not going up til this year. so as our costs go up and our costs of labor go up, we will increase prices. and i agree with the other gentlemen that the ability to get from 4% inflation rate or 3% inflation rate down to 2 the, that will hurt economy even more. maria: all right. we will leave it there. great conversation, everybody. we so appreciate your time this morning. douglas, barry, john, ryan, we so appreciate it. let's take a look at markets here before we hand it over to stu. dow industrials down 83 points, the nasdaq and the s&p also negative. nasdaq down two-hisser of a percent, 102 points lower. i'll see you tonight on "wall street," 7 p.m. eastern here on fox business. have a great weekend, 30 minutes before the opening ball. "varney & company" take over. stuart: good morning, everyone. first up, the latest reading on inflation. it's the producer price index, otherwise known as costs to business.

the numbers coming in a little hotter than we've seen recently. the index went up 0.89% in the -- 0.8% in the last 12 months. the dow industrials turning south, we're down 9 a 5 points. nasdaq, south, down 105 points. a little hotter inflation doesn't go down well on the stock market. interest rates going up right after the inflation news. look at that, the yield on the 10-year -- sorry, that's the 2-year. the yield on the 10-year is 4.16. look at the 2-year, the yield there is 4 and something, getting close to 5, you're at 4up.89 right now. so -- 4.89. interest rates up, stocks down. energy inflation, that's a real concern. oil slowly criming, you're at $83 a barrel this morning. and look at this, gas is now climbing as well. regular average is $3.84, up 2 cents overnight. and diesel, that's going to an average of 4.26, and that is the up 3 cents overnight. listen to this, up 42 cents in a

month. politics, a hostage deal. five americans detained in iran likely getting out. the iranians get $6 billion released to them from their frozen assets. mike pence says america should not be paying ran. >>some, and this iranian deal, he says, is disgusting. the president wans to give ukraine another $24 billion, but he's only requested an extra $4 billion for the border. meanwhile, cities and states are running up e nor to mouse bills coping with migrants already here. who's going to i pay for that. >>? congressman james comer leads the investigation into hunter biden after exposing bank records. he's now going to subpoena members of the biden family who who received millions of dollars. he's closing in on the president. donald trump using harsh language, speaking of the president he says, quote, i believe he's gone mad, a stark the raving lunatic. he has the iq of a first grader. trump is not changing his style. maui, def stated. more stories this morning of

desperate escapes from fast moving fires. lahaina a smoking ruin. the governor says recovery is going to be the a long haul. 55 dead, 1,000 reported missing. and this, a tweet from elon musk. the fight with mark zuckerberg will be in an epic location. speculation is they'll fight in the coliseum in rome. musk has spoken to the prime minister of italy. [laughter] what a story. friday, august the 111 #th, 2023. "varney & company" is about to begin. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ stuart: i love this life. yes. that was the group that we with played in the fox square -- >> the concert.

stuart: concert this morning. i love this life. that's a very good song. >> did you go out and dance? stuart: no, i went out for the free food, and i got it. lauren: an honest man. [laughter] stuart: this is your story, you're going to tell it. i'm going to start with donald trump unleashing on president biden. all right. you take us through what he said. lauren: yeah. the posts were relentless, i think that's a fair word. i'll read part of them for you for your entertainment. our country is being destroyed by a man with the mind, ideas and iq of a first grader. continues, i think that crooked joe biden is not only dumb and incompetent, i believe he's gone mad, a stark raving lunatic. trump appears unhinged as the legal cases stack up against him. he's largely kept his cool in public as he campaigns to be president once again. maybe he's rattled by all the drama. stuart: you're going to get some comments if you say that he's, what did you say, he's -- lauren: are unhinged?

