've done everything. navy seal, pilot firefighting helicopters, you've run businesses, but what made you want to run for senate and challenge john tester? >> well thanks for having me. you know it's about service. i love this country. i've done a lot. my wife was a marine officer so we both served in afghanistan and coming home to see the challenges facing our country from an open southern border to our deficit to our inflation and i've been privileged to start and own a couple of small businesses we've grown here in montana and i've seen the power of free market and the money entrepreneur and america is ready for a new generation of leaders who have both served the country on the battlefield but understand the common sense policies you need to put in place to succeed as a small business owner and i hope to bring those concepts to the united states senate and lead our country into a new era of prosperity. ashley: tim i lived in montana for a number of years, in helena

, but i got to travel around the state it's a beautiful state and they are very socially conservative. they also don't like the government being in their lives at all. is that a main focus for your campaign? >> you hit the nail on the head we have a very individualistic population. we have people that are enterprising. they have a great work ethic and they want to get things done and you're right. they don't want more government in their lives whether it's state government or federal government. they want to be left alone to live their lives so you're absolutely right. that's going to be a big part of our campaign. federal government needs to stay in its lane and we need to empower or businesses to succeed. ashley: you know the president is touting his economy saying that his policies are working. what are joe biden's policies doing for montana? >> well, on a state like ours we have some unique challenges other states don't have. some people will drive two hours to work each way. you've got ranches who will be

10, 12, 15 miles from one end to the other so fuel prices impact our farmers and ranchers and communities a lot. families are spread across the state where we have only about a million people in the fourth largest state in the country so a lot of land mass that people have to drive back and forth. fuel prices are important. fertilizer, input costs for our farmers and ranchers and as we've seen this record inflation, you know, living costs have skyrocketed in this state especially during our disastrous covid-19 policies nationwide where everyone was fleeing the cities where they were locked down. a lot of people came to montana and that drove our costs up to live here and work here. it drove the costs up to run a business, to hire staff. so a lot of those stimulus policies and inflation policies have really impacted the bedrock of montana and people are frustrated and they want to see their economy get back to a place where they can make a living and put some savings away ashley: quickly, tim, your experience as a navy seal, does that give you the kind of experience to handle the rough and tumble of politics? >> well, listen. people have asked are you an

your family ready for this , all the attacks you'll get and i say well we used to get shot at for a living. i was wounded in combat so at the end of the day it's all in service to our country. we have the greatest nation ever known. we have serious challenges and we need serious people to solve them so i'm ready to step up and serve again. it's what's right for the country and i hope to serve the people of montana proudly. ashley: we thank you for your service and thank you for being here this morning and good luck, tim, thank you very much for joining us we do appreciate it. now this , gary sinese is known for his role as lt. dan in forest gump of course. watch this. >> look, it's pretty basic here stick with me, learn from the guys who have been in country a while you'll be all right ashley: pretty basic and also dedicated much of his life to veterans and now he's being honored for it. guess what, gary sinese will be on the show today. the president is pushing his climate focus bidenomics in chicago today but it looks like the media is starting to take biden to task on his victory lap

watch this. >> according to our last poll 54-36% say donald trump did a better job handling the economy when he was president than biden has done so far. ashley: we've got the response from the white house plus we'll get congressman byron donalds take, coming up next. ♪ ♪

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ashley: president biden has low marks on the economy, but that's not stopping him from bragging that his policies are working. edward lawrence is at the white house this morning, and edward,

this major address in chicago today, it's raising some eyebrows, right? reporter: more like scratching heads. the president is going to talk about all of the spending that he's done on climate change, talking about semiconductors and roads. the president going to send this message. he wants voters to remember the taxpayer-funded programs that he's putting into place so his poll numbers go up. now this message is going to the windy city here in chicago. it's interesting, it's meant to make people forget about the bad inflation we're seeing as well as how bad it continues to be, so i pressed though the deputy white house press secretary about this. listen. >> so how is bidenomics not an era of high inflation and rising unemployment rate? >> well take a look at where we started and where we are now. that's the easiest answer to your question. when we came into office with the global economic headwinds of covid that were then compounded by the disruptions we faced when russia invaded ukraine, and

