>> economy is services based not all companies are grocery stores biggest. >> -- i okay, biggest expense is for most business owners largest expense is labor they have a big issue with being able to attract quality threaten productivity is down having issues on labor side of this. >> i disagree with you, if you take average businesspeople run real companies, they will say i want my interest rates down, i want to grow my companies. maria: all right. great conversation great debate everybody thank you john catsimatidis kevin hassett stephanie pomboy mark tepper cheryl casone great conversation 30 minutes away from the opening bell a market that is off the highs, nonetheless up 65 on dow industrials, right to "varney & co." ashley in for good morning, great discussion on the show, good morning, i am ashley webster and forth stuart varney. another read on inflation, producer price index showing

inflation continues to slowdown. this follows yesterday's consumer price index so you'd expect the markets to like it and they do, taking a look at the futures, the dow up 66 points, s&p up there, nasdaq up three quarters of a%. look at the ten year yield let's come back down below the four points that level, down another 3.7 basis points, 3.82%. look at that going, crypto world and we can show you the.of $166, 30,000 500. now onto politics. fbi director christopher wray saying the fbi is absolutely not protecting the biden's. will ask ted cruz if he believes that, he's going to be here in a few minutes. president biden having a european trip, another

international trip to the tired looking leader, field president of finland and we will monitor that. a lot of news on artificial intelligence, elon musk launched the company, bill gates says you should be afraid of the technology and if you want to learn more, ask kamala harris, she'll tell you what it is. we'll play the sound. a big show ahead, kevin o'leary, senator rick scott and doctor ben carlson to name a few. thursday july 13, 2023 and varney & co. about to begin. ♪ ♪

the go-go's, they got the beat. producer price index, did get the latest numbers, good morning, laura took us through the report to make inflation is slowing, and will phase of price increase has slowed, the most since august of 2020 and it slowed 12 months in a row, year over year end month over month, .1%. if you look at the core on an annual basis, the core 2.4%, we are close to the feds to pursue the target, the message as we saw with jobless claims, layoffs are not increasing nor is inflation. it is possible there is a soft landing and with earnings season, the message being sent to robert america is your input

cost are no longer rising. ashley: pass it on to us. thank you very much. futures pointing to another positive strong session yesterday. adam johnson joins us, what you make of this latest report? is it too early to claim vic victory? >> getting pretty close to the big dream on. the fed has been trying to get inflation down to 2% for a long time and we are practically there. we learned yesterday the consumer prices are only rising 3%, pretty close to two and producer prices are up 2.4, that's pretty close to do so while we can't quite declare victory, i think we can see the finish line and it's a good thing because if you make the argument the past 18 months it was higher inflation and

interest rates took stocks down, by definition the opposite should be true that playing out this year. if we look at especially with big cap tech, 36%. now i'm waiting for they're down names, they are up only 4%. i'm waiting for them to join the party. >> he mentioned 30%, should i still be buying meta, microsoft or has their run come to the e end? >> i'm not selling my socks because i think they have the fundamentals on their side and now they have inflation going on which gets the fed off their backs and our backs. if you look at the individual companies, i recommend nvidia back when it was 175 and my base

case was 175. it's 440 now. 475 i will peel off a little bit, i always do when the stock is my target but the bookcase was 600 so there's upside to nvidia and artificial intelligence isn't something we're playing this month, next month or two quarters from now. it's a game changing wave in the same way.com, e-commerce, pivot to the cloud and etc. among those were all major megatrends still with us so artificial intelligence -- i won't take you through each stock but i'm long and staying long. ashley: and you are bullish and i already feel better about it. thank you so much for joining me this morning with a positive view on the stock market. republicans will fbi director christopher wray in an intense hearing yesterday. they wanted clarity about bias or potential bias, did they get

any answers? >> they tried to, they grilled christopher right over what they call weaponization of law enforcement against conservatives. watch some of what we call a be done. >> are you protecting the biden's x. >> absolutely not -- >> you won't answer whether or not that's a shakedown and everybody knows why you won't answer. >> are you or staff what penalizing the fbi against the american people? >> absolutely not. the idea that i'm biased against conservatives seems somewhat insane to me. >> a bathroom, a bedroom, are those appropriate places to store classified confidential information? >> there are specific rules where to store classified information and they need to be stored. >> a box in the garage? details in delaware -- >> those were made about