stuart: yes. you're going to get negative comments on that. lauren: it was a series of very negative remarks of president biden. stuart: okay. lauren: could be seen as excessive. or trump. if. stuart: we're going to turn to brad blakeman, reliable for responses. brad, do these attacks from trump work? is this what people want to hear from president trump? >> no, i don't. i think the rhetoric is way over the top. people want to hear about issues, not personalities. the american people see and hear the president every day, sometimes we don't see him for weeks. and when we see him, we know what we see, we know what we like. and more importantly, we know what we don't like. i think it's all about the economy. time has been true, in modern times americans vote with their pocketbooks. ask right now what we're seeing is not a presidential election on donald trump's side, this is a legal defense fund. almost his entire rallies are taken up with his trials and

tribulations and not about the american people. his problems are going to be his problems in the end. we've got our own problems. and when we go into that voting booth, we're thinking not only selfishly of ourselves, but where's the country going to be. ask we all know there are several polls that are really important especially for an incumbent president. right track, wrong track, are we going on the right track? vast majority of the american people say, no. are we better off today than we were before joe biden took office? three-quarters of the american people say no. that's what donald trump should be talking about. stuart: cnn host dana bash confronted biden's campaign manager over trump's rising poll numbers. watch this. >> he has been indicted now three times, probably a a fourth at the end of next week. polls show that he's tied with your candidate, with the president. that's got to be a warning sign. >> well, again, we're going to stay focused on really insuring that we're communicating what

this president has delivered for the american people. stuart: you know, brad, i don't think that's a very forceful response to the challenge. what say you? >> no. not at all. look, you're treading water at 40% against a former president -- whose multiple indictments in jurisdictions, and that's the best you can do? not talking about your record, not talking about why you should be reelected or touting the record that you have? that's about as tepid a response as you could have. this president should be blowing trump away, but the fact is on the republican side all you're hearing about is donald trump. the others can't break through, and the american people are checked out. it's the summertime. we'll revisit this around labor draw and and as we get closer to iowa and new hampshire. stuart: got it. brad blakeman, thank you very much for being with us this friday morning. thank heavens it's friday. now this, president biden admitted that the inflation reduction act doesn't have that much to do with inflation.

that's not the way he sold it last year, i think. lauren: no. he's saying the quiet part out loud now. here's the president, i'm going to quote, i bush i hadn't called it that -- i wish i hadn't called it that. it has less to do with release deucing -- reducing inflation than it does for providing for alternatives that generate economic growth. how do you do that? you push green and you push clean. you don't spend less, you don't drill more. those would be real moves that that actually cut prices. and this could be why senator joe manchin, to who crafted the inflation reduction act, reportedly will not be at a big white house event commemorating the anniversary of the inflation reduction act next week. he's distancing himself. he's also considering if he's even a democrat anymore and if he's going to run as a third party. but he crafted the inflation reduction act, and the president of the united states is saying i wish i didn't call it that because they're realizing it hasn't reduced inflation. [laughter] stuart: and it should never have

been called that in the first place. it's all about green energy. that's what it's about. anyway, producer price index, the latest inflation report, we got it this morning. okay, you take us through this one. lauren: inflation is still very much in the pipeline. so this is the producer level, it's a proxy for potential price change at the consumer level, what you pay at the store. so in july all metrics hotter than expected. inflation up .3% from june at the headline level and also at the core level. the culprit was the services category. those prices rose half a percent. final note here, core inflation year-over-year rose 2up.4%. that that -- 2.4%. it's the first time in 13 months that annual growth accelerated. stuart: ah, okay. let's bring in kenny poll aroundly -- kenny polcari on this and see how the market's reacting. does that inflation report worry you, kenny? because that's a little hotter than we've seen recently. >> well, i think it's t right in

line with what you and i have been discussing. i always thought inflation was going to stick its head up again, and we're starting to see that. we saw it a little bit yesterday in cpi at the food and crew tilt and insurance and home levels. ed today we're seeing it broader at the producer level, and as lauren just said, it kind of forewarnings you what's going to happen three or four weeks down the line when it goes into the consumers' hands. stuart: does it mean that the fed will raise rates once, maybe twice? >> listen, i'm in the two more times camp, right? i haven't changed from that. i think they're going to raise again in september, and i think they're going to raise again in november. and i think we haven't even gotten, you know, the increase in energy and oil because the cpi didn't even capture that. wait until we get the pce at the end of this month and the p if -- pci next month, that's when it's going to capture energy. stuart: that's not a very

