reserve because if we have wage inflation running about 4.5% and that's been moving sideways over the past 6-9 months, ordinarily that would be consistent with an underlying inflation rate of about 3.5. but if we're adding these jobs in low productivity sectors, that would actually imply a higher underlying inflation rate. jackie: you guys, thank you all for being here this morning, tyler, steve, joe, john, alfredo, and, joe concha, thanks for being my wingman. have to remind everybody, shameless self-promotion plug, don't miss "the big money show," i will be there. it's always great to break down these numbers. we'll see what the market is going to do today. it's bouncing around the flatline, but investors will have to the make up their mind about this number. for now i'm going to toss it over to "varney & company." ashley webster is in for stu. ashley: good morning, everyone, by the withdraw, stuart varney will be back on monday.

all right. so we just got the june jobs report. 209,000 jobs created, a little lighter than we expected. the unemployment rate stands at 3.6%, and the labor force participation rate coming in at 6 2.6%. 62.6. revisions to april-may hoe that 110,000 few orer jobs were also created than previously reported. the market reaction, well, let's take a look. the dow has been down in the premarket, still is, down, what, 53 points. marginally. s&p down 7, nasdaq down just about a tenth of a percent. it's all about what does the fed do, how does this -- we parse every word, every piece of economic detail, and no one really knows. let's take a look at the 10-year yield. it went down initially, but it's now back up 4.6 basis points, just over 4% yield on the 10-year. let's take a look at the 2-year which has been inverted with the 10 for seemingly forever. there it is, the yield on the

2-year treasury just at 5%. and and let's take a look at bitcoin price this morning, down slightly at $30,171. that that's how the market is reacting at this moment. president biden speaking to voters in south carolina yesterday. he claimedded that his economic policies have been good for everyone. but just take a look at headline. "usa today" pointing out that while the president is trying to sell bidenomics, americans, quote, cannot afford the president's agenda. the first lady of florida, that would be casey desantis, launching her nationwide mamas for desantis initiative. in a new video she says her husband will bring florida's success to the rest of the country. we'll get into that. and president trump preparing for a busy weekend. he's speaking in iowa today, then he's off to las vegas. this as a new poll shows that many people believe trump should stand trial for his handling of classified documents before the gop primaries and well before

the general election. we'll get into that. big show ahead, as always. tammy bruce, kirk cameron and steve hilton, they're all going to be here. it is friday, july 7th. "varney & company" is about to begin. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ashley: ain't too proud to beg, the temptations. looking down sixth ave on friday, certainly quieter today than midweek. a lot of people probably working if home on this friday. let's get right to june jobs report. 209,000 jobs added last month. good morning, lauren sum netty. lauren: happy friday. ashley: let's take a deeper dive into this. lauren: it was the revisions for april and may, lower by a

combined # 10,000. -- 110,000. and then you have the big miss for the month of june when 30% of the jobs added were in government. health care add ad 41,000, construction added 23,000. that's a good sign. which sectors lost jobs? transportation, retail. so overall, we are seeing lowest job creation since december of 2020. i think the bottom line here is that this is not the report the federal reserve wants to see. wages went up, they want them to go down. unemployment rate went with down, they want it to go up. so they have to, perhaps, hike more to break the economy. ashley: here we go again. thank you, lauren. david bahnsen shaking his head next to me. david, what stands out for you? is it, you know, here we are trying to figure out exactly how the fed's going to interpret all of in this. >> i was shaking my head just hearing lauren say, and she's accurate, the fed wants to see the unemployment rate go higher, and it's sad -- ashley: which is terrible. >> it's really bad economics, and it's not true that people

having jobs creates inflation. hasn't been true for over 50 years. this wasn't a great report. the issue though, and i don't think the market seems to be responding as if the fed is now going to all of a sudden keep their pause going -- ashley: yeah, not at all. >> the reality is that the inflation issue, that's really what it was about, was already won. inflation's coming down substantially. ashley: yeah. >> the fed wants to break something. they really believe they have to overdo it -- ashley: they have to crash something. david, thank you. keep shaking your head. by the way, you're with us for the full hour, so we can get into this more. now this, president biden speaking to voters in south carolina yesterday. he claims that that his economic policies have been good for everyone. take a listen. >> i made a commitment that i'd be president for all americans whether their election officials voted for -- or not. all americans whether you vote for me or not. and i've kept my promise. in fact, some analysis is have