ossified documents but also as you heard, they grilled him on illegal pfizer wants targeting parents and much more and when confirmed or deny president biden was under investigation for bribery. ashley: thank you very much, very intense hearing. senator ted cruz joining me, the perfect person to talk about this. do you believe christopher wray when he says he's absolutely not protecting the biden's? it's insane, he says. >> sadly, i don't. if you look at the last two and a half years, we've seen the department of justice and fbi politicized and organized, this attorney general merrick garland is the most critical attorney with overhead. i think john mitchell, nixon's attorney general who served 22 months in prison for breaking the law, john mitchell running over ray at the willingness of

merrick garland to use d.o.j. and fbi to go after the biden white house little enemies, when you look at the double standard applied by d.o.j. and fbi, it is enormous and the fbi sadly stonewalling so i've asked the fbi repeatedly about for example, fd 1023, the form prepared one confidential form it came to the fbi with allegations joe biden personally received $5 million from a foreign national. the fbi refused to confirm the existence of the fd 23, refused to have it over, refused that there were 17 tape-recorded conversations and that is allegedly the fbi won't answer a single question, they won't confirm the court exists, they

won't confirm they have them, their answer is essentially a gigantic stiff arm and it's doing the service, number one to the fbi but number two the american people. ashley: agreed. talking to merrick garland, your calling for special counsel to probe mr. merrick, what are you hoping to achieve? what are you looking for? >> the purpose of a special counsel is the department of justice unable to investigate the matter fairly itself because of conflict of interest or political bias or another issue. in this instance we have not one but two separate irs whistleblowers who have come forward, both senior career irs employees who alleged merrick garland deliberately and directly interfered and blocked the investigation and the hunter biden and most specifically intervened to protect joe biden, to shield off the white house among other things, demanding no

questions be asked about the big guy, the money, millions of dollars flowing to joe biden, d.o.j. was not allowed to examine that. i can tell you if what the irs whistleblowers are saying is true, merrick garland is guilty of multiple felonies, lying under oath to congress, specifically when i questioned him and in response to my questions he committed judiciary committee there was no political interference whatsoever in the investigation and the irs whistleblowers are telling the truth, he lied to congress second, allegations are also allegations of obstruction of justice. obviously merrick garland can investigate himself which is why in the interest of the rule of law, department of justice is to appoint special counsel and i believe simultaneously the house should open impeachment inquiries into merrick garland and i think that's likely to happen. ashley: well, we will follow it very closely.

sir, thanks for joining us. we do appreciate it. let's check those futures. up again after friendly, shall we say, producer price index numbers on inflation calling out like cpi and markets reacting on the port side. coming up, vice president harris tries to sum up what artificial intelligence is and well, it was awkward. >> ai is kind of a fancy thing, first of all its two letters. it means artificial intelligence but ultimately what is is about machine learning. >> it's two letters, artificial intelligence. we could add that to the were solid costs. house judiciary report found the fbi colluded with ukraine intelligence agency to remove social media icons. for congresswoman cap says it's

a violation of america's civil liberties and she's here next. ♪

(jennifer) the reason why golo customers have such long term success

is because we focus on real foods in the right balance so you get the results you want. when i tell people how easy it was for me to lose weight on golo, they don't believe me. they don't believe i can eat real food and lose this much weight. the release supplement makes losing weight easy. release sets you up for successful weight loss because it supports your blood sugar levels between meals so you aren't hungry or fatigued. after i started taking release, the weight just started falling off. since starting golo and taking release, i've gone from a size 12 to a 4. before golo, i was hungry all the time and constantly thinking about food. after taking release, that stopped. with release, i didn't feel that hunger that comes with dieting. which made the golo plan really easy to stick to. since starting golo and release, i have dropped seven pant sizes and i've kept it off. golo is real, our customers are real, and our success stories are real. why not give it a try?