bullish outlook for the market at all if you've got a couple more rate hikes still to come. let me just digress to apple just a second. we were talking about this last week, and if apple is down 10%. is it now a buy at 177? >> so, listen, i -- down 10% i am actually going to start to buy it again because, look, when we talked the last time, it was trading at 196 and change, $10,000 would have bought you 50 shares, today the same 10,000 is going to buy you 56 shares, so, yes, down 10% in a name like apple, i think you've got to start adding to it again. toort stuart okay. it's a little bit lower this morning at 177. kenny polcari says buy that thing or dip your toes into it. [laughter] have a great weekend, kenny. we will in new york. see you later. of. >> see you later. stuart: james comer says subpoenas to biden family members are coming. roll tape. >> we know that this is going to end up in court can when we subpoena the bidens, so we're

putting together a case, and i think we've done that very well. stuart: his family getting real close to the president, inching toward an impeachment inquiry. former speaker of the house, newt gingrich, is here on that. the death toll has risen to 55 in the catastrophic wildfire scorching maui. we'll bring you an update. president biden has agreed to a $6 billion deal to free americans imprisoned many iran. former secretary of state mike pompeo calls it a bad deal. i'll ask california congressman darrell issa if we should be paying ransom. he's next. ♪ ♪ what if you could make analyzing a big bank's data... no big deal? go on... well, what if you partner with ibm and red hat, use a hybrid cloud solution to connect data across clouds,

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on the futures market this friday morning, i see some red. nasdaq down about 100, dow jones down about 70. inflation numbers came in hotter than recently -- this morning, and that's what's upsetting the stock market today. let's move on. the foreign affairs committee chair, that's mike mccall, he wants to investigate those in charge of the afghan withdrawal. lauren, what exactly is he looking for? lauren: what was behind the decision to awe abruptly withdraw from afghanistan. the committee has been asking for documents from the state department in their probe into what went wrong. they've received an anemic response thus far, they said they received just a handful of pageses. and now they want transcribed interviews from the people at state in charge of producing those documents. the question with, is the state department deliberately i trying to obstruct the committee. stuart: we'll find out. fair enough. investigate. president biden has agreed to a $6 billion deal to free americans imprisonedded in iran since 20215. now, we've gone through this story a little bit.

i need more details. lauren: there are five iranian-americans who are part of this deal. iran has moved them from prison to house arrest in exchange for $6 billion in frozen assets being unfrozen. iranian officials tell the associated ifs press that the prisoner transfer is, quote, a significant initial step and that eventually the prisoners could be fully released, and that could take weeks. "the new york times" reports that once the americans are allowed to return back to the united states, the white house has agreed to release a handful of iranian prisoners. stuart: so essentially, we bought them out for $6 billion. it's their money, frozen assets, but they're getting $6 billion. lauren: about a billion dollars a hostage, is the message that you're sending to other countries. stuart: i think israel will be opposed to this dramatically because that money may well be used to attack israel and also to attack america. lauren: the money will be held in qatar, and someone's going the make the decision what iran

does with that money. stuart: it's great to have the people back, wonderful, but what price do we pay? let's move on. coming up to the opening bell on wall street, 12 minutes to go. dow down 75, nasdaq down about 100ful we'll take you to the opening bell and all kinds of good stuff next. ♪ muck, from charge me up, baby. ♪ charge me up, baby. ♪ charge me up once again ♪ you ok, man? the internet is telling me a million different ways i should be trading. look! what's up my trade dogs? you should be listening to me. you want to be rich like me? you want to trust me on this one.