said that the laws i've signed are going to do more to help red america than blue america. i believe every american willing to work hard should be able to get a good job no matter where they live. that's the american dream. ashley: not exactly the most enthusiastic pitch, was it? sean duffy joins me now. have the president's policies really been good for everyone as he claims? >> well, first, no. in red america, red america's doing really well because red american governors and legislatures have done what good people do in government, they lower taxes, they reduce regulation, they make their states free to which people flock, and they bring their businesses, their money and their investments. so that's the answer to that. no, this has not been good for everyone, ashley. when you look at the american people, they say, you know, joe biden gets a 34% rating on how he's done on the economy. they'll tell you that he's actually failed. people are making less money today in real dollars than they were before joe biden was in office. and you mentioned he's in south carolina.

that's interesting because joe biden doesn't barnstorm the state. i mean, a guy who sits at home most of the time. if you're going to go to a state, why are you going to south carolina? that's a red state. well, it's an important state for the democrat primary. ashley: right. >> basic question, is he concerned about rfk, is he concern about actually winning the primary and that's why he's going to south carolina? as opposed to going to arizona or georgia or, or you know, some other purple state. ashley: you know, sean, take a look at this headline in todd. it reads: biden is trying to sell bidenomics, but americans can't afford the president's agenda. you know, it's interesting because, look, when i think of bidenomics, you go back to reaganomicss, all about cutting taxes, cutting regulation, reduce government spending, free capital market, you're off to the races. that's exactly what happened. i would argue that biden's plans or the e way it's come out to this point is the complete

opposite of reagan only toics -- reaganomics. >> and, by the way, ashley, wherever reaganomics are tried, less regulation, less government spending, i don't care where you're at in the world, you actually get an economic boom. and when you do what joe biden does where with you have government-led spending where government picks winners and losers, those economies falter and eventually fail. biden was in south carolina for, i believe, end phase energy. they were touting that's going to create 600 new jobs. that reminds me of solyndra back in 2008, barack obama promised it would create 3,000 the jobs and a couple years later it went bankrupt. it's bureaucrats like joe biden who are deciding who's going to the win and who's going to lose, and i don't trust joe biden or anyone in government to pick companies that win or lose. ashley: you, me and a lot of other people, sean.

bottom line here, the president pitching to the american people, they know the how much they're spending every day where whethe, grocery ares, and it's clear that wages have just not kept up with inflation. we're going backwards, and i'm not sure how he can overcome that fact. >> 100%. and, you know, with the trillions of dollars that have been spent by joe biden, most americans look and they're not seeing new roads, new bridges, new internet connect it. they're not seeing anything from what joe biden's done except for higher inflation. and so that's their reality in their everyday life and in their bank accounts as they manage their finances. the top issue for american, 70% of americans say the economy and inflation are the top issue, and joe biden says i'm going to heene into that and call it bidenomics and run on that? good luck with that as a politician. that's not going to play very well. ashley: could be a big mistake. sean duffy, we agree on everything, i love it. sean, thank you very much. as we bring in david bahnsen

very quickly, can biden change the messaging on his exhibition policies? >> i'll give -- on his economic policies? >> i'll give a u bipartisan answer here. the republicans can't make people feel there's a recession if there's not, but biden and the left can't make people feel the economy's doing great if it isn't. that's the real problem. it's not going great, as he says. there's just no, low, slow growth. and we've been in that for some period of time, and to try to talk it up doesn't work. people know. and the quality of life, the quality of goods and services, row bust economic growth like the reagan area -- by the way, like the bill clinton area. ashley: yeah, that's true. >> we're not getting it. ashley: thank you very much. the president made some other head-scratching claims during his speech in south carolina. what did he say? lauren: he repeated the claim that he reduced the national deficit. remember this one? >> by the way, parenthetically, i want you to hear about the

deficit, i cut the deficit $1.7 trillion in two years. [applause] nobody's ever done that. cut the debt $1.7. lauren: yeah. it's misleading. it's been called out in the past even by "the washington post" who also likened that are repeated false claim to propaganda. it's also desperate as we've been talking about. he's in his sales pitch for bidenomics when americans don't feel optimistic about his economy. so he goes to the debt. by the way, the national debt is over $32 trillion. he's increased it. ashley: you know what? he's whispering it because he knows it's not true. what do you think, david? >> it's definitely a lie. i can't stand when people say they reduce the debt and pretend that's deficit. the build back better was going to add $5 trillion, and he didn't get it passed, and i can't understand politicians bragging about their own efforts failing. that's what he's doing. ashley: that's what politicians do. >> president obama did the same thing. ashley: now this, the first lady of florida, casey desantis,