disrupted global food supply chains global fuel supply chains , sent inflation soaring around the world. reporter: but the russian invasion of ukraine happened more than a year into president biden's term. the venue for the message raising eyebrows yes it's the site of the democratic national convention next year but crime is up in chicago 40%. 81,000 people have left the city since 2020. major companies moved out like boeing, citadel, tyson food, because of taxes and other policies, but for everyday people, it's the economy. >> 100% economy is my biggest concern. i am, you know, a small business owner and i work in my own restaurant and during the last couple years, everything has changed. reporter: everything has changed , but president biden changing the messaging around this , but not changing any of the policies he has going forward. ashley? ashley: that's the key point. edward thank you very much.

guess what? david bahnsen is here and stick ing around for the full hour because we locked the door in the studio, david. so don't even think about it. look is biden going to convince anyone that his policies are working, life is getting better, at least his policies were better than trumps? >> i don't think so, but i don't think our best angle for those of us like myself that are on the right, movement conservatives, that believe in limited government. i don't think our best argument is the inflation one. i think it's the heavy degree of regulation and all of his anti- energy, this extreme environmental issues. there is the inflation deal, the problem is they're right inflation is coming down. it just has nothing to do with biden policies but when those naturally are out of the way, you have to remember, his first year in office they were still shutting us down. they still had all kinds of lockdowns. schools weren't open, so the economy, he's going to need a miracle from the fed. i don't know how that land that plan. ashley: let's not forget. before covid trump had an economy going at a 50 year high so all engines revving.

>> still living off the benefits of the corporate tax cuts and the repatriation of dollars that came back into america, corporate profits hung in there well that does land with what trump did in 2018. ashley: let's check the futures pointing slightly lower. david for months we've been hear ing about the sell-off that hasn't really materialized, so is it time for the bears to kind of jump in? >> the problem with this market right now is that six companies, six, are 85% of the return this year and that happened in 1999. we know it happened after that in 2007, we know it happened after that. i don't think this is sustainable this way. you need a broader market participation to feel good about this market. ashley: you're our dividend guy. we know that and you have been for many years. we're moments away from the opening bell here. let's start with walgreens. >> walgreens got hammered yesterday which is why i sent it over this morning for you because you like to buy low, well it went lower yesterday with a brutal quarter 7% dividend almost on walgreens. they raised it every year for 50 years.

they have some work to do there the dividend is safe. ashley: and you also like blue owl capital. >> easy ticker, owl, like the animal. it's one of the private credit lenders, alternatives. i've talked about blackstone so much with stuart. it's in that same vein and they are just really growing profits and they have about a 5% dividend yield. ashley: that's very good. so taking a step back again, david. how does the second half of this year play out? >> i think that what you're going to see is the market quit talking about the fed so much and look more to underlying company earnings. some companies are performing are going to do well and other companies that aren't will get punished so it'll become a darwinian market. ashley: survival of the fittest. >> certain areas are way over stretched. look at the nvidia a.i. stuff they are at 200 time earnings so you are just praying for more people to come in and boost the stock up more. it's not the way to invest in the second half of this year so worked fine the first half so

people if i were them i'd take profits. ashley: we get the results of the bank stress tests today. any surprises in there, what do you think? >> no. they leak it ahead of time if there are. there won't be big surprises, no , but you'll have some of the smaller regionals that are still distressed and some of the big, big ones the jpmorgan benefited and then these ones in the middle that i think we want to look to one is truist. we own that name and i'm curious how they're doing with deposits, have people still been panicking or not. i don't think they have been. ashley: interesting other than the big tech stocks anything else you're kind of avoiding? >> i want to avoid the index at large, the whole s&p because then you're taking a market at 20 times earnings and hoping it goes to 23 times earnings. i don't think that strategy is going to work so we want to buy individual dividend names growing their dividends and there are plenty of them. some of the stock prices come down. some have come up but that's okay as long as you keep getting that growing dividend you aren't going to care overtime. ashley: david bahnsen great stuff. stay there. you're going to stick around. thank you, david.

futures as we pointed out are in the red. nasdaq down about half a percent but nothing too excited about the markets right now. see what happens with the opening bell and that by the way is next. ♪