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stuart: all right. how are we going to close out the week on wall street? looks like we're going to be slightly lower, certainly at opening bell, but you never know how we'll look at the close. nasdaq down almost exactly 100, 8 minutes before the market opens. let's bring in our market watcher e of the morning. ed, let me give a big picture here. for maybe 20 the, 25 years, we've been told that a debt crisis is coming, it's just with around the corner. the debt bomb is going to explode because we're borrowing too much and the debt's too high. you think the debt crisis is almost here, don't you? >> yeah. well, you know, i don't know if it's going to be in the next 5

months or the next 5 years, but, you know, even moody's, they're starting to downgrade banks, and even the larger banks are put on the watch list. ask there's so much consumer debt. i mean, from a national debt level, we're spending $5.1 billion more than what we're bringing in in tax revenue, and this is all inflationary which is going to increase rates to get inflation under control, create more downward pressure on banks across the board. and, you know, eventually, you know, the chickens are going to come home to roost. stuart: i'm not asking for a time frame, but we are moving up the debt crisis, aren't we? >> yes. stuart: and when you couple ited today's slightly hooter than expected inflation -- hotter than expected inflation number at the producer level, this seems to be a significant overhang for the entire market. >> it is. and i don't know if the markets have actually priced in, you know, another rate hike. i think we're definitely going to see one in september, and i wouldn't be surprised if we see,

you know, one or two more. because inflation is here to stay, and and it really has more to do with we cannot get spending urn control. and, you know, again, the only tool in the tool bag that the feds are using right now is interest rate control. and so that creates more pressure on american families which is increasing credit card debt can. it hit an all-time high. so, again, everything is kind of coming to the surface. i don't know if we've hit that tipping point yet, but we're pretty close. stuart: should i put fresh money into the market now? if for some reason i've got some money on the side here, should i put it into stocks now or a 5% 1-year treasuriesome. >> you know, honestly, i like the 1-year treasury. you know, we're sill in the market. there's a couple of sectors that that we still like, you know, but the majority of our portfolios across the board, you know, i like the 1-year t-note because it's that risk-off investment. stuart: you say you like a

couple of areas. what are they? >> yeah. you know, i like utilities, i really like energy and health care. you know, those three things right now, again, especially going into winter, you know, they're pretty stable. so and again, you know, we're hedging our bets. i at like a little bit of precious -- i also like a little bit of precious metals right now to hedge against the u.s. dollar, but again, that are be a small portion of the overall portfolio. stuart: we've lots of discussion recently about gold. not much on this program, but in wall street generally i see gold looked at frequently. what proportion of your assets should be in gold, and what kind of gold? gold bullion, gold coins, gold mining shares, what? >> you know, i think it should be, you know, if you're investing in the market, it should be between the mining shares is and the gold stocks. but, you know, i like legal ten ther. if you're going to physically hold it, i like legal tender.

it doesn't matter if it's from the u.s. or crewing rans or wherever it is the, but legal tender, i think, is really important. again, it's the not so much an invest. as -- investment as it is a to havage of value. -- storage of value. if we believe inflation is going to continue to to grow and it will if we keep spending, you know, i it's a great place to store value. stuart: yes. and you can also bury your gold and keep it away from prying eyes. [laughter] that's always a nice thing to have going for you with. ed sid dell, see you again soon. >> thank you,. stuart: yesterday on this program dave portnoy was here, and he loves taylor swift. watch this. i've got to ask you about taylor swift. >> love her. stuart: yeah. you're really a big fan. why do you like taylor swift so much? okay, brilliant artist. anything else is? >> she's always just been kind of true to herself. i feel like she's always told the truth, and she's had a bunch of the things. like when kanye stole the

microphone, that was a huge -- if you recall that incident, she was a young kid. she's been nothing but a superstar, big hits, and she got a lot of hate. and now it's come full circle, and these concerts are unbelievable, maybe the biggest artist in the world. stuart: you know, we got an enormous number, what is it, clicks you get or what is it? lauren: views on social media. [laughter] stuart: enormous number. i'm inclined to put taylor swift in the headline of any story we cover. inflation hotting up? what does taylor swift think about that? because then you get an audience, you see. that's the great attraction for our viewers. lawyer lauren that's interesting. i was feeling honored that dave portnoy sat in this seat, and you think taylor swift was the headline. no, i agree. stuart: he made taylor swift the headline, and he brought us the viewers. the guy is a really sharp broadcaster. and he's sharp with his money too. he wouldn't tell me how much he's worth, but he did tell me that he bought back his gaming company, barstool sports, he bought it back for $1 having