rolling out a national mamas for desantis initiative. watch this. >> protect parents' right and the innocence of our children. we must restore sanity in our society. we need every mama and every grandmama in every corner of the country to stand up and fight back. ashley: all right. coming up, we'll talk to tammy bruce about casey desantis' role in her husband's campaign. meanwhile, former president trump gearing up for a weekend of. campaign rallieses, he's heading to iowa is and then planning a spot in las vegas. and, by the way, today marks 100 days since "wall street journal" reporter evan gershkovich was wrongfully detained in russia. is he any closer to coming home? we certainly hope so. jeff paul will have that report right after this. ♪ ♪

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ashley: it has been 100 days since "wall street journal" reporter evan gershkovich was wrongfully detained is and aare rested in russia. jeff paul joins us now. jeff, is there any word at all about whether evan can be release anytime soon and come home? because, you know, as we saw with the brittney griner story, it's going to be one of those things where, you know, it drags on and on. clearly, he was set up. he was there codoing what he does for "the wall street journal" for "the wall street journal," so, you know, jeff, any signses of encouragement? >> reporter: well, his parents, you know, obviously want him to be freed e and so do his colleagues at "wall street journal," but his parents in a new interview saying that they understand the conviction rate in russia is at almost 100%, so

they don't have a lot of hope that he'll be with released anytime soon. but they were given a little bit of relief recently when last month they got to physically see their son and talk to evan at his last pretrial detention hearing. >> it's even harder now to leave him there than it was the first time. >> i, i try not to think about it. it's just very hard. >> reporter: now, that was part of a new interview evan's family did with "the wall street journal" who employs evan. his parents say when they saw him, he appeared to be in good spirits and strong despite the tough circumstances he's in. it was just this week that u.s. ambassador to russia lynn tracy was granted access to evan for the first time in nearly three months. we're also learning the kremlin may now be signaling they're open to the idea of exchanging eva, in the in a prisoner swap, but right now the only thing the

family is relying on is president biden and his promise to do everything he can to bring evan home. >> i have amazing support. i have amazing parents -- [laughter] just knowing that our government is doing everything in their power right now and just everyone wants to help and is thinking about him. i just know that we're not i aenloan in this. alone in this. >> reporter: we got a chance to speak with one of evan's colleagues at "the wall street journal," and just like the u.s. government, his fellow colleagues all deny that he was involved in any sort of espionage x and they are pleading with anyone in russia that has control of releasing evan to not only set him free and let him go home, but get him back to work and get him back to where he belongs and that is, they say, the newsroom. ashley? ashley: exactly right. we think about him every day. jeff, thank you very much. we do appreciate that. i want to to bring in now brett

velicovich. you literally just got back from ukraine yesterday, so what's going on there? what's the latest? >> i mean, i saw quite a bit, and thanks for having me on today. i saw the continued strength and unity of the ukrainian people, i saw how important it is that the u.s. government continues to provide military aid, humanitarian aid, medical support, advising and assisting, you know? the financial costs when you think about the all of the money and weapons that we're sending over there compared to what we're getting out of it to be able to target one of our largest enemy, you know, just so important that we continue to do that. and make no mistake, the ukrainians are protecting the gates to europe. they continue to let russia push forward, a heir going to go on and on and make ukraine is sink hole for russian advanced technology and equipment so that they can't use it against us is porn. i saw also -- is important. i saw our patriot missile system, i was proud to be an american. there was an attack that took

place, over 100 missiles, hypersonic missiles came into kyiv, and i looked out my window, and the patriot missile was going to work. i never felt safer in that country than i did at that moment. the ukrainians are starting to win. it's a slow process. that doesn't mean there's not a tremendous amount of, you know, lives being lost, a tremendous amount of devastation over there, families in these homes have been just completely destroyed by russia. and so i just it's important that we continue to support them all we can. ashley: you know, i want to get into this issue, president biden expected to send clust arer munitions to ukraine. it's -- cluster munitions. how much of a game-changer could that be? the the concern is that it injures civilians as much as military. what are your thoughts? >> i see the concern, but the reality is the russians are already using pretty dangerous weaponly out there. we're seeing chemical attacks in some cases, we're seeing situations where they are just attacking civilians for absolutely no reason other than