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ashley: all right let's take a look at the futures red across the screen but as we say nothing to get excited about. the nasdaq down another half a percent. michael lee is here, in studio. michael, great to see you. you called yesterday's gains a fomo rally, a fear of missing out rally. is there anything i should be looking at right now to make money in this environment and the second half of the year? >> well, look. we are in a like a tail of two cities with this market, where you have six or seven stocks like leading the way, all based on this artificial intelligence and then the rest of the market is essentially flat, and what we've seen this year is what normally doesn't happen, so when you have contracting liquidity, declining earnings, slowing economy you normally get price to earnings multiple contraction we have price to earnings multiple expansion by roughly 30

%, so i'm inclined to say that the momentum behind these big tech names doesn't stop because this artificial intelligence trend is for real. nvidia gave us the biggest guidance in the history of the world, literally. accenture is hiring another 40,000 employees to work just on artificial intelligence. with that being said so the way that i would play that is with the xlk. the tech sector etf because you're going to have exposure to all those big names without having to pick the individual winner, but i'd also bar bell that with some conservative names that i like that david likes is truist. you have a roughly 7% dividend and a 7% price-to-earnings multiple. right, so if it's something you can sit on and wait, i think that'll pay off for you overtime and then i also own the 30 year treasury, the tlt. in case the bottom does fall out of this market you'll get a substantial rally in that. ashley: it's interesting you say look, the recent economic data is very hard to parse each individual but its generally been positive.

you think the stock market is saying you know what? i think we're out of the woods, you don't necessarily think that's true? >> so you know, yesterday we got some decent economic data, right? in the form of durable goods and good housing data. ashley: yup. >> but by and large this is still a slowing economy and a recession is still highly likely to happen albeit maybe a minor one if you look at gross domestic income we are already in a recession. that being said the stock market is not the economy. the economy is not the stock market and if this artificial intelligence trend continues which i think it will, you could have fairly decent stock market performance because the big names that are going to benefit the most from this trend makeup a massive portion of the overall indices, so you're in this bifurcation where you have some individual winners that happen to be the largest companies in the world that dominate the overall market indices, whereas the rest of the economy is not doing that well, and earnings estimates for next quarter are for a decline of 6.5%.

ashley: frankly i find the whole thing incredibly confusing. >> this is absolutely one of the most difficult markets i've ever been involved in because the nasdaq is up 30% year-to-date but like i said the economy is doing terrible. not terrible but it's getting worse and worse and worse. okay? and liquidity is tightening, and so the feds most likely going to raise another 25 basis points. if we get more strong economic data, you're looking at more hikes in addition to that which is kicking rate cuts down even further into 2024, so normally these environments you want to run for the hills and buy defensive stocks but that hasn't been the case this year. ashley: fascinating. >> [opening bell ringing] ashley: they are all shouting and waving and pumping their fist at the exchange as we get ready for a new trading day and we are off and running now. let's take a look at the big board, right out of the chute here the big 30 stock s on the dow and we are down as we suspected from the futures down two-tenths of a percent down about 60 points on

the dow there you have it a lot more red than green. boeing at the top, intel at the bottom but as you can see mostly on the downside. let's take a look at the s&p as well if we can. that is down just 11 points at 43.67 and then how about the nasdaq, all those big tech stocks, the growth stocks. that down just one-third of a percent right now and take a look at big tech stocks we're talking about them. mixed bag we have amazon and microsoft on the way up, but apple, meta, and alphabet. alphabet down 1% in the very early going. let's talk about costco. we have been talking about this in the studio. they are going to crackdown on membership card sharing, made it sound also, you know, secretive but it really isn't. they are cracking down on card sharing at costco. so, my question to lauren, good morning, is what's the plan? lauren: i'm just going to say what i said on the break. i don't see what the difference is when you shop at costco now they ask to see your membership card which might have a picture on it and your identification. that's how it works correct?