paid -- having received $500 million -- lauren: so he gave you the price. i was wondering. stuart: yes, he did. bought it back for a buck. lauren: he's honest and he's sharp, and i think him or anybody saying that they're be -- a big fan of taylor swift speaks volumes. most are. stuart: sure. what has she done wrong? lauren: you have to say she is a great role model for all of these girls and boys, and she has a huge audience. she's making millions if not billions of dollars and helping all of these local economies when she bring withs her tour to their town. stuart: it's all good stuff. she never gets into politics. lauren: no, she does, she has. in tennessee especially with marsha blackburn, yeah. you wouldn't like her politics. stuart: i don't care. [laughter] taylor swift is all right by me. lauren: this is why entertainment should sometimes not be political. we don't need to know what she thinks. stuart: true. we better get back to wall street when the opening bell sounds and rings in less than an

many -- a minute. we're going to find out how this weekends. we've got the dow down 100 and the nasdaq down 115. plenty of red ink. i think the reason here is that we got a hotter than expected inflation report, and treasury yields are going up. look at that, that that's the 10-year. we've got that at 4.14. and we've got the 2-year, that's getting pretty close to the 5% level. you're at about 4.90 right now -- lauren: and the nasdaq is down, and the nasdaq is down this week by over 170 points as rates go up. the cpi data encouraging, but look at airfare. airfare's coming down. that's a head fake because jet fuel's going back up. stuart: interesting. okay. in 6 seconds we open the market. you will see that gentleman or that lady -- lauren: it's going to be the man in the red tie. stuart: my money is on the red tie guy. let's do it, man, come on. he didn't do it. lauren: i think we missed it. stuart: we missed it.

i base this show every day on the man pressing the button. okay, let's get on with it. the dow is down 59, 690 points, about three-quarters of the dow 30 in the red so a lot of selling this morning but only a 60-point loss at this point, i should say. the s&p 500, where's that? it's down, .44%. okay. the nasdaq composite is down, .80%. over 100 points. big tech, i suspect, taking it on the chin. yes, it is. apple down to $177. as we mentioned earlier, it's lost 10% in the last week. amazon, 137. microsoft is down, 320. alphabet, 128. meta, barely above $300 a share. i want to start with amazon this in some detail here. wall street seems to like its cloud business. what have we got on that? lauren: redburn, a boutique firm, is bullish on aws, their cloud platform. it says the stock can shoot up 65%. amazon is already are up 65% this year, they say it can go up

another 65 to $230 a share because the aws is well positioned to survive any a.i.-related tailwinds. stuart: the up 60% already this calendar year? lauren: 64.95% -- stuart: do you realize how big amazon is and what it takes to shift the stock 65% higher? that's extraordinary stuff. going the other way -- [laughter] very small scale, wework. yeah, the office-sharing guys. earlier this week they said there was substantial doubt that they could stay in business. lauren: yeah. stuart: i guess something's changed. lauren: they essentially put the for sale sign on the company tiahrting on bankruptcy, and the stock -- teetering on bankruptcy, and the stock surgeries? stuart: what's their assets? if the assets are worth something, that's why. lauren: we're seeing these gains as the retail investor comes in. is wework a meme stock, is the question. what would be missing, i guess, to be a true meme sock is short

interest. there's a little bit, it's not excessive, at wework. stuart: okay. next case, walmart. now, i know they report next week. i believe, is it credit suisse or somebody on wall street, they've raised their price target to what? lauren: they say the stock's going up 12%, they put it at $180 a share. why? when walmart reports on thursday, you are likely to see a big increase in grocery market share. they have good prices on food, that's where folks are going to shop. also consumers, to save money, are not only shopping at wal-mart, they're trading down to walmart's private labels. they say that's a positive. and they have their membership program, walmart plus, a lot of free perks if you're a member. so they like all of that. the stock's not doing anything now, but hay do report on thursday. stuart: it's a down market and walmart's holding its own. lauren: good point. stuart: archer aviation, i think as i recall we've had them on the show. they were the flying taxi guys, but they've got a lawsuit