just their brutality. so i do think we need to continue giving ukrainians this more advanced weaponry. frankly, the world's starting to forget about ukraine, there's a bit of a -- foo -- fatigue setting in, but from a business perspective, the innovation that's taking place in terms of defense technology and how the ukrainians are, out of necessity, building out these defense technology weapons that are going to be used on future battlefields, everything from new artificial intelligence the new drone technology, to being, essentially, a location where the u.s. is able to test equipment, western nationings are able to -- nations are are able to test equipment live on the battlefield. and i think some of the information western governments need to pay attention because it's going to wind up on other battlefields in the world. ashley: brett, thank you very much. you've just been there, so you're very well qualified. thank you very much. secretary yellen, by the way, is currently in china

meeting with officials. any fireworks coming out of in this? lauren: i don't think that's janet yellen. i think they see her as more of an easy target, perhaps somewhat more of a peacemaker, and i think she's there to smooth things over, keep the dialogue flowing, hopefully set up this eventual meeting with presidents xi and biden maybe in september at the g20. she's met with the former central bank governor, the former vice premier and the premiere now -- premier now. she said yesterday decoupling is impossible, it's also destructive. so you're talking about fireworks. she did criticize china for the export controls just put on some critical minerals for chip making. so there are your fireworks. ashley: not much, in other words. all right, thank you very much, lauren. let's check these futures before we head to the break. we show you it's going to be a slightly lower open, picking up some downward momentum. the dow off 103 points.

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ashley: okay, let's check the futures. guess what? the nasdaq just turned ever so slightly positive, but the dow and the s&p are down. we're kind of heading for a losing week, investors worried about the fed continuing to tighten their monetary policy. let's take mark mahaney to come in here. mark erik i wanted to talk specifically about amazon. you call it a top three pick. you basically said as i was reading your notes it is by far and away the leading position among the online retailer, and i don't think anyone would disagree with you. do you like it at $129 a sharesome. >> yeah, we do, actually. it's one of our top three picks. meta's our top pick, and we actually like this new threads product that they're rolling out. uber's number two and amazon at $150. amazon's fundamentals have been severely pressured as has the stock over the last 2-3 years. the question is whether you can catch the turn in the fundamentals here. we think we can. we think we're closer to a trough multiple with kind of

weak trough margins and revenue growth particularly in the cloud-computing space. but the retail segment looks as competitive as ever, and the faster and faster that they roll out shipping, and we're seeing more examples of these same-day, overnight shipping from amazon, we think they'll lock in spend from their happy prime customers for more, so that that's good for amazon shareholderses. ashley: okay. let's talk about meta. they just launched their threads app, but now they're being accused of stealing data from twitter to make that app. what do you make of all this? >> i don't know about the twitter charges. i think this is a smart, simple, safe pivot by meta. i mean, this is a lot better than rolling if spending $15 billion a year on the metarester, although i think that investment at some level is definitely warranted -- metaverse. >> this is taking their existing user base and giving them the option to try a functionality that's similar to twitter with one major difference being that

there's no anonymity here. if you on -- if you're on threads, you're on threads as your instagram identity,ing so you're a real person. and i think at some level that probably boosts the civility of discussion on the platform which was one of the weaknesses that twitter had. i don't know that it's a twitter-killer, i actually doubt that. and if it were to be, that would take five or more years for that to happen. i just think it's a smart, incremental, positive step by meta. ashley: very good. we got into it. mark, thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you, ashley. ashley: oh, thank you. the opening bell coming up in about 15 seconds. a little cheering, waving, clapping. everyone's happy. it's friday, after all. push the opening bell, come on down. [cheers and applause] we're expecting a lower open, as i say, although the nasdaq has turned around slowly. you've got a weak jobs report, only 209,000 jobs created in the month of june, certainly less than expected. the where did that put us as far

as the market is concerned? the dow is now off 143 points, dow close to half a percent. on the topside you've got jpmorgan chase, boeing leading the way wflt on the downside, a couple of financials, visa and american express. let's take a look at the s&p, see where we are, down a hurd of a percent at 4398, and, again, let's take a look at the nasdaq. it had turned ever so slightly positive, and because i noticed that, it's down just slightly. let's take a look at the big tech names which have been a rah rather mixed bag this week. meta, amazon, alphabet all moving slightly higher, but then you have apple and microsoft moving lower. now, i want to get back to the meta issue, the drama surrounding the new app. what exactly is twitter accusing met that of doing wrong? lauren: so elon musk's lawyer sent meta a cease and desist letter accusing threads of

