joe, about kathy hochul and her plans to potentially take out eric adams? >> it's not going to a happen. she's not willing to the take the political risk going into her own tough re-election whether it's a primary from congressman ritchie torres on the democratic side is, whether it's a general election side from mike lawler on the republican side, she doesn't have is the political capital to really withstand the fallout from alienating a large chunk of democratic base voters, and that's african-americans. we saw mayor with adams at some is of the black churches in the outer boroughs, he is still liked in many parts of the city. >> remember, eric adams a came out and said, hey, federal government, you can't keep dumping all these migrants. maria: that's right. >> we are putting migrants in our schools, ps-242 had to shut down -- maria: yeah. and as soon as he opens up his mouth about the border, charges are put against him -- >> what a coincidence. maria: great panel, everybody.

thank you so much. have a great day, everybody. "varney & company" picks it up now. stu, take it away. stuart: good morning, everyone. it's all about a trump, musk and doge. the elected president issues executive orders, musk makes sure they get done. the doge guys jump in to make it happen. two developments. first, a federal judge has allowed musk to access irs, social security and treasury payments data. this is important. doge's young engineers can now dig into every government program. ing they will know who got what and who authorized it. second, the sean hannity interview is, an hour of trump and musk side by side explaining what they're up to. musk says they are going to identify a trillion dollars' worth of waste and fraud. the media and the democrats do not approve. they're trying to pull the two apart. but what came out of the interview is was their friendly, cooperative relationship. that's important. the president and the world's richest man see eye to eye on

their great enterprise; that is, reforming the vast federal government. let's get to the markets. we don't have that much price movement to report so far. there's trouble in the go-nowhere housing market plus slightly higher interest rates. dow off about 100, nasdaq down about 40 points. the 10-year is interest rates moving up, 4.57 right now. the 2-year well above 4.25 percent, i'm looking at 4.31%. that's not good news for stocks. bitcoin, $96,200. oil moving up a little, we're looking at $72 a barrel. gas, $3.16. d.c. all up one cent at $3.68. on on the show today, the end of the green new deal. going, going, almost gone. that's important. we're going to save a lot of money, and we're going to pick a lot of money from our own resources. the energy secretary, chris wright, joins us this morning. and you'll see a lot more from sean hannity's trump-musk interview. the president and the world's

richest man getting together to the upend the federal bureaucracy. it is very entertaining. it's wednesday, february 19th, 20 to 25. "varney & company" is about to begin. ♪ ♪ i wanna talk about me, wanna talk about i ♪ stuart: i wanna talk about me -- what did you say? >> an anthem. >> it's your ring tone. stop denying it, we know it. [laughter] stuart: narcissism is endemic on television, is that this right? >> no comment. can i look at this camera in. [laughter] stuart: let's start this wednesday morning with a big win for elon musk and doge. an obama-appointed federal judge has denied democrats' efforts to block doge's access to government data. she says they failed to prove anier rep rule harm was being --

irreparable harm was being done. here's trump and musk talking about the fraud and waste they've uncovered so far. >> how much do you believe, elon, you've identified now, and how much do you anticipate you will -- >> sure. well, i think -- >> 1%. [laughter] to no, because it's so massive. >> yeah. >> this is huge money. >> -- 1%. [inaudible conversations] >> as good as they are, tear not going to find some contract that was crooked as hell. i mean, there's going to be so much that isn't found. but what is found, i think he's going to find a trillion dollars. >> yeah, i think so. >> but i think it's a very small percentage compared to what it is. stuart: okay. now, this will not be the end of the democrats' attacks through the courts. axios reports hat party's been meeting with state attorneys yen, lawyers, constitutional a experts, they're trying to find any means possible to stop the administration every step of the way. todd piro with me this morning.