david? >> that's my understanding. i confess i don't go a lot myself. lauren: i'm not sure what changes but now, because they expanded their self-checkout, more people are using, borrowing other people's cards to get the perks that come with the costco membership. why is this a problem? because that money, 60 to $120 a year to become a member, and get the membership card, costco needs that to offset their costs and keep prices low. so this is basically like the version of netflix password sharing crackdown. ashley: yeah, exactly. lauren: at costco. ashley: i get it. i don't think stu "varney" does that because he likes to go himself. lauren: he is an actual member. ashley: he is. he's like a rock star down in naples, i believe. they flock around him. david, what are you making of this? to lauren's point it make sense. if i'm a company and have membership fees that i rely on clearly, i don't want people sharing. it's stealing from me. >> well it is and password sharing is an issue too we've talked about with netflix. even shoplifting at target and

walgreens, these little things we call leakage, it's a lot of lost revenue and when you add it all together it's hundreds of billions of dollars across the economy. it really is that much. lauren: i think self-checkout makes people steal more, whether you're using a membership card or despite all the sensors you're able to get a couple of items through into your cart without scanning them. it's interesting how the companies are trying to save costs with automation. ashley: but then losing it. lauren: in the end. ashley: it means lack of self- restraint is what we're saying. lauren: i am saying that. ashley: we have a bit of a drop for general mills this morning let's have a look. boy down more than 4% what went wrong with their report? lauren: the prices of what they're selling. have you bought a box of cereal lately? ashley: it's outrageous. lauren: so their revenue rose 3% just over $5 billion. it missed expectations and that's the only reason that sales actually rose, because of higher prices. prices up double-digits, volume

down 6%. i think shoppers are completely priced out, whether it's for something as basic as cheeri os or more fancy like pancake mix. general mills also said their labor cost inflation, other input costs are expected to continue to be challenging for them. ashley: what do you say, david? >> only thing i want to point out is the stock was up 20% so its come down from having done very well through it and they had a great pricing power but yeah, you always hit a peak with that but really those food companies, consumer staples, particularly general mills, have done very well . ashley: but to lauren's point cereal is expensive. lauren: $7 a box. ashley: the chipmakers taking a hit is this because of mu regulations? lauren: this is a major story from the "wall street journal." they are reporting that the biden administration is looking at potential new restrictions on exporting artificial intelligence chips to china, particularly bad for nvidia. why? because the curves would also

apply to their less powerful a 800 a.i. chip they designed specifically for beijing to avoid export curves. it's also hitting the other chipmakers today. conveniently, reportedly, treasury secretary yellen is expected in beijing. ashley: david, you take china out of the equation an enormous market is not good news for the chipmakers. >> no but if the market took it more seriously they be down more than 3% so it is a sell-off but i don't think the market knows what the to make of it yet. the administration hasn't had good teeth with any policies. they don't seem very intelligent ly thought through. ashley: we'll leave it on that point. google, by the way, latest company to make job cuts. what service? lauren: wayz. have you used that recently? i forgot all about it so they are merging into their own mapping products which means the reduction of some of the wa yz staff. the number is unspecified. they have about 500 people at the business meanwhile the parent company alphabet cutting some 12,000 workers

announced in recent months. ashley: okay, all right thank you. we've seen a lot of job cuts from big companies, david. has it slowed down at all? >> you have only seen job cuts from big companies, that's it. ashley: thousands and thousands. >> it really does, i hate to say it, however they overhired in 2020 and 2021 and by the way not just overhired headcount but were overpaying. their wage levels were ridiculous and so they were the first to go. the other thing i've got to get my agenda in here, is work-from-home thing is getting people fired. you don't want to lose your job, go back to the office, because if they are going to cut people and you have two people to choose from -- ashley: you're the first to go. lauren: five days a week is never returning. i'd say four days could be returning. >> i've been five days a week since 2020. lauren: we're rare. ashley: don't talk to david about home working. roku has signed a deal to live stream sports. interesting. roku is, what kind of sports?

lauren: formula e? formula 1 for electric vehicles. it's a big deal because it's the roku live sports rights package and their competitor in talks with formula 1 which we've all heard of. my opinion is this deal is so much better for formula e than roku because nobody heard of formula e. it puts them more on the map so formula e had a sold out race in portland, oregon last week. never heard of it. ashley: david, what do you say? okay good for roku to target sports. >> i think the right expert on formula e should be someone who drives his own car let alone watches the , look the streaming thing with other sports, let's take the nfl and that amazon deal. they paid so much money it's in comprehensible so i think they are trying to buy market share but i'd give it a couple more years to see where it goes. ashley: david, thank you. now take a look at this.