copying twitter and building it with the help of former twitter employees. well, there are a lot of former twitter employees. he fired so many. [laughter] so meta, they've got to work somewhere. met that says 40 no one on our threads engineering team is an exe-twitter appropriation so we don't know what you're talking about. mark mahaney likes threads, he says it's not a twitter killer yet, but it's doing well. 50 million users e in the first 24 hours, launched more than 100 million posts or threads. ashley: what do you make of all this, david? >> first of all, the one thing the world needs more of is social media -- [laughter] so i'm really happy to hear we have another place we can go fight and talk about politics online. it seems very silly to me. i don't think this is highly propry if tear programming. there's plenty of different chat threads and things like that out there, there's various unique things twitter has that others don't, but i don't know why facebook would have needed to copy it. i just don't get what he's doing here. ashley: we usually have sarcasm

mondays, but we have have fridays too. let's talk about levi strauss. down almost 8%. what went wrong in their latest report? lauren: their profit outlook. hey, that's good news for the consumer because price cuts are coming. maybe your denim jeans will be out cut by $10. it helps. and the ceo is saying our consumers are completely priced out, not to to mention we have so many jeans. so that's what's hurting them. they're also looking to sell more of their jeanses through their own stores and their the own web site. that's great for their margins, but it's going to take them a lot of pain and time to get to that position. ashley: jeans, long lasting. gotta love jeans, but what about the stock, levi? >> it's one we cover a lot, we don't do a lot of consumer discretionary because it's hard to get dividend growth from them, but that this challenge is a touch one for a lot of companies. when you want to sell on your own -- lauren: jeans are long lasting

for men. for women, we go with different styles. ashley: i used to get holes in my sees in my levis all the time, which now is in. lauren: you pay for those now. [laughter] ashley: you do, which is nuts. let's move to rivian. who's bullish on the them? lauren: it's dan ives of web bush. rivian finally got it act together. it's producing, it's delivering as promised. shareses up today, eight days of gains in a row. ashley: we talk all the time about evs, but they're still a very small percentage of the market. i mean, is that me just being pessimistic in are we all going to be in evs at some point here, david? >> no, we are not. and rivian in particular, it's really difficult when these guys lose so much money producing more cars. and each car they produce is a money loser. ashley: right. >> tesla just had a particular advantage that's really going to be halved to replicate. -- hard to replicate.

ashley: let's talk about blackstone. >> that's one i haven't brought up lately stu has brought with it up, and yet i wanted to re-bring it up because, boy, i think they are prepped for big dividend growth. blackstone has had a great start to the year. right now a 4.3% dividend, but they have more than tripled the dividend since i bought it 10 years ago. we think blackstone is going to be a dividend grower in the years ahead. ashley: tell me about truest? >> 7% dividend yield, 7 pe. this thing is going higher. ashley: very, very good. >> that was 10 is secs. ashley: you've got this done -- down, i've got to tell you. lauren: and you can get it on cheap. it's down, what, 30% this year. >> that's right. it's gotten pulled into in this banking stuff. ashley: 209,000 jobs added in june. judy suh, the labor secretary, joins me now to talk about it.

great to see you. that number, by the way, is the lowest since december 2020. a bit of a surprise. it was lighter than expected. your reaction. >> thank you so much. well, this is a really good jobs report. we want steady and stable growth, and this number is an example of that. this number is paired with 3.6% unemployment rate which, again, for the last 17 months it's been less than 4%. the longest duration in, you know, since the 1960s. so this number combined unemployment rate really demonstrates that we are where we want to be. we have more work with to do, but president biden's economic policies are working, and the economy has recovered and is still growing. ashley: a lot of growth in the jobs though, julie, are in the service sector. we're talking about low paying jobs, the leisure and has hospitality sector. those are not quite the kind of jobs that you want to see leading the way though, right in. >> right. thank you very much for that

question because one of the things that that we've been really focused on and is very much a part of bidenomics is creating good jobs in every community across the country. and what the jobs report today demonstrates is also that real wages are increasing. last month we saw that was the case, and there are the good signs that is true this month as well although we're going to wait for the inflation report. but inflation has also steadily come down. so it is the half of what it was a year ago, and that's something that we continue to work on. but we are definitely seeing job growth and wage increases. and in a tight labor market, workers have more power to choose, right, and to look for better working conditions, and we are seeing that ripple across the country. ashley: and while we have you here, i have to ask, how's your nomination going? it's been a battle. your critics describe you as someone who loves regulation, is very pro-labor union, and that's why they're questioning your