if musk and doge now have access to irs, social security is, treasury payments data that, that opening the floodgates? >> yes. 9 expect if only way to stop this is really to slow it down because of one word that you mentioned in that read just there, and it's the word harm. despite this effort by the democrat attorneys general and everybody on the left to try and stop this, the courts are generally not going to find the harm required for a cause of action. cause of action you do need breach, cause its -- cause asian, damages. people saying my data is going to be come compromised. heir citing a pundit on m, nbc. that is not the harm required by the court. when it comes to the unions filing suit, they're a third party. the fact that they're not going to get union cues is not the harm -- dues is not the harm required in order the sue. it's like me getting fired, and the hot dog vendor down the

street suing the place that fired me because they're not going to get my business. it doesn't work that way. that's why these cases are going to run afoul of the courts, and in the end, trump, musk and doge are going to be the able to proceed beautifully. stuart: they are already. todd, an appeals court has blocked biden's $475 billion student loan handout plan. effectively, i believe, that the makes it dead in the water. so, todd, does everyone have to start paying again? >> that's my understanding, but again, they're going to use the court system to gum up the works even more because they're going to say, i can' the case now. i was promised something, so the government is's stopped --'s stopped. get ready for that word -- estopped. you signed a contract. you signed a contract that requires you to pay this money back. at the end of the day, i do believe they will be required to pay it back. this will just be a 4 or 5, 10-year, temporary pause in them having to do so.

stuart: that means biden's legacy is almost completely reversed. >> i disagree with that notion because there is a tremendous the negative legacy. you're referring to in this? yes, regard to the student loans, reversed, but there's a tremendous negative legacy that donald trump is trying to reverse. i don't know even if donald trump is going to be success is. that's how damaging the last four years were. stuart: stay there, please, with me for the hour. the senate advanced their own proposed budget resolution. lauren, what has senate minority leader, john thune, included in this bill in. >> energy, drill, baby, drill, defense and border security. senator thune says it's time to act on the decisive mandate the american people gave to president trump, securing the border, rebuilding our defense and unleashing american energy. that starts, here's the time, this week with passing chairman lindsey graham's budge. and budget chair graham expressing his gratitude that the senate -- it's the budge blueprint -- could be passed by the weekend. he is grateful to leader thune

for scheduling this resolution. it's $150 billion that goes to the military, $175 billion for the border. that, of course, is at the request of the border arkansas, tom homan. so the -- border czar. the senate is going ahead with the two-bill approach. they're leaving taxes for later. the house is looking to pass that one big, beautiful, sweeping bill that also a includes the tax cuts, but they have to be nearly unanimous in voting on that in order to get it past their chamber. stuart: but thune's bill does not include extending the tax cuts. >> not yet. stuart: mark tepper with me now. the market needs an extension of the tax cuts to keep the rally going, but it's the not in thune's bill. is this a problem for the market? >> not yet, but it will become a problem. i mean, you look at what's happened in the stock market postelection are, it went from 5700 to 6100 off a optimism

surrounding lower tax cuts and, obviously, less regulation. from a consumer spending standpoint, stu, my take is if the tax cuts are not extended by roughly mid july, because you will see consumer spending start to rein in. because that's pretty much where you start to get into back to school shopping. that that's going to become an issue. if the tax cuts aren't extended at all, here's how the math works out. when you go from a corporate tax rate of 21% back to the old tax rate of 35%, that equates to an 18% drop in corporate earnings which would equate to an 18 selloff in stocks. that's not good. we don't want that to happen. stuart: no, we do not want that to happen. i don't want to focus on negatives, but i think there's another one here. there's a housing shortage a, and we learned this morning housing starts tumbled almost 10% from last month which means shelter inflation is on the horizon, right? >> and that's 35% of cpi.