♪ ♪ beautiful shot, there's a place in the sun, it's not there, pat lake george in new york, 69 degrees, a little hazy, foggy but a beautiful spot. let's look at the futures, 12

minutes on wall street looks like another positive openings, the dow two tenths of a%. this builds on yesterday's friendly numbers today, inflation also using which the markets like. the newly revealed e-mail from 2015 shows one hunter biden's ultimate purpose was with the ukrainian company burisma. >> this was an e-mail from executive to hunter when hunter was on its board and this is what it reads. the scope of work should include organization of a visit of a number of widely recognized influential current or former policymakers to ukraine in november with the ultimate purpose to close down for any cases or pursuits against the burisma president in ukraine.

that influential policymaker was vice president joe biden and he did go to kyiv one month after that e-mail and threatened to withhold the billing dollars in aid if ukraine's top prosecutor investigating that burisma executive will stop by. some publicans call it clear proof of extortion and bribery. ashley: the evidence is mounting, no doubt. now this, a new report shows fbi worked alongside ukrainian intelligence agencies to censor americans on social media. congressman kat, republican from florida joins me. explain what was going on here, what did you find? >> the select many on weaponization of the government against americans released a report this week detailing how this happened. you have sbu, intelligence

agency in ukraine infiltrated double agents, sending spreadsheets of thousands of posts they've asked fbi to then social media companies to take them. fbi didn't that the post as we've seen some that are pro- russia, anti- russia but not only that, fbi turned around and suggested opening up 24/7 channel, meta and google and other social media companies to ensure the post ukraine wanted taken down or taken down and these are american citizens who have the constitutional rights violated in the worst of ways. >> so you are saying the only is the fbi doing this but big tech companies are also culpable. >> absolutely. the fbi has a counter intelligence division designed

to fight for and influence, not facilitate it and here we have clear cut case, foreign government influencing speech and infringing on the constitutional protective rights of everyday americans, journalists, children's book authors and took down post from the state department. that coupled with the fact that we know industrial complex of censorship is real, the social media companies do didn't of the biden administration taking down post they don't like that don't fit to literal narrative, it's terrifying because if you have the pillar of our republic crumbley in the press is asking questions and your speech continually is censored, we are on a downward trajectory, the report proves the weaponization of government against american citizens israel's but to add insult to industry, the foreign government of ukraine is pushing for this. >> it's crazy, i'm almost out of time but now we know this, what

happens next? >> i think there's more to uncover, we've had incredible documents produced, more deposition and transcribed interviews will continue. we will put the pieces of the puzzle together and have a legislative fix to make sure this never happens again and like to see referrals to the d.o.j. where people will be held accountable. we have to reestablish trust if we are going to move forward and until there's consequences, is going to be a lot of mistrust. ashley: that is right. thank you so much for joining us today. >> thanks so much, have a good one. ashley: now this, some people suggested dot primary races is a competition to be donald trump's vice president. how does ron desantis feel about playing second? >> hard to answer because once you say okay, i'll be vice president, no one will want to

see but of course he says is not going to happen, he's not a number two sort of guy. >> i ask because we have a lot of readers asked me, would you ever agree to be donald trump's running a? >> i think so, i'm not a number two guy, i think i'm a leader. i think i probably could do more staying there than -- which i don't have any authority. >> he said he's the only candidate who can win general election and if he does, rumors are k junior could be his vp and he said absolutely not. he agreed to support whomever the republican nominee is. that was big. ashley: not a number two kind of guy. all right. take a look at the futures as we get to the break, pointing higher again thanks to lowering inflation. stick around, opening bell is

next. ♪

ashley: producer inflation is

more than expected in june, the markets like it so the dow up largely s&p and nasdaq moving higher. let's bring in dion to talk about this, good morning. producers prices up 1%, what's your reaction do we have this thing beaten? >> i think we are on a great trajectory. we saw yesterday in the great cpi number, the markets were overjoyed and i think the one big problem i'm watching is that we don't have an overshoot here. everything is looking really strongly on inflation, who just got to make sure we get a smoother out than we expected. ashley: now getting into the earnings seasons, delta and one