it's mark zuckerberg training with a top jujitsu fighter. he's getting ready of course for his first match against elon musk. i guess musk is not listening to his mommy and the fight is still on. lauren: whoa! ashley: that story is so weird. florida senator rick scott doubling down on his message to socialists planning to come to his state. listen to this. >> if you're a socialist, communist the way that believes in big government, i would think twice. think twice if you're thinking about taking a vacation or moving to florida. ashley: well the liberals just don't like that. we've got more of senator scott 's message after this. ♪

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ashley: florida senator rick scott doubling down on his warnings to socialists. lauren, what's he saying? lauren: don't travel to or move to florida if you're a socialist or a communist. watch. >> we're in the free state of florida. we actually don't believe in socialism. we actually know people and some people say lived under it and we know people lived under socialism. it's not good. we like freedom, liberty, capitalism, things like that. lauren: democrats slamming the senators advisory as insane and a sure way to kill tourism which is a major driver for florida's economy. however, the naacp warned about travel to florida for black americans so i guess he's hitting back in the way he knows how. ashley: as we say, money is money, right? no matter what pocket it comes out of, so what do you think, david? >> i just think a free society i didn't mind people traveling there. i certainly don't want the socialist montra being shared everywhere, but i don't

know. i'm a little uncomfortable with it from both sides. ashley: well socialism isn't going to work in florida we know for sure. >> doesn't work anywhere. ashley: no. exactly. reporters are pushing back on the white house claims that bidenomics have been popular. watch this. >> the president's economic policies are incredibly popular. >> according to our last poll 54-36% say donald trump did a better job handling the economy when he was president than biden has done so far. >> when we came into office, after four years of donald trump , unemployment was over 6%, and today, we are standing here at a time where unemployment is at historic lows. we've recovered our economy has recovered faster than any major economy in the entire world. ashley: okay, congressman byron donalds is here and great to see you, congressman. they have a short memory don't they, at the biden administration. donald trump's economy prior to covid was at a 50-year high. it was really humming along. my question to you is is biden's

economy working for voters? >> well look. i'm really glad this is the topic because i watched some of this presser. it was ridiculous. they don't really know what economics are over at the white house except of course if you're taking money from burisma, then that works out for you but i'll digress and leave that for another day. listen. everybody's incomes have fallen when you adjust for inflation in the biden economy. under the trump economy, black voters were earning more money, building more wealth. the american dream was tangible for so many americans. in this economy, here, we are stagnating very very fast. interest rates are higher. banks have serious concerns. our energy system is actually becoming more dependent on foreign sources. i mean, we can go down the list. labor participation rate is lower than it should be, and we could have come out of the pandemic if joe biden took the oath and just did no harm. if he just sat in the oval office and did nothing our

economy would have rebounded significantly faster than it did without this crippling inflation which has hurt everybody. that is the biden economic record which is a record of disaster which is why voters almost 2-1 want donald trump back because he actually knows how to run the economy in a successful way for all americans ashley: let's change topics. attorney general merrick garland is going to testify in front of the house judiciary committee in september but you say garland does not have clean hands because of his role in the hunter biden investigation. what do you mean by that? >> oh, by a number of things. we now have sworn testimony from a supervisory agent at the irs that david weiss, who was the u.s. attorney in delaware looking into hunter biden, that he did not have the ability to bring charges in several jurisdictions. that david weiss wanted to be a special prosecutor so that he could be free from the clutches of merrick garland and the department of justice and he

was told no by merrick garland. merrick garland, meanwhile, says very glibly in a highly legal statement that basically, david weiss had full control and autonomy to do whatever he wanted. well somebody's lying and it appears to me that's merrick garland and the reason why that does not shock me is because this is the same attorney general who tried to have parent s become domestic terrorists because they cared about what was going on in their kids classrooms. this is the same attorney general that prosecuted a father trying to protect his son who were actually protesting peacefully in front of an abortion clinic and he went after that father. so in my view, merrick garland doesn't have clean hands. in my view with respect to these matters, around hunter biden, this is obstruction of justice, and we're going to continue to do these investigations, so when he comes to judiciary on september 2, i'm in the oversight committee. i'm in the hearing room next door. i'm going to be paying attention to what merrick garland says but more importantly what he does not say and what he tries to weasel his way out of. ashley: you covered a lot of