so that's a huge component, that's really driving inflation for middle america right now. and when you think about what happened, other the course of the last -- over the course of the last four years the reckless fiscal policy, too much wasteful spending led to runaway inflation. that's why we have high interest rates, and is that's why mortgage rates are hovering around 7. you throw in the pact9 that there's not -- the fact that there's not enough inventory, i think zillow said we're short 4.5 million homes which is a pretty remarkable number, you have a classic case of the chicken or the egg. like, which comes first. and home builders right now are at the point where they are unwilling to begin building more inventory until mortgage rates come down. so it's quite the dilemma right now. you know, we've got to get that that involve -- solved because middle america's getting priced out -- stuart: i just want to be clear, what i'm really talking about is rents going up, and that's a very big deal. that's a huge negative for working america, in my opinion. all right, mark, we're out of

time, i'm afraid. i'm sorry about that, son, but wee -- we'll see you again soon. coming up, energy secretary chris wright, i'm going to ask him if the green new deal is really almost dead, and are there any positives about a global warming in that is contentious stuff. president trump has informed congress that he's going to label some cartels as terror organizations. sounds like we could be gearing up to go to war with them. the senate taking the lead on pushing trump's agenda. republicans there seem united in their goals. will house republicans be able to do the same thing and and get trump's all-important tax cuts extended? congressman byron donalds responds on that next. ♪ if ♪ -- we can work it out, we can cork it out. ♪ life is very short and there's to time ---- ♪ for fussing and fighting, my friend ♪ if

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stuart: elon musk is considering sending $5,000 checks to every american using savings from doge. kind of a dividend. lucas tomlinson, did musk talk to trump about this? >> reporter: he says he's going to, stuart. good morning. that was in response to someone on twitter asking what do you do with the savings? president trump saying you could get a short-term price hike, perhaps a $5,000 check would take some of the sting off. someone else who has theport if of the doge team is the new treasury secretary, scott bessent, right next door here behind me at the white house. he says the doge team has found

over $50 billion in savings and says more is coming. >> i don't thinkst the unreasonable to think that -- it's unreasonable to think that we could have several percent of gdp. if 25% of the u.s. economy flows through washington, d.c. and, again, the waves, proud and -- the waves, fraud and abuse, and i think for the first time in my lifetime we're going to to see a proper accounting. >> reporter: and that a accounting could be coming south of the potomac to the pentagon. "the washington post" reporting that the defense department expects to be firing people soon. pentagon agencies were told to submit lists of probationary members after members of doge arrived late last week. some think there's plenty to cut including a civilian work force of over 750,000 people not just across the country, but around the world. now, no cuts planned to the 1.3 million men and women on active duty. now, a defense official just texted me before going on air, stuart. he said no final decision's been made about any of these proposed

cut to the department. and president trump sign more executive orders in palm beach yesterday. he says he was elected to make the federal government stronger and and smaller. he also commented on elon musk's role in the executive branch. >> well, elon musk -- >> [inaudible] >> -- yeah, yeah. elon is, to me, a patriot. you could call him an local a consultant, whatever you want, but he's a patriot. >> reporter: now, a victory for elon musk and his doge team in the courts. a federal judge here in washington declined to issue a retraining order against musk which means that work from the doge team will continue here in washington across a bunch of government agencies, stuart. stuart: lucas, thank you so much is. now listen to what the treasury secretary had to say about democrats' fear-mongering when it comes to doge. >> they're trying to be fear mongers, with the american people. what's really going on here, here at treasury two people have

read-only access to the systems, and they've remodeled the system. they have no ability to touch anything, they have no ability to make any changes. there are very strict guardrails around a them. this kind of fear mongering doesn't help anybody, but it tells me that that people are worried that they're part of the waste, fraud and abuse. stuart: all right. congressman byron donalds, republican from the great state of florida, joins us now. axios reports that the democrats are going to unleash even more legal attacks on doge. is that the only strategy they've got, just go to the courts, that's it? >> stuart, it's good to be with you. yeah, that's all they got. i mean, look, they can't actually attack the fact that we're digging into the books of the federal government and finding waste, finding things that can't continue. the other thing that's starting to happen is we're exposing all of the ideological spending from the democrat party that's been languishing in the federal government really for decades