nomination. how's it going and how would you respond? >> it's good. i mean, we are hopeful for confirmation. i've had, appreciated the support from a lot of senators, and we remain hopeful. but i'm definitely here to do the job. i'm grateful for the president's confidence in me, and that's why i'm here to talk about jobs day. ashley: all right. well, we're out of time but thank you so much, labor secretary julie su. thank you for joining us. we do appreciate it. >> thank you forking having me. ashley: thank you. now this, vice president kamala harris gave a wordy description of the meaning of culture. listen to this, see if you can figure it out. >> culture is, it is a reflection of our moment in our time, right? and present culture is the way we express how we're feeling about the moment. ashley: we'll try and figure out exactly what he meant there, not quite sure. meantime, the biden

administration green lit its largest offshore wind turbine project in the united states, approving the construction of nearly 100 wind turbine generator off the coast of new jersey. but critics say the project is moving way too fast and will have harmful effects on the environment. we're going to head to new jersey for that report next. ♪ ♪

ashley: thousand this, the biden administration is proposing new rules to further restrict energy development in the united states. austin knutsen, montana's attorney general, joins me now. great to see you, attorney general. you are strongly opposing this rule. you say it simply is not support by federal law, so i say to you with, make your case.

>> i will make it, ashley, thanks for having me. yeah, listen, use of federal land leasing and how we doha is controlled by federal law. it's the federal land policy and management act. that law states very clearly what federal land uses may be leased for. and conservation's not one of them. the biden administration knows that. director tracy stone manning at blm knows that. we also know they cannot get this law changed. they don't have the horsepower in the congress. they just don't have the votes. so they're trying to put conservation on equal footing, and they're trying to shove this through by recall. it's in violation of flpma. i think they likely violated the add a morive procedures act by -- administrative procedures act by shoving this rule through so fast without public comment and proper notice. ashley: i lived in montana for a number of years, and they always used to say that farmers and ranchers are the ultimate

conservationists. they protect the land better than anyone. and under this, apparently, that's not case. they want actual environmentalists to block everyone else from getting access to it. is that part of the issue? >> that's certainly part of the issue. but when you're going to allow conservation groups which really, let's be clear here, we're talking about allowing environmentalist groups to come in, lease large swaths of federal land and basically lock it it up, locking it from if farming, ranching, any kind of natural a resource development, timber development, obviously, responsibly, but even from recreational use perspective here. when you're talking about locking up huge swaths of federal land and basically just letting it sit wild, we have a hard enough time with forest fires here in montana. we don't need more federal land that we can't go in and log and clean off. ashley: right. how much has this administration already curtailed the ability to the mine and to hook for oil? i -- to look for oil? i would imagine that's already been curtailed quite with significantly.

>> it absolutely is. and that just shows you how hypocritical this administration is. on one hand, we're going to push electric vehicleses, push renewable resources. ashley, you know as well as i do those industries require huge amounts of rare earth minerallings. ashley: right. >> let's just forget about mining copper, we're talking about all kinds of minerals that are required to make those bat ryes. ashley: -- can batteries. the biggest source we have is on federal lands largely in the rocky mountain west, and that's exactly the type of land we're talking about locking up here with this proposed new rule. ashley: well, we'll con to follow it, and and i'm sure we'll be talking to you. attorney general, thanks so much for joining us this morning. >> thank you for having me. ashley: oh, our pleasure. now this, the biden administration has green lit its largest offshore wind turbine project in the united states despite okays the from environmentalists. bryan llenas is many long branch, new jersey, this morning. why are environmental groups so

against this project? >> reporter: ashley, good morning. welshes basically, they say we simply don't have enough information to make this decision can yet about the risk this poses to the environment. look, democrat governor phil murphy of new jersey said this was a monumental win for the state. it's going to power up to half a million homes by 2025 and create some 3,000 union jobs. the ocean wind one project is the largest approved offshore wind pardon me in the u.s., and it calls for -- farm in the u.s., and and it calls for up to 98 wind turbines to be built 15 is miles off the coast of atlantic city and the jersey shore. look, it is controversial. the governor, he sign a law yesterday e that would give danish wind company reportedly up to a billion dollars this in federal tax credits that were meant to go directly to new jerseyans to help offset rising electric bills under biden's inflation reduction act. the state's rate payer advocate warns this will boost the foreign company we's profit will

