>> right. that's right. cheryl: if we're going to shake up james bond, shake it all up. shaken, not stirred? no? okay, i've got to get stuart involved in this. all right. so the staff at "mornings with maria," and i'm just saying this, they're picking idris elba who's a on the list that bezos put out. he's british. >> okay, okay. i support that. i support that. i think any of these candidates would be perfectly qualified to film that role. here's one thing the i want to say, if there's going to be a jaguar car in this movie, they better make sure their advertising campaign this time around is not so gender-am ambiguous to. [laughter] cheryl: that's it for me p. going to bring in stu starny if, and maybe he could -- very any, and he could give me his opinion. stuart: my name is bond, james bond. you've no idea how many times people ask me to say that. i've lived in america 50 years, to this day, i get it all the

time. good morning, cheryl,s and good morning, everyone. elon musk appeared at the c pga conference. he was -- cpac conference. he was given a chain saw to signal his chopping up of agencies. a judge says okay to trump's mass firingsing of federal employees. as we've been saying, the floodgates are now to open. separately, the president plans to take corral of -- control of the postal service and fold it into the commerce if department. during the campaign he talked about a privatization. there's also talk of trump taking more control of the district of columbia. okay. let's get to the markets, dominated this morning by a "wall street journal" report that the department of justice is investigating some medicare billing practices. health insurance insurers, way down led by unitedhealth which is a very important dow stock. that's why the dow trillions, the futures there, show what is it now, a 250-point decline.

by the way, united health pushes the dow down 400 points, so without unitedhealth, the dow would be in the green. as is the s&p, up 4 and the nasdaq up 90. bitcoin moving a bit closer to $100,000, you're at 99,3 as we speak. the 10-year treasury yield still right at 4.5%. as for the 2-year, till right around 4.25%, 4.28 this morning. oil, i've got $71.8 per barrel. gas, no change. $3.16 is. diesel at $3.69. gold, still shy of $3,000 the an ounce, $2, 946. politics. a win for the president. the senate votes in favor of the $340 billion budget blueprint. there's a lot more money for the border in this bill, but it's just procedural. now the house has to vote on its big, beautiful bill that extends trump's tax cuts.

at some point heavy got to get together and thrash out an agreement. do not hold your breath. on the show today, absolute disgust at the hostage return. babies in coffins paraded through the streets in gaza. the two young boys were murdered. netanyahu wants revenge. a furious fight between trump and zelenskyy. the president will not say russia was the aggressor in the ukraine with war. zelenskyy has rejected trump's offer to buy ukraine's mineral wealth, but zelenskyy's aides are urging him to take a new offer. apparently no booing of national anthems, it was a hockey rematch between the united states and canada. this time canada won 3-2 in extra time. friday, february the 21st, 2025 the, "varney & company" is about to begin. ♪ ♪

stuart: that sounds like the rolling stones to me and, yes, it is the rolling stones. if a bit more activity the on six avenue today, but it's still freezing can cold here. i want to get straight to another win for president trump. a federal judge has ruled the administration can continue its mass firings of federal employees, and and this is really important. in the wake of that ruling, the administration if moved forward with a massive cut at the irs is. 6,000 agents fired. trump's economic council director, kevin hassett, he spoke after that announcement. listen the what he had to say. >> i think our objective is to make sure that the employees that that we pay are being productive and effective. the point is that don't just talk about the irs is, talk about all of government, that there are so many places -- i live in d.c., you maybe live in d.c. where nobody's going in to the buildings. people aren't commuting because

nobody's doing their job. there are all these people doing two jobs while they're getting government payroll, on the payroll. so the point is we're fixing that, expect irs is a small part of that picture. stuart: floodgates are now open, it appears no agency is safe. now listen the what elon musk said about uncovering all that government waste. >> if you ask me what's the most surprising thing that you've encountered when you go to d.c., when you're in d.c., and i say is, well, the most surprising thing is the scale of the expenditures and, actually, how easy it is to the -- with just, when you add a caring and competence where it was absent before, you can actually save billions of dollars sometimes in an hour. >> yeah. [applause] >> it's wild. obviously, it just shows that they really lack empathy for the average a taxpayer who's working hard paying taxes and then today say, oh, a million dollars doesn't matter.