now. and we're starting to uproot all of that stuff. so the only thing they have left is to go to the courts because they don't want to dig into the inefficiencies of the federal government, they don't want to cut out the misspending. and the one thing that's also clear is a lot of these improper payments to the tune of $250 billion every single year is because democrats refuse to do simple things like do eligibility checks on s.n.a.p. benefits, on medicaid and other programs. they don't want to do that stuff. they would rather have the federal government just spend money unchecked. that's been the democrat philosophy. this is why they're upset. stuart: senator -- senate republicans, they're now taking the lead on the budget resolution. their bill, john thune's bill in the senate, because not include extending trump's tax cuts. is that a problem? >> no, i don't think so. and, honestly, i think the tax policy stuff is going to get resolved. we're going to get that a stuff

done easily before september. i think what the senate is looking at is this thing in particular, we do need the resources to, for tom homan and kristi noem to begin the repatriation force. they need beds, they need to logistical sport. they don't have those -- support. they don't have those funds right now. you can get that to them today or this a couple of weeks and if still have the time to work through all of the additional nuance of tax policy reauthorization and mandatory spending cuts and if reform. i'll add a some of the stuff that elon is finding through doge, you can actually get that stuff implemented in budget reck illuation for the stuff that's hand -- reconciliation for the stuff that that's mandatory spending. don't slow down tom homan and kristi noem from delivering on the promise donald trump made to the american people. we have still got time for tax policy. stuart: are republicans unified in the house to extend trump's tax cuts many you've got a very,

very slim majority. you've got of to have the almost unanimous agreement on it. have you got it in. >> i want to be very clear with the american people, house republicans are united on extending the tax policies of donald trump and adding in the new tax provisions that the president p has talked about and campaigned on. we're going to do that work. i think what's holding up the house right now, stu, is we're trying to get to an agreement on how much mandatory spending we are going to have to cut and/or reform. that's that's the holdup, but we're going to get that stuff down done which is why i've always a believed you've got to go to a two-step process. get the border stuff and defense money done and then give us the opportunity and the time to work through the nuances on some tax issue toes and mandatory spending. -- issues. we can get that done definitely by september but i anticipate sooner than that. stuart: i'm sure you've seen this, but president trump posted a poll on truth social that puts you in the lead to be the next governor of florida. it seems like an endorsement. you know i have to ask, will you

throw your hat in the ring now, congressman? >> not gonna talk about that right now. [laughter] the thing that's top of mind, stuart, thicks we were just -- things we were just talking about. that's mission one right now. there's a lot of conversations and meetings we're going to have to have on capitol hill. once we get through the bulk of that, we can talk about other things. stuart: you know i had to ask. in the nicest possible way, i had to ask -- >> look, i'll say this, i appreciate the president putting that information out. that's pretty cool. but we're focused on the a agenda right now. stuart: got it. congressman byron donalds, always appreciate it. thank you very much. trump's pick to lead the fbi, kash patel, he's cleared the first hurdle in his senate confirmation process. this is trump's last controversial nominee. >> all indications are if he gets kash patel through, it's going to be a clean sweep for donald trump. tomorrow, the big day for if pa a tell with his confirmation vote expected to be held there.

yesterday the senate voted along party lines to open debate, that this means the clock has started. 30 hours of discussion before patel is expected to receive final approval tomorrow. he'll serve a 10-year term if confirmed. stuart: ten years in. >> unless they resign, yeah. stuart: thanks very much, indeed. thank thanks todd. check futures. we've got some red, dow down 130. trouble in the housing market. we'll detail that a bit later. the opening bell is next. ♪ ♪ minute save me -- somebody save me ♪ ♪ where ya headed? susan: where am i headed? am i just gonna take what the markets gives me? no. i can do some research. ya know, that's backed by j.p. morgan's leading strategists like us.