in pepsi, the banks at the end of the week, what you think this season is going to tell us? >> i believe we are going to see some of the have-nots, early first half of the year companies looking a little bit better and maybe some of the companies did great in the first half, kind of moderating a little bit so i'm looking for the big seven, magnus if it eight. for everyone else, play a little bit of catch-up. ashley: would like ups? why ups in particular? >> it has that exact theme so the first half of the year they were up just a little bit, not a lot because they have first-quarter earnings, that was a little off and projections for

the rest of the year based on their macroeconomic views, down a bit and they did much less well in the stock price than fedex so i think we will see a good bit of catch-up from them and i believe the three and a half% dividend is a good thing while we are waiting, they just had a technical breakthrough, a good price break out and i think it's good stuff for them going forward. ashley: we hear you loud and clear. thank you so much. you can see we are getting ready to kick off another session this thursday morning, a nice session yesterday, s&p and nasdaq hitting highs for 2023. can we continue that sentiment? we are up and running as you can see and let's look at the big board and dow 30. stocks are up 86 points as you

can see, nike and boeing at the top, honeywell and extremely early going but the dow up close to 100 points. let's look at the s&p 500 seeing how the s&p is doing, up nearly 20 points at 4491 on the s&p. good for half a% gain and nasdaq of seven tenths of a%, up 96 points on the nasdaq and when we talk about the nasdaq, we like to talk about big tech names, let's see where we are on those. up across the board, amazon, apple, all moving higher. amazon on the back of its big sales, up nearly 2%. alphabet of one and a half%. i want to talk about meta. what's this about tax companies giving away millions of taxpayers?

>> and the power of big tech, h&r block and two other tax companies are accused of breaching taxpayer laws so allegedly allowed google to get customers income, refunds and names of their dependents over the course of two years through visitor tracking technology embedded in the tax forms websites. seven lawmakers sent a letter to the irs, watchdog and department of justice to investigate. the could be a federal lawsuit if these companies are facing billions of dollars in fines and considering the size of them. ashley: well, we'll follow that. let's look at disney, we heard news they've extended bob iger's tenure, the guy who's trying to retire but can't apparently. how long was it extended? >> until 2026. i was originally going to tell you it's a big relief for disney

investors but the stock is up a third of 1% and bob is saying he's going to cut spending. pretty drastically on star wars and marvel so you would expect it to go up more but it's not so he came back as ceo in november, about a year after he retired and he said i got a lot more to accomplish before my transformative work is complete and one of the big things he has to do and this is where cost-cutting comes in, making streaming who were popular but not profitable. he needs to make it profitable. ashley: needs to make up the money. here we go again, microsoft's potential acquisition of activism facing another legal hurdle. >> ftc will appeal, microsoft activision but time is running out because the companies have their own line to close the deal and that is tuesday, the 18th so earlier this week the judge ruled she does not see this deal

hurting competition in video gaming and things ftc failed to prove microsoft would withhold that from their competitors so that's a blow to the ftc and she's going to testify today before house judiciary and the lawmakers want to talk to her about mismanagement and why she goes after him companies like twitter more than others so i would say it's a bad story for the ftc. ashley: interesting. crypto stuff, coin base, a solid run up to the crypto etf announcements but who doesn't like the stock? >> the street doesn't seem to care, they cut them to sell, raise price target at the same time to 70, $16 underwear it is now. they say this recent run-up for the share price is because of black rocks, application for bit coin etf and coin base would be

the custodian for that. but coin is reflected in they were going forward about a regulatory crackdown and the sec is suing coin base so a lot going on today. ashley: pretty amazing. we got earnings, the season has begun, a few companies reported before the bell, let's begin with delta airlines. >> the travel boom is relentless, that's the best word i have. delta reports a lift profit outlook for the second time in less than a month because profits in the quarter, profit surged 86%. where are we going? seven europe, i wish i was one of those people going to italy. good news, we saw this with cpi, costs are coming down and delta came out today and said they expect non- fuel cost to decline between one and 3% so i like it