i think it matters a lot to people, you know? [applause] so what are you talking about? [laughter] stuart: what are you talking about? okay. steve hilton joins me now. steve, has the musk-trump avalanche of action overwhelmed the democrats? >> yes. but it needs to to keep going. by the way, stuart, don't make me say the bond thing, i don't want to do that a this morning, but i do have a vote for who should be the next one. i think a more experienced, kind of grizzled kind of bond -- stuart varney, i think that would be good -- [laughter] stuart: at my age, i couldn't do those stunt thes. out of question. >> i don't know. you're very spritely. i think elon captured it perfectly. for so long we've had people in charge of the government whether the politicians or the bure carrots -- bureaucrats who don't realize it's our money. they don't behave as if it's must be they need to be -- money that a they need to be careful with. so is what you've seen year after year is taxpayers seeing

their taxes go up and up and up in all sorts of different way, all the a different forms of tax they're paying. and yet the services they get from the government in exchange seem to get worse and worse. and now we're seeing why. because so much of you are moneo things that the it wasn't designed for. partly that can be explained by pure incompetence in the word we use, waste, where it's just they don't know what's happening. they're incompetent, they can't manage it properly, it's going to people it shouldn't go to, people long dead, false claims, all that stuff. but there's another category which i think is bigger which is going to things that don't make sense, that are actively chosen. these things are deliberate, and those need to be stopped as well. and one final point i'd make which i think is absent from this conversation, the 10th amendment. the 10th amendment of our constitution says clearly that a things that are not specifically in the constitution should be left, quote, to the states respectively or to the people. huge chunks of the federal government, in my view, should

never be there at all. it's not a question of just trimming it back. it's not just the education department. housing and urban development, for example. why do we even have a federal department for that that at all? as far as i'm concerned, close the whole thing down, fire the people, sell the buildings, return the power and the money to the states. stuart: radical steve hilton this morning. let me ask you how you feel about this one. some republicans want america to withdraw from the united nations. you've been involved in politics for a long time. would you be in favor of pulling out of the u.n.? and if we did, how would the world react? >> well, there'd be horror, of course. i've been a fierce critic of the united nations. i've done lots of investigation into the terrible corruption. you have all these officials at the u.n. living it up in five-star hotels and first class travel. again, all at our expense and, by the way, it really is our expense. the vast proportion of the u.n.'s budget is paid for by

america. and what are the results? where is anything better? if we want to help the rest of the world and especially developing nations, poor country, then we should be focusing on the things that help countries become rich and successful; property rights, the rule of law, free press. all those institutions of strong, free market economies and strong, free societies. that's what what we should be focused on. but the people at the u.n. don't believe in any of that. they believe in government solving all those problems, bureaucracy solving these problems, and it just doesn't work. stuart: steve hilton, you're on a roll. see you again soon, our guy in california. thanks very much, steve. >> great to see you, stuart. stuart: president trump has reportedly offered ukraine a, quote, improved minerals deal after president zelenskyy rejected the first offer. trump was not happy with the leader of ukraine with following the disagreement. trump called him a dictator. but according to axios, zelenskyy's aides are now telling him, hey, sign this new deal to the avoid any more

clashes with trump. check futures, we've got a lot of red for the dow. all of that red ink is accounted for by united health. small gain for the s&p. nice gain for the nasdaq, up 81 points after a yesterday's selling. come on in, kenny polcari, on a friday morning. do you feel investors are overreacting to walmart's weak guidance and today's report of medicare billing investigations? overreaction on the market? >> well, i think there's two pratt things. i think they over-- separate things. i think they overreact ad to walmart's kind of conservative guidance yesterday because, look, they do that every year. at the beginning of every year, they're kind of conservative, and then they end up surprising as the year goes on. yes, i think the walmart thing was a reaction. unh, there you're talking about potential abuse and fraud. if they're double billing the government or finding a way to bill medicare even more money,