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it's really an amazing product. (♪) investment opportunities are everywhere you turn. but at t. rowe price, we're letting curiosity light the way. asking smart questions about opportunities like advances in healthcare. and how these innovations will create a healthier world tomorrow. better questions. better outcomes. stuart: all right. we've got about three and a half minutes to go before we open the market. i see some red ink, the dow's a off 140. shah ghailani with me this morning. you say stocks just want to go up. okay. so what will it take for the market to stage a breakout? >> well, we made new highs yesterday again in the s&p, and i think if we continue to see markets edge higher, we'll start the to see more money come off the sidelines. there's been pretty good inflows so far, and i think we'll continue to see that, and that will power the markets higher. earnings have been excellent for the most part, stocks that that have not beaten or have guided

poorly or cautiously have gotten hit, but the rest of the market has done very well. we're seeing a broadening out in terms of investor interest in stocks that aren't the magnificent seven. those are all good things. and as far as going forward, again, stockses just look like they want to go up. the dust-up over, perhaps, the president's tariffs creating trade wars seems to have settled down. investors are starting to look at what the president has done so far, and it's been very positive for the economy. and in terms of our partnership, his form of negotiating, it's been very effective. investors see that and they're like, well, maybe the worst pass hassed -- has passed and it's clear sailing. markets look like they want to go higher. stuart: tell me about intel. what's going to happen with that stock? >> the idea that broadcom and taiwan semiconductor might take it apart and taiwan semi take the foundries and broadcom take

over the chips and marketing side of it, interesting, but i don't know that taiwan semiconductor really has the ability nor would it pass muster, i think, with with the u.s. congress to is are taiwan semi buy the foundries. i think intel's probably going to end up being on its own a little longer. there may be to other buyers, but obviously the stock is benefiting by the talk of a potential break-up. ed broadcom has some of its own problems. it'll be a heavy lift for broadcom to finance what they were going to buy if from intel. i'm not sure i see that happening. i just don't know who the players are going to be that are going to come out of the wings. stuart: i'm not prepared to jump in on intel at this point, and i don't think you are either, are you? >> not. i already own it. -- no. we own it. happy with the price action so far, and i think it can continue to go higher long term. stuart: okay. that ghailani, thanks for

joining us. we appreciate it. -- shah gallon areny. reach forward, please, sir, the market is open this wednesday morning. we've opened on downside, as you can tell from the dow. it's off just over a quarter point. quarter p i should say is. it's down 130 -- quarter percent. far more red than green, so there's a preponderance of selling on the dow 30. the s&p 500 which closed yesterday at a record high, down a fraction this morning, 13 points lower. the the nasdaq composite, the percentage loss there, .18%. it's down. all three indicators opening lower this morning, and if you look at the dow 30, lots more red than green. here's big tech. apple, alphabet up. now sew me nvidia with -- show me nvidia, please. taylor, good morning. >> good morning. stuart: it seems investors aren't that a worried about deepseek or tariffs? the stock pushing 140? >> yeah, we're right back where

we were. investors thought the last 3- weeks was an overreaction. -- 3-4 weeks. when you talk about the tariffs, trump saying he wants about 25% tariffs on semiconductors, cars, pharmaceuticals, but again, shrugging it off. nvidia a can lead through this. stuart: it's the most important name on the market. well, we've got a guest who's going the say that. super micro, up again today. what's going on? >> yes. remember i came to you last week and i said they had a pretty good earnings report. they have one more week to file documents in order to avoid being delisted. the ceo says we are right on time, it's going to happen. this is a stock that's up 57% year to date, and it's only mid february. so, again, they're guiding for $40 billion in revenue in fiscal year 2026, and, again, just reassurance that you're not going to be delisted. stuart: are we all moving i out of the dating business? i notice that bum,,, which is a