while, quote, no doubt leading to higher energy bills for new jerseyans. democrats say it was necessary to attract the company, republicans say it's a big government corporate bailout. >> this doesn't have a damn thing to do with climate change. it has everything to do with about making a lot of money, billions of dollars floating around, and letting foreign interests control american energy. and hitting the consumer on the head with more utility costs. >> reporter: now, lawsuits have been filed by environmental groups that are concerned about whales, and they argue the wind project is being rushed without knowing the exact impacts. listen. >> the planet's not going anywhere, and we don't need to build these things in the next year to save the planet. and that, to me, is policy by panic. and we can destroy the coastline for the next hundred years if we leap into something and don't

think about it. >> reporter: now, look, the biden administration, ashley, says they're going to compensate at least three fisheries here, that they will try to mitigate ecological losses by creating vessel speed restrictions and construction-free zones, but then there's that other issue, ashley, that these are permanent wind turbines that will forever be on the horizon. that's a whole other issue with concerns on tourism. ashley: absolutely. thank you for the report, appreciate it. you're right, there is friday -- it is friday, and there is still time to send in your feedback. e-mail your questions, comments and critiques to varney viewers at fox.com. meantime, a new report shows new car purchases are becoming more out of reach for many people. the average price of a new vehicle is now 33% more than it was just five years ago. coming up we're going to go to jeff flock who's at a dealership in new jersey to get a firsthand look at the sticker shock new car buyers are facing. we'll be right back. ♪ yes, i'm going to be a star.

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xfinity rewards creates experiences big and small, and once-in-a-lifetime. ashley: if you are looking to buy a new car, you're probably going to get a bad case of sticker shock. we use that phrase a lot, but it

kind of applies. jeff flock is at a dealership in new jersey this morning and, jeff, all right, how much is it going to cost we to drive one of those new cars? how much to drive off the lot? >> reporter: that's one in demand, ashley. it's going to cost you more. talk about sticker shock, yeah, you rook at sticker, and shock is they tell you you've got to pay more than sticker. this one is about 69k, and, yeah, people are paying $4-5,000 over sticker for one of these because they're hard to come by. take a look at this number too, you've got people in terms of car payment. obviously, if you've got a high dollar for the car, the payment is high. now 17% of all car loans are over $1,000 a month paymentment back in 2019 that was just 4%. i'm going to ask veronica to the explain this to us, why you're still selling these, but first, i've got to tell people for the first time in history, a woman-owned dealership here in

new jersey passes to another woman, and that's you. >> yes. >> reporter: congratulations. >> thank you very much. it's an honor to be the first woman-to-woman acquisition in history and, you know -- >> reporter: and now you're dealing with high prices, but you're still selling cars. how are you doing that? >> yeah, it's definitely a challenge, but we are dealing with a couple of things. you know, during covid we had people that lost are their jobs that didn't know what was going to happen next, so they decided they were going to invest small amounts of money to fix their vehicles instead of buying new vehicles, and we also had a lack of inventory from a dealer's perspective. it's been three years, and people are realizing you can only put so much money into your car until it's not worth it anymore -- >> reporter: so that demand is coming to the market now, and people willing to pay. >> exactly. during covid we saw a big influx in service appointments and our profit was a lot in service. and now we're jumping over to the sales where people need to replace their vehicleses. >> reporter: veronica,

appreciate it. we'll be with you at the ford dealership here in toms river, new jersey. it's crazy, ashley. usually when prices go up, sales go down. not today. ashley: nope, not at all all. very interesting stuff, jeff flock as always. all right, david, 17% of people have a car payment over $1,000 a month. it's amazing. >> yeah, really is. it's a huge portion of what they're spending money on, and with their house payment, car and house together is the largest percentage of income it's ever been. the semiconductors that go into cars, that's the huge issue going onful people do not understand it's still a hangover from covid when they shut the world down. ashley: been a quick hour. you've been here an hour it's just gone like that. thank you so much for being here. [laughter] well, i'm sorry about that, david, but great to have you. lauren: we've got two more. ashley: still ahead, tammy bruce, kirk cameron and steve hilton. 10 a.m. hour of "varney & company" is next. ♪ how will i know?

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