that borders on more than just an issue. i think that's more of a problem. so i think for unh and maybe a some of the other health names if that's a true, there's going to be a big investigation, and that should come to the fast. the two are very different. stuart: we've often a talked about the strength or otherwise of the consumer. your not worried about the -- you're not worried about the consumer, are you? >> so, you know what? it's funny, i am worried a little bit about the consumer. i'm worried about the low end of the consumer, certainly, you know, the upper class or upper, upper class don't seem to be having problems, but i think the lower end is where people are going to start to be conservative. that's walmart's point yesterday when they were cautious about a forward guidance, a little bit cautious about the consumer. i think that's where we have to just be worried, right? we have to watch what's going to happen, and especially if we see inflation tick its i ugly head up again. stuart: all right, kenny, your with we for the hour.

more coming up later. right now house speaker johnson says congress is focused on making president trump's executive orders permanent. keyword, permanent. if. >> the president has over 300 executive actions already, and we're going to codify so much of what he's doing so that the next team can't unwind it. [applause] if. stuart: we're going the bring in the speaker's full plan later in the show. the white house defending elon musk's role in the trump administration. watch this. >> people in this room who have used talking point that that elon is not elected fail to understand how government works. what president trump is doing is he is removing federal bureaucrats who are defying democracy. stuart: just wait until you see joe concha. he's going to be here to respond shortly. president trump continues his crusade for one big, beautiful bill. he wants his tax cut extension included in it. congressman russell fry will tell us if republicans can get

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♪ stuart: democrats are calling elon musk a threat to to democracy. jacqui heinrich at the white house for us. how's the administration if responding to that? >> reporter: well, they've gotten a few wins, stuart. this federal judge, two of them, actually, allowing doge's work to continue. the first suit that was swatted down came from labor unions including the national treasuries employee -- treasury employees' union.

the judge there declining to to stop layoffs for any probationary workers or to stop any furtherance of the federal worker buyout program saying the plaintiffs don't have jurisdiction and sending them to a different court. in another case, judge tanya chutkan again denied a request from 14 state attorneys general who are trying to to stop musk and doge from accessing data systems at the departments of education, labor, health and human services, energy, transportation, commerce and the office of personnel management. the judge saying that a doge can continue to operate despite its unpredictable actions causing uncertainty for the plaintiffs. the president defending doge's work and its work force. >> they can take apart the most complex computer instruments and literally put 'em back blindfolded. to when they go into some guy that's ripping off the country by doing some of the things you've just heard or what you're going to hear, they can't be [bleep], you know? if they can't say, oh, gee, there was a mistake. there was a big mistake.

>> reporter: the white house is weighing a plan to return some of doge's savings directly to taxpayers, potentially 0. house speaker -- 20%. house speaker mike johnson is, though, says paying down the deficit should be the priority. >> if you think about our core principles, right, fiscal responsibility is what we do as conservatives, that's our brand. we have a $36 trillion federal debt, a giant deficit that we're contending with. i think we need the to pay down the credit card. >> reporter: one former biden staffer expressed agreement, also warning checks for tabs payers could -- taxpayers could cost more than you think. >> we should look back to the bush tax -- or the bush check that came out which took $100 billion to cover for people to get $300 and and $600 per household. there's a lot of money to give people money back that should be going down to pay down the deficit if trump is serious about balancing our budget. >> reporter: elon musk said the government accountability office estimates fraud somewhere in the neighborhood of $500

billion a year, tooth. stuart: thank you very much, indeed. listen to the what democrat senator sheldon whitehouse has to say about doge. >> i would analogize this to a smash and grab robbery, all done for the benefit of providing tax breaks to to billionaires at a the end of the day. but in its tactics right now, especially a smash and grab robbery. but over time courts will look at this, evidence will mount. he will need things from congress, and the situation will change. i think it's particularly important to watch the courts where he is losing case after case after a case after a case for the very precise reason that what he is doing is illegal. stuart: new york or he's not. he's not losing case after case. the gentleman on the right-hand side of the screen is republican from south carolina, russell fry. doge -- look, this is by opiniol opportunity wasteful spending