date -- bumble, which is a kateing app, is down 20%. >> you've got to get back on that a wagon and start dating again. [laughter] stuart: is that your advice of the day, taylor? [laughter] >> this is similar sentiment that we heard from match group last month if as well when they replaced their top executives as well because it's a similar story. bumble coming out, revenue fell about 4.5% last quarter. they're guiding for a 7-10% decline in the current quarter, and they're trying to balance this turn-around where it's free, but at the right time and the right moment of the conferring it goes behind a pay wall to try to get revenue from subscribers. it's a turn-around story people want to see more of. stuart: if they're not careful, we'll go back to dating face to face. >> old school. stuart: meta, they've announced this huge, massive subsea cable project. i don't care about the stock being down, tell me about the cable. >> yes. it's called project waterworks,

maybe the pun intended given it's in water, and it is going to be longer than the globe's circumference of about 31,000 miles. it's going to be the world's longest subsea project. and meta's saying it's going to be ab internet infrastructure project. it's going to bring connectivity to u.s., india, brazil, south america and a lot of other key regions. so i think, again, regardless of the stock, people are pretty excited and want more details on this. stuart: yeah, it is exciting. >> yeah. stuart: then we have got home builder tol brothers. they just reported earnings, down 6%. what went wrong? >> lower than expected on sales and earnings. we got comments from the ceo saying demand has been healthy within the higher-end mark mark if -- market, but they're talking a lot about affordability constraints and growing inventories pressuring sales down on the lower end of the area where they operate in. and they are a little bit more

of a higher end -- stuart: housing is just not doing well with mortgage rates above 7. kfc, owned by yum brands, they're moving their headquarters out of kentucky. okay. two questions, obviously. why out of kentucky and, b, where to? if. >> hint -- [laughter] what if i said, should i nickname it txc? texas -- tfc? texas fried chicken. texas and kentucky might be comparable in in terms of cost of living, but they want to go to play mow, texas, in part -- play know, texas, because they want to be in the same corporate headquarters as pizza hut which is in texas. taco bell and habit burger that they own are also duly headquartered in irvine, california. of just consolidation. they only have about a 90 remote workers, but they want those workers to report back to the regions where they operate in.

awant to bring people back to the -- they want to bring people back to the office. this is about a pulling headquarters a closer together so people can be, you guessed it, face to face. stuart: one last one. bill ackman revising his offer a for the real estate developer howard hughes. good name in. what's the offer a now? >> earlier estimates they wanted about a billion dollars, $900 million if now. this was supposed to be that big oldinging -- holding company that ackman was likening to berkshire hathaway. stuart: taylor, thank you very much, indeed. we're going to see you on "the big money show" 12 noon if here on fox business. the big board shows a loss approaching a half percentage point. no, .37%, actually. 163 points down, 44,300. the dow winners, there are a few. nike, goldman sachs, travelers, boeing, nvidia. 139.40, that's nvidia for you. the s&p 500, the winners,

please. intel, super micro computer, devon energy, micron technology and nike. the nasdaq composite, there's the winners, intel, micron, billion low alto networks, marvell technology and analog devices. there you have the markets. coming up, president trump says he has to work at breakneck pace to undo all the damage joe biden did in just four years. we have that story. we're facing the worst flu season in more than 15 years. is the flu vaccine not effective? we'll have dr. frank contacessa. elon musk raising new questions about major fraud in the social security administration. we're going to tell you what trump is saying about that. now, that's next. ♪ ♪ -- is a problem, is a problem. ♪ i wish i had a couple of problems to spend. ♪

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stuart: 11 minutes into the trading session, the dow's a off 150. elon musk raising new questions about proud in the social security administration. hillary vaughn joining us. how many dead people does social security have in their database, hillary in. >> reporter: millions of people. the social security administration's inspector general in 2023 found that that 18.9 million people were in their database born before 1920. hay did not are the death date for them. the social security administration says almost none of these 18 million dead people still alive in the social security administration's databases are getting benefits. but the inspect engine says because -- inspector general says other agencies who rely on the social security's death master file could be making erroneous payments to these people. one agency that relies on the death data from the social security administration is the treasury.