when companies say our costs are coming down because maybe prices will, to. ashley: what about pepsi, the stock -- pepsi is up one and a quarter%. >> i bought a bag of ruffles the other day, regular sized bag and it was $6.97, plus the reality. the price increases are helping their full here guidance. volume is falling. it fell 3% inspects overall, frito-lay was the standard. pepsi sales up 10% over $20 billion. ashley: as part of the farming sector. >> better earnings, increased student. they sell slim jim, popcorn. stocks relatively flat. able to beat some targets. ashley: very good about we had

pepsi, chips, slim jim's, i'm hungry. j.p. morgan, we talk about this a lot. it down a%. what's going on? >> security said it was going to 50 and let me confuse you, now j p.m. says the stock has gone down, down $10. they say business is getting better but the stocks are reflecting improvements loosing so j.p. morgan cutting them. i know it is volatility. the low for the year was $3.55, people talking about filing chapter 11. it's up seven 100% this year. ashley: buffalo.

a down great this morning, who doesn't like them? >> they say they are acting like a bank and should be valued as such. students repaying student loans in october, they expect that you have a smaller impact than expected. ashley: very good. wonderful run. thank you so much. coming up, georgia democrat state lawmaker, she's left her party for the gop and says the democrats who abandoned her. ho. growing homeless population in blue cities putting a strain on local businesses across the country, former secretary of housing and urban development, doctor ben carson will be here to take on. and we now know inflation may be cooling but americans still feeling the heat of higher prices so why is president biden saying bidenomics is working? report next. ♪

♪

let's take a look at these margins, you can see moving nicely higher. this time on the producer side, that's friendly for stocks and they are moving higher. the data of a quarter, s&p half, all right, check out adobe. they say spent a total of $4.7 billion for amazon's timebase sale, the sale lasted two days, july 11 and 12. that number is .1% year over year end a new record, people jumped online and bought, here to talk about that in the second

with gerald but inflation may be but new trends in the economy could spell trouble ahead. gerri willis joins me now. what are some of these worrying firms? >> inflation is sticky seeing this for think about back to school, they are tightening their grip on cash is back to school spending will fall to the first time in nine years. according to a survey, overall back to school shopping will shrink to 31.2 billion, down from 34.4 billion. in 2022, parents are expected to just show up, $597 a kid, 10% decline. they are shopping earlier trying to score deals during amazon i'm day and only buying essentials spending more on critical supplies rather than closed-door technology. name inflation so prices softened in june according to the cpi numbers, parents are still struggling higher prices.

even school supplies like the ones in front of me here, they are more expensive, of 23.7% in just two years. >> what i'm seeing is consumers leaning toward lower-priced retailers looking for deals, sales, coupon sites and all that means to me people are operating on tight budgets right now. >> consumers facing multiple headwinds according to the federal reserve bank of reserve. mortgage balances spike to 12.04 trillion in auto and student loan balances are slowing. middle-class same credit card balances are rising. 36% are reaching for the credit card more often this year according to a survey by primerica and record number of americans, 37% say they are

getting 4o1k for extra dough. ashley: you have -- thank you very much. fascinating. president biden calls 3% consumer inflation rate good on bidenomics. gerald, great to see you. should president biden brag about his economy? >> i'm a little more cautious than what i heard the last few days. inflation rates by one tenth of 1%, essentially around the air they have tendency to change with me issue final reports so i don't make too much out of a and we are up against the highest inflation lasher so look at a two year, is the goods quite a bit more expensive than two years ago but i'm hearing out there tumors are stretched,

retailers worried about the holidays, they know sales of physical goods, retail goods for ten months have been negative when you adjust so take 3% inflation report, see if it's more or less than 3%, 11 straight months, sales of physical goods are declining. ashley: amazon's prime day is finished, consumers spent 12.7 billion across both days, up 6.1% from last year, a new record. you've liked amazon for a long time now. why is prime day such a success? it's a huge amount of money. >> it's brilliant. the idea of christmas in july has been around for decades and australia is one of the biggest holidays of the year so it's not