slasher: why are the democrats vehemently against it? trump wants to cut 8% from the do defense budget. i mean, that's a republican sacred cow, and doge wants to cut it. >> i think savings is really important. the american people are onboard with this. you know, the doge derangement syndrome of the left, this is just kind of an ever changing target that that they seem to have this obsession with president trump and elon musk. and at the core is that they want more government, more waste, more fraud and abuse. they say they want to eliminate it, but when you ask them where should we start, they don't have an answer for that. they continue down this path. these are very easy things. 40 to one wants to fund a $23 million sesame street project in iraq, $59 million to luxury hotels in new york city for illegal immigrants. where is the relief for the american people in north carolina and in california? these are the things the american people respond to, they have responded to, and it's why president trump is enjoying his

highest approval rating of both of his administrations. it's remarkable to see. we just did town halls in our district, and people are really excited right now about where we are as a country. stuart: vice president vance, he's campaigning for trump's one big, beautiful bill. watch this, please. >> so the senate obviously has its own approach, and the president has been very clear that his preference is to to put everything if one bill. >> right. >> and part of that is just simple legislative strategy. i think the president has learned a lot about how d.c. works, and i actually talked to the president about this yesterday, and he said to america look, it's very rare that you can get two reconciliation bills done in one congress which is why he thinks we've got to do a lot with that one big, beautiful bill, that first reconciliation package that a we're going to get through the house and the senate. it's going well. it's early, right? stuart: congressman, is one big, beautiful bill realistic in the house when you have such a slim majority? >> i think it is. i think the mission is clear that if we don't act, if we

don't do our job, everyone's taxes are going up. and so that is absolutely going to be catastrophic to the american people and to our small businesses and working families if we don't act. and so i think everyone, both the house and the senate, obviously, there's differences on how we get there, but for me, i support the president, i support the speaker. let's put it all together in one, and let's deliver these wins for the american people because if we don't act, everyone will suffer the consequences of our failure to do the our own job with. so let's secure the border, let's do these tax cuts, let's have these savings in our government and root out this waves, fraud and abuse -- can waste, fraud and abuse. this is the mission, this is why we were elected. let's go get the job done. stuart: i do hope unrein in the freedom caucus -- you can rein in the freedom caucus. congressman cuss el fry, see you again soon. red ink for the dow, all of that loss accounted for by unitedhealth. the rest of the market slightly

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stuart: same story, dow is down nearly 20 the 0 points because of a big drop in united health. nasdaq up 7 is. -- 71. ray wang joining me this morning. i want to know more about microsoft and their new party. they just call it new matter for quantum computing. can you explain it and if explain the significance of it? >> yeah. what's really important is quantum computing is an important type of computing. it's faster than what we have today. it breaks through a whole bunch of cryptography, and it's very hard to do. this thing called cubits don't stay stable the. microsoft delivered a chip that actually has material science and capabilities to make that a lot more stable, a lot more cubits that are going to be stable which means they can solve bigger computing problems. this used to be a problem we thought was 5-10 years away, and it seems like microsoft accelerated the timeline on quantum computing. stuart: how close are we to a

usable quantum computing system? anied idea in. >> well, they're starting to use it already. there are systems out there. companies are experimenting. oil discovery, they're trying to build new materials for space, trying to use it for drug discovery, so it's in the works. but it's not easy to do, and it's not commercially viable in terms of being distributed to everyone. what this chip does is makes it more possible this could be three years out instead of five years out, and it's about a making sure this material makes it more stable, more consistent and cheaper for people to be able to deliver on quantum computing. stuart: i've got apple around $245 a share, 246 right now. why do you like their offering of the cheaper version of the iphone 16? why do you like that? >> here's what's important, it allows you to support apple intelligence, and they have the a-18 chip. all the a.i. we're talking about today is centralized, and in the future it's going to be distributed at the edges. and by making sure that the anyone who bias an iphone can get to apple intelligent -- buys