finish improper payments across agencies are a huge problem. the government accountability office says in 2023 there were more than $236 billion in improper payments made to people including dead people. >> when i saw thest numbers, i said -- the social security numbers, i said, wow, that's really something. we just go above 100 years old, we have millions and millions of people over 100 years old. everybody knows that's not so. how many of them were getting paid social security? if that's the case, it's a massive fraud. >> reporter: democrats are not cheering these changes. they think that the federal employees at doge might instead leak your personal information. if. >> there were thousands of people, and seniors came up to me and just said point-blank, ron, what in hell is going on back there with social security? a if you have one of of these 22-year-olds mishandle somebody's social security information that gets out,

that's going to be the mother of all a identity theft. >> reporter: stuart, but one of the mother of all data breach withs at the ricks irs came from a 38-year-old, caleb littlejohn, who accessed thousands of people's tax returns illegally. stuart in. stuart: there you have it. hillary, thank you very much. todd, you've got to come into this. i want to know, how do you rate the job that doge is doing so far? >> i think they're doing the best job that can be expected under the circumstances. imagine if if you tried to do your job every day with people trying to obstruct you like seminetty running in -- simonetti running in front of the item fronter. -- teleprompter. [laughter] they're literally trying to keep he and his staff from going into certain buildings. so under the circumstances, i think they're doing the best job that a they can. and 55 million over the first press than a month of the trumped administration is pretty darn good -- stuart: 55 billion. >> did i -- sorry, all the numbers.

stuart: don't undercount that. >> if they're at 55 billion now, extrapolate that out, they're going to hit some big numbers. and they could return this money to the american people. i don't know if i love that approach, but it is our money, and if they did that, wow, proof is in the pudding. stuart: yes. but i think it should go toward cutting the deficit is. >> i agree. but regardless, in the alternative option, give us that check. >> i like checks. stuart: all right. trump just signed a new executive order following through on one of his campaign promises. okay, which promise in. >> ivf. the president promised to protect access to it and to cut costs for it. this executive order is his follow-through on a this campaign promise. president trump ordering the domestic policy council to submit a report within 90 days with recommendations forrish s vf if reliability and -- ivf reliability and affordability. one cycle costs between $12-24,000. some women have to have several. and and only a quarter of companies cover it.

the cost to the to the government or to the insurers could add up to an annual $7 billion. stuart: didn't he first promise to make it free in. >> yeah. stuart: now it's just with cut the cost dramatically. >> right. but elon musk's goal is to to grow the population, and you need to have babies to do that, and this is very popular. >> presumably with other people, not just through elon musk himself growing the population - stuart: he's got 13 children, i believe. coming up, for the first time we have a president who really is committed to trimming the fat and a partner, elon musk, capable of doing the job. they've exposed democrats and their media allies as yesterday's people foolishly defending a bleated bureaucracy. that's my take, top of the hour. president trump ending new contracts for wind farms, reviving promises like the constitutional -- the constitution pipeline. sounds like the green new deal is dead. trump's energy secretary, chris wright, is going to be here to take that on. chris wright is next. ♪ ♪

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♪ stuart: all right. joining me now, many trump's

energy secretary, chris wright. mr. secretary, in the past you said global warming could be a good thing and that the planet if could stand to be a little warmer. what's good about global warming, mr. secretary? and good morning to you. [laughter] >> good morning, stuart. look, everything in life has there trade-offs. but a warmer planet with more co2 is better for growing plants. the world has been getting greener for decades. 14% more greenery around the planet today than there was 40 years ago, and we have far more people die of the cold than die of the heat. so everything has a trade-off. yeah, there's pluses to global warming as well as negatives. but the bottom line is it's just nowhere near the world's biggest problem today. not even close. stuart: it seems to me looking at what's going on that the green new deal is almost dead. am i right? >> i think it's in progress of being killed off. president trump was elected to