like invention of amazon. to do $13 billion of sales, in the middle of nowhere retailers, in the heat of the summer, 13 billion is about the size of a number of major retailers. kohls is just a little bigger, nordstrom's. that gap for a whole year end they are doing it in a few days. having said that, they threw the book at this and i think they were hoping for more, 10% increase but we don't know but. having said that, it shows consumers are cautious and they will come up for a sale and how much was pulled forward, we don't know and how much they will what is on. ashley: pretty impressive. we are out of time but there's always fascinating stuff. thank you, appreciate your time. restaurants tacking on new

surcharges for customers so pay attention to the small print. like what? >> a glass of water, workers healthcare, climate change, one in six restaurants have, creative ways to boost margins, it is annoying because it's on top of the fee to swipe your credit card. if you ask, sometimes you can have them remove the surcharge he. ashley: but then you don't want to look cheap. >> this is your responsibility, not mine. ashley: i have to leave it there but thank you. coming up, state department officials discovered chinese hacking campaign, tennessee senator marsha blackburn wants answers and the center is here. also, capitol hill heating up climates are testifying, we will

find out the cost of this administration is green push. that report right after this. ♪

so... i know you and george were struggling with the possibility of having to move. how's that going? we found a way to make bathing safer with a kohler walk-in bath. a kohler walk-in bath provides a secure, spa-like bathing experience in the comfort of your own home. a kohler walk-in bath has one of the lowest step-ins of any walk-in bath for easy entry and exit. it features textured surfaces, convenient handrails for more stability, and a wide door for easier mobility. kohler® walk-in baths include two hydrotherapies—

whirlpool jets and our patented bubblemassage™ to help soothe sore muscles in your feet, legs, and back. a kohler-certified installer will install everything quickly and conveniently in as little as a day. they made us feel completely comfortable in our home. and, yes, it's affordable. i wish we would have looked into it sooner. think i might look into one myself. stay in the home and life you've built for years to come. call... to receive 50% off installation of your kohler® walk-in bath. and take advantage of our on interest for 12 months financing.

ashley: john kerry is going to testify on capitol hill this morning. are we going to get to the bottom of how much biden's green push is going to cost? >> the short answer is no because there's on the tax credits but house republicans will start grilling special envoy for climate john kerry about his budget, new report saying just in the inflation reduction act the reduction -- the transition to clean energy will cost $400 billion over 8 years, much more than first thought and now here the invasion of ukraine should end because of climate change. >> when you have bombs going off and damage to septic tanks or power centers, you have an

enormous release of greenhouse gas and methane. all of the family of greenhouse gases. >> reporter: is concerned with the russian invasion of ukraine is the greenhouse gases released. according to the defense intelligence agency ukraine suffered 131,000 total casualties since russia invaded. concern for the environment seems to end when it comes to is -- the climate special envoy has taken private jets to london, back to the us and will go to china next week, that visit will mark the third time in a month that a high-level us official has traveled to china. he will talk about climate change as microsoft announced another hack by chinese cyber actors targeting cabinet level emails. >> reporter: we are working on lockstep to tackle the climate crisis which you've been leaders on for a long time.

and in order to literally preserve our planet, the only x essential threat humanity faces and we don't have a lot of time but i'm confident if we continue to work together we can deal with it. >> reporter: every stop the president talks about climate. ashley: he does as he jets off to another place. thank you very much. still ahead tennessee senator marsha blackburn, kevin o'leary, florida senator rick scott and doctor ben carson 10:00 hour of "varney and company" 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? ♪ ♪ this is spring semester at over 13,000 us school districts, which have become top targets for ransomware attacks. but there's never been a reported ransomware attack on a chromebook. which is why thousands of schools like the fairfield-suisun unified school district switched to google tools for education. so they can focus on teaching and 22,000 students can focus on learning, knowing that their data is secure. ( ♪ )

ah, these bills are crazy. she has no idea she's sitting on a goldmine. well she doesn't know that if she owns a life insurance policy of $100,000 or more she can sell all or part of it to coventry for cash. even a term policy. even a term policy? even a term policy! find out if you're sitting on a goldmine. call coventry direct today at the number on your screen, or visit coventrydirect.com.

♪ ♪ ashley: adele whistling, that's the empire state building on friday morning, midtown manhattan. it is 10:00 eastern.