against them or opposing -- lauren: they countersued each other. the news here is that their goal of getting their electric air taxi, faa certified and beginning commercial operations in 2025 the is on track. and i say that because they settled the lawsuit with boeing, and they got another investment round that includes boeing. so it's good news all around. the lawsuit was essentially boeing has a whisk business, they got into that with google's larry page. they sued archer for stealing trade secrets, and then archer countersued. it's the all settled, the stock is up 6%. stuart: the more important point is archer's going to have their air taxis flying by 2025. lauren: so they hope. they've got the funding, over $1 billion. stuart: okay, got it. ubs on the upside, i think, this morning. yes, it is. lauren: nice gain. stuart: credit suisse, right in. lauren: and they had a backstop from the swiss government to do so, and they paid it back, over

$10 billion u.s. they also repaid an emergency liquidity loan that they had tapped. they don't want -- can they're reducing their involvement with swiss authorities. maybe they want more awemy. [laughter] maybe they -- autonomy. maybe there will be job cuts. and if you don't have to answer to a government that's helping you, you do have more i autonomy. stuart: that would be true, wouldn't it? in a down market, ubs is up nearly -- lauren: but they were repaying all that -- do they were able to repay all that, which is good news. stuart: the dow down just 65 points, 35,900 is the level -- 35,100. dow winners, who have we got at the top of the list? merck at the top, very small gains all around, but health companies doing well again. unitedhealth is on the list. next case, the s&p 500 headed by the f corporation, news corporation, that would be our parent company, i do believe. ebay, have lear -- valero.

tapestry is on the list. nasdaq, please, show me the winners. palo alto networks back on the upside. that thing went up forever, then came down sharply, now a fractional gain, 1.6%. ebay, keurig dr. pepper inc. o'reilly automotive on the list. the 10-year treasury yield, where is it? going up today after this hotter than expected inflation report. 4.14 on the 10-year. the price of gold should be going down a little, a buck, not much, 1947. bitcoin, last time we checked it was 29 grand, it's 29 the,3 right now. oil, watch this care throughfully. it's -- the carefully. it's been going up. nat gas not doing much, it never does these days, it's at 2.71. here's what's moving, the average price for a gallon of regular gasoline on the upside again, $3.84 is your price today. that's up 2 cent cans overnight. diesel, $4.26 the, up 3 cents

overnight and up over 40 cents in a month. coming up, the mayor of new york, eric adams, issued a dire warning to president biden about his sanctuary city's migrant crisis. watch this. >> we have created a funnel. the bordering states have now took the funnel right to new york city. if if you decimate this city, you're going to decimate the foundation of what's happening. stuart: the question is, how much will the feds pay to cities around the country when these migrants arrive on their doorstep. the bill will be huge. an a archbishop warns that america's catholic church is under an explicit attack. theologian jonathan morris takes it on later in the show. and look at this, why woke capitalism works for ben and jerry's. a former anheuser-busch executive wrote it, why didn't it work for bud light? i will can ask. that's next -- i will ask. that's next. ♪ yeah, i got a little girl

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♪ stuart: waking up to wokeness, i like that graphic. disney threatened with a bud light-style boycott for a new partnership with a social media influencer. take me through this one. lauren: disney partnered with sean altman, a man, biological man identifies as a man but likes to dress as a woman. there he is. to promote disney's girls' clothing. he made a tiktok video of himself are dressed as minnie mouse and said minnie is me. well, some disney fans are outraged x they are threatening

a bud light-style boycott of the brand with. the difference is, in my opinion, a trip to -- because you always want my opinion. [laughter] a trip to walt disney world is a lot more expensive than a can of beer. so if customers pull back, that's $10,000 they're withholding if they're not booking a trip to walt disney world in florida. and we know from disney's earnings that theme park attendance in florida was struggling. stuart: okay. we have a guest who will address this -- lauren: why are you making such a weird pace? do you disagree with me in. stuart: no, we've got a limited time. we've only got three hours on this show. here we go, former anheuser-busch executive anson fred ricks is with me. do you think disney is making the same mistake at bud light? >> i think they are making the same mistake as bud light, and i think they've been doing it for over a year now. if you remember, take a look at disney's mission statement. what is disney trying to achieve