bring common sense back to washington and, boy, he's doing that in grand style. think of the american dream, stuart, or and i know you often a talk about it. stuart: i do. >> the american dream is your children are going to have better lives than you? we've had four years of making energy more expensive and getting in the way of this next generation from realizing the american dream. stuart: you want to just get rid of that. you want fossil fuels to come back bigtime, right? >> absolutely. we want all energy sources that can lower the cost of energy, expand job opportunities and have more stuff made in america. the that requires more energy and lore cost energy. and, yes, america and the world run on fossil fuels today, and they will continue to. but if there's other energy sources that can add to that portfolio without increasing the cost of energy, we're all many for those as well. stuart: you've called to -- you want to prioritize nuclear energy. so how fast can we get nuclear power truly expanded? is it a process of years, or can

we do it in just a couple of years? how can we do it fast? >> it's years. the government has strangled nuclear energy for years. you know, it was the 6% of global energy 20 years ago, today it's 4%. but with deregulation and some common sense back in the government place, i think the start of the nuclear renaissance will happen during president trump's term before it's meaningfully impacting u.s. energy and all that, that'll be several years. but it wasn't happening at all before. i think we're going to see new nuclear plants, probably small modular reactors, difficult during the trump administration -- built during the trump administration. stuart: president trump wants to cut the price of oil in after half. if harp to happen, why should drillers -- if that were to happen, why should drillers drill? it'd be tough to make a profit on $40 a barrel oil. >> yeah. president trump's agenda is to lower cost to to consumers. i think americans care most about gasoline prices and diesel prices and and heating prices

and electricity prices. kind of the end use product prices. and there's so much friction, there's so much overhead and cost and uncertainty in that world that president trump's actions, i think, are going to help grow the supply of all of these quantities, and that will put downward pricing on measures stuart: we're producing more than 13 million barrels of oil a day in america right now. more than we've ever produced before. it's going to take an enormous effort, isn't it, to get that total up? how do we do that the? >> the marketplace will do that. if we reduce the risks and costs of investing in energy production, investors will be incited to invest more. we could produce a lot more natural gas and a lot more oil, but we have to be able to move that to a marketplace. in the last four years, virtually impossible to build new infrastructure. you'll see announcements in the coming weeks and months of new infrastructure projects that will allow the expansion of u.s.

emergency energy production -- energy production and deliver lower cost energy to consumers. new england is one example of that. stuart: are we talking new pipelines? are we talking new liquified natural gas export terminals? all of the above? many. >> all of the above. stuart: okay. real soon? if. >> yes, absolutely. i signed last friday the, a conditional a approval for if a new lng export, the first one after the one-year-long pause and more coming, more in the works. in fact, i was on the phone with indian energy minister this morning. there's so many of our allies that want america as an effective supplier of their increase increasing energy feeds x. this president, president trump, is all about growing american energy production to lower domestic price, but also to to enable our allies of to have america as their key energy supplier and not bad actors in the world. stuart: last one, mr. secretary.

have you found any waste or fraud at the energy can department? >> absolutely. absolutely. look, i've been in the seat a little over two weeks. we've already found many millions of dollars of money that was spent and was being pent just simply adding nothing to have value to the american people. of value. so we've cut out needless expenditures, and we're doing everything we can to become better stewards of american taxpayer monies without sacrificing the doe mission. in fact, we want to expand the doe mission but do it at lower cost and more efficiently. that's how business business is run will be. stuart: energy secretary chris wright, thank you very much for being with us. come and see us again. >> thank you, stuart. stuart: yes, sir. and i want to thank you, todd, for sticking around for the hour. good stuff, thank you very much. still ahead, ben domenech on president trump and elon musk saying critics of doge are just mad that their waste and abuse is being revealed. dr. frank contacessa on the severity of the flu season this year and how effective is the

vaccine is. border sheriff mark dannels on trump labeling the cartels as terrorist organizations. sounds like we might attack them. and mollie hemingway on trump calling out the damage left behind by the biden administration. the 10:00 hour is next. ♪ choose advil liqui-gels for faster,

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