ground. congressman, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today. we really do appreciate it. by the way, donald trump is responding after leaked audio surfaced that shows him discussing the contents of classified documents. lauren? what's he saying? lauren: i did nothing wrong. so, this audio tape is seen as critical evidence for the special counsel, jack smith, and his investigation into this documents case, and it does show donald trump seemingly bragging about a pentagon plan to attack iran to writers and journalists who did not have security clearances. well fox news digital asked trump about that leaked audio. here is what he said. >> i said it very clearly. i had a whole desk full of lots of papers and mostly newspaper articles, copies of magazines, copies of different plans, copies of stories, having to do with many many subjects, and what was said was absolutely fine and very perfectly. we did nothing wrong. this is a whole hoax. lauren: in the audio you

actually hear the desk full of papers but this tape is evidence , right, no doubt, but is it a smoking gun? ashley: that's being debated. lauren, thank you very much. earlier this month, you may remember, new york city was covered in a thick haze of smoke from the canadian wildfires. well, apparently that smoke is now expected to return to new york as soon as tomorrow. oh, great we'll have the details on that. farmers appealing the squeeze over the rising cost to produce food now some are turning to automated equipment to help get the job done. coming up next we're going to head to kentucky to get a firsthand look at the new farm technology. ♪

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ashley: well when you think of self-driving vehicles you probably think of cars, right? not tractors but some farmers are looking to use automated equipment. madison alworth is getting a first-hand look at some of the tech. she's down on the farm. how is it working, madison? reporter: ashley, it's working right behind me. i'm just going to go straight to it right now so you can get a

look at this. that green tractor that you see heading up to the combine, there is no one in there. that is completely autonomous. no driver inside, and it is trained to understand to come up to the combine, to drop-off the wheat when the process is ready. i mean, its been incredible being out here all morningment when you think about farming they are looking for ways to be more viable. it is the backbone of the american economy and right now, farmers across america, they are struggling. we're seeing increase in input costs from fertilizer and feed and a big problem is labor shortages, which is why ag-co is bullish on this and why they believe it's the future of farming. i want to bring in brad arnold. so we've seen this and i'm going to have lloyd go back to it because it's so freaking cool. this tech is not yet available to farmers but once something like this makes its way on to a farm why is this piece in particular going to make a big difference? >> harvest is an extremely stressful time for a farming operation and labor spikes during that time of the year, so

to be able to replace a really critical part of the operation in terms of labor in the grain cart operator and not have to fill that spot is significant benefit to the farmer. reporter: you told me the grain cart operator is one of the hardest positions to fill on a farm like this , and when you look at tech like this , you need serious engineers that maybe when they think autonomous are thinking cars and tesla, not farm equipment. how do you get an engineer from silicon valley to want to work on farm equipment? >> you know, all of our core technology that you're witnessing here came from an acquisition. we acquired a company called jc 8 technologies from canada early last year, and on top of that, we're actually starting a tech hub in phoenix shortly and we're attracting all kinds corps of engineers actually on a motive but agriculture is a much more impactful purpose-driven industry to be in, so we're actually finding that talent attraction pretty easy. reporter: brad, thank you so much, guys they are hoping to have a full fleet of farm equipment fully autonomous by

2030. ashley i'll send it back to you. ashley: to quote you, madison, so freaking cool, right? thank you very much it was very cool. david bahnsen is here. but a bit creepy too? weird to see these driverless machineries. >> i think it is but i also want to be humble. i'm becoming an old man. some of the stuff i look at and i just don't know if it really makes a big difference and some stuff ends up having great utility but the driverless car thing i don't think is and remember the trucks? and you have to actually give the trucks into a city. doesn't really work there? i don't know where all this goes ashley: thank you for being here for the whole hour david we covered everything including driverless tractors how about that thank you so much. still ahead, liz peek, gary sinise, martha maccallum, great lineup, and the white house is facing questions about the optic s of hunter biden at a state dinner even former white house press secretary jen psaki says well it didn't look good so why debt happen at all. we'll deal with that. the 10 a.m. hour of "varney" &

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