as a company? it is trying to be the world's premier family entertainment company. you go back one year, what does them getting involved in the parental rights bill in florida have to do with them being that company? has to do with nothing. they had an approval rating of 77% of people. it crateredded to 33% after that. and you take a look yesterday, disney had their earnings yesterday, and they missed revenue numbers. why? millions of subscribers stopped subscribing to disney+, their theme park attendance is down. they're making a mistake by getting involved in these controversial issues. stuart: you're the guy who wrote a very good op-ed titled why woke capitalism works for ben in and jerry's. okay, you can spell that one out for us, if you like, but i want to know why it works for ben & jerry's but, obviously, didn't work for bud light? >> yeah. it goes back to the mission statement of the company which i talk about with disney. mission statements are very, very important for a company. what do they do? they say what the purpose of the

company is and what it's trying to achieve. when companies get this right, they increase revenue faster than can competitors and also innovate faster. why is that? well, those clear mission statements they kind of align investors and employees with what the company's trying to achieve throughout the products and services that it's tried to deliver to customers to increase shareholder value. for a company like ben & jerry's, it's on their web site. it's clear as day. it says we use ice cream to change the world with a progressive social mission. you know, it's a free country, capitalism works. whatever mission you want. also, customers can decide not to buy your products if they don't like your mission. when they do things like defund the police initiatives, on fourth of july this year they said the u.s. should give back land to indigenous people. that's just part of their mission if what they do. they're not trying to hide anything, they're actually authentic. this company, it's a country cooing hippies up in vermont that founded this company. they're just awe authentic. that serves probably a smaller

minority of customers because less than a third of people want politics with their product, but for those who do, ben and jerry's has found a decent market share with them. stuart: you know, we introduced you as a former anheuser-busch executive. we should introduce you as the president of strive asset management which, i believe, is vivek ram swam hu's operation, isn't it? >> vivek and i go back 25 years. we've known each other since high school. stuart: you wasn't to high school with vivek? >> we use to do mock trial in high school together. [laughter] i guess we've been asking you to vote for us for 25 the years. stuart: i've got a minute left are, i really want to get this in. you're going after blackrock, aren't you? >> we are. stuart: two funds you're launching today directly going after blackrock and the esg nonsense. >> this has been mission failure at blackrock. they want to try to increase the financial security of everyday citizens, but they do that by actually putting environmental, social and governance factors

into investment decisions even though it's been shown to underperform market. we already launched eight funds last year on the equity side that try and and give americans the the act to invest for shareholder returns. we're launching two on the fixed income side because blackrock actually restrict funds from investing in companies that have great credit scores, good cash flows just because they don't necessarily meet their esg metrics. our first one is bu can xx, this is sort of -- buxx, it's a short maturity fund, invest in all companies, regardless of their esg score cans, based on their creditworthiness and what they do. we think that's good for american capitalism, and we're excited at to be -- about the launch. stuart: i think a lot of vivek rubbed off on you, because you're very articulate, and anytime you want to come back on the show, you can come back, okay? >> great. thank you very much. stuart: thanks. a conservative legal group going

after kelloggs, the cereal people, over their diversity policies. this group says those policies are illegal. all right, what are hay going to do about it? lauren: they filed a civil rights complaint asking the country's to anti-discrimination agency to investigate kellogg's diversity policies and programs as being discriminatory. the name of the group, america first legal run by stephen miller. stuart: oh, i know stephen miller. lauren: yes. and they're accusing kellogg of seeking to balance their brand with based on race and sex. stuart: okay. lauren: so i think the bottom line to all of this is corporate america is the next target in the wake of the supreme court decision -- stuart: watch out for stephen miller, he's a sharp guy. lauren: we said corporations would be next. this is evidence of that. i don't think there's anything controversial in what i'm saying. stuart: no, there isn't. no, no, no. thank you, lauren. coming up, not too late to be on the show if you want to be to be on friday feedback. e-mail your questions to

varneyviewersfox.com. dare portnoy, he had a thing or two to say about his employees showing up late to the office. watch this. >> how stupid is this [bleep] like, i bought it, i've owned it back for less than 24 hours. what time is it right now? 9:45. you've got to be the dumbest [bleep] in the world not to show up yet. i'm going to be there early today. stuart: barstool isn't the only company dealing with brain dead employees. the full story after this. ♪ ♪ today i don't feel like doing anything. ♪ i just want to lay in my bed. ♪ don't feel like picking up my phone -- ♪ leave a message at the tone. ♪ because today, i swear, i'm not doing anything ♪

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>> some real idiots there, stuart. absolute chair ety cases. i don't like firing people because i have a big heart. these guys have been collecting a check forever. you'd think the day i bought the the company back, they'd beat me to the office. 9:45 a.m., nobody was in there. your brain can't be functioning. [laughter] stuart: that was dave portnoy telling me his workers are brain dead from the lack of hustle. that trend does not stop at barstool sports.

come on in, jeff flock. are other companies having to problems with, hall we say, unmotivated employees? >> reporter: only everyone from amazon to meta to the federal government. you know, stuart, when you and i were younger, back in our day, it was the older workers that were thought to be the unmotivated ones, and us young bucks were coming in there, we'd do anything. we didn't care about work-life balance. how do you think i got divorcedded three times? yeah. but now it is the younger workers, actually, that are the ones not showing up. the folks at amazon had to send a memo out this week to employees saying they, quote, were not meeting expectations of being in the office at least three days a week. they checked whether they swiped in or not. at meta, layoffs there, workerses say they're not motivated after the layoffs. even the federal government, president biden said, you know, federal workers, you've got to get back in the office. you need to be productive. problem is, nobody wants to. take a look at what the or survey said about this. surveyed workers, a quarter of them say, yeah, i want to work

in the office. i don't want to work at home. a third, though, said they always want to work at home, and fully 75% said they want to spend at least one day, if not more, working from home. problem is, productivity, the most extensive study on this just done on data entry workers in india, found somewhat definitively that they worked 18% less productive. what does the general public think about all of this? well, we asked. >> the person who is behind your paycheck asks you to come back many in phi days a week, you need to do so. >> it's not fair. it must be nice complaining and not getting fired. i wish i had that privilege, but i don't. >> a couple of days in the office is a good thing across the board. >> come on, america, let's get back to work. make sure they pay you right. >> reporter: and, stuart, i leave you with this, this office building across the street here this in philadelphia, that is almost completely vacant now

because of companies moving out because they don't have as many people working in the office. stuart: that's fascinating. jeff, good stuff. thank you very much, indeed. i need some comment from lauren sitting right next to me. i think he made a good point which is back in my day, '70s, '80s, '90s, young folks would hustle. they wanted to climb the food chain. they'd move heaven and earth, move up the food chain. older workers were considered to be lazy. not hazy, but not productive. that's a complete reversal now. lauren: society's changed, technology's change, you can work from anywhere, and you're constantly working because you feel you need to answer because you have a device with you and attached to you. nobody's going back to work five days a week because we've been working from home for too long unless they change the pay structure. you go in five days a week, you get paid more than the person who doesn't. stuart: i saw you come in the studio before 5:00 this morning. that's hustle. still ahead -- get me out of

this, please. shannon bream, former speaker newt gingrich, congressman carlos gimenez. we've got a jam-packed show, sports fans. the 10:00 hour is next. ♪ ♪ there's a fire in your eyes that i can't resist. ♪ we're gonna want to remember this ♪ ♪ ♪ life after student debt is within reach. refi at sofi.com you could save thousands and get to your goals faster. sofi. get your money right. i'm jayson. i'm living with hiv and i'm on cabenuva. it helps keep me undetectable. for adults who are undetectable, cabenuva is the only complete, long-acting hiv treatment you can get every other month.

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