an apple, it's going to get more people to a.i. than everyone expects. stuart: why don't i associate apple with a.i.? because i don't. [laughter] >> a lot of people preponderance think about the chip companies, a lot of people think about the companies that are delivering at the hyperscalers and cloud level, but all the a a.i. in the future is going to sit on our devices because they're where we interact. they need smaller language models, less memory, less power, and it's for likely we're going to have distributed a.i. more than centralized a.i. going forward. that's' why we haven't heard as much about it, but it's a smart strategy by apple to make sure the chips can support it going forward. stuart: ray, have a great weekend. all right. they're about to press the button, start the market rolling today to. we know we're going to open sharply lower on the dow because of unitedhealth. the rest of the market though we're looking for just a little bit of green. here we go. right from the if get go the dow down, what, 300 points or thereabouts, 356 at this moment. that that's entirely due to

unitedhealth which is down -- we'll check it in a appointment, but it's way, way down.. -- in a moment. the dow's off 280. as for the s&p 500 is, we have that that down just 4 points. that's all. and the nasdaq composite, that, i think, has opened in the green, yes, it has. . 020% higher. big tech, where are we now? meta platforms up, microsoft up $1.50 at $417. alphabet, that's google, up just 39 cents. apple's reaching 246. amazon is down just a few e cents, that's all. we've got to start with the biggest loser on the dow, that isnitedhealth group. the "wall street journal" reports the department of justice is investigating the company's medicare billing practices. the doj wants to find out if certain diagnoses triggered extra payments to the company's medicare advantage plans. if kenny polcari, come on in, please. unitedhealth is down, what, 11%.

it looks pretty bad for unitedhealth, doesn't it? >> well, it does. i mean, look, right now it's a headline, it's a story. this needs more transparency. they need to shed more light on it. but, look, i don't think anyone could really be surprised if this story is, in fact, true, if they're somehow looking for a back door to get into to to double bill or to bill medicare extra. clearly, we understand there's a lot of waste with in the process. stuart: okay. heir going to hook at that and who knows where that's going. you don't want an investigation from the government on your hands, now, do you? >> nor doge. stuart: right. youtube talking about reportedly getting ready to launch a premium light version of they are paid prescription service. the target audience is people who with watch practice other than music videos. it's going to be the available in the u.s., australia, germany and thailand. what do you make of that, kenny in. >> so, listen, i'm not a huge -- i don't watch youtube at home

on my television set. i don't watch you youtube -- sounds like an interesting idea. i've got to read into it and see but, certainly, it's a lighter version that'll be easier for people to to watch, so is i suspect it's a good thing. stuart: got it. next case, meta. they just approved a plan to boost executive bonuses up to 200% of their base salary. a that follows a 5% cut in the work force, so you're firing some, you're rewarding others. meanwhile, their oversight board is reportedly split on zuckerberg and the free speech overhaul. they're at odds with the decision to end the fact-checking program. that was a way to bend the knee to trump. meta's going to have to to work with this administration, so a good move? >> well, i think it is a good move. certainly investors think it's a good move. the stock is trading at over $700, right? it's up over a point, a percented today. so it certainly is a good move from the investor point of view.

i think it's yet to be seen how they're going to solve that problem because, to your point, he is going to have to to work with this administration in terms of, in terms of perceived censorship or not which i think is out the door anyway. stuart: he's getting close to him, that's for sure. eli lilly's going all in on their weight loss pill. they built up a $550 million inventory of those pills before they received the data that from the late stage trial. so pill's ready to go, kenny. do you think that'll take off like the injections? if. >> listen, i think it will take off like the injections because the pill a pill, it's easier to take. people that are afraid of sticking themselves with a need ifing no longer have to do it. but here's where i think people really have to take a step back and i assess what's really important, because you don't really know yet and there's starting to be stories about the longer term effects of what this drug does to to your system, what it does -- you know, for men, it's about a muscle mass. it's about more than just losing weight.

there are other issues, i think while it's great, investors like it, i think there's going to be more to in this story as we learn more about what the drug does to your body over the long term. stuart: i just -- i don't have a long term, so i just want to know when the pill's available, simple as that. [laughter] we've got booking holdings' latest earnings report. strong profits, strong revenue thanks to a booming demand for international travel. up nearly 3%. people are still traveling, kenny. seems to me9 that the top 30, 4, they're doing just fine. the rest, not so much. split market. >> yeah. so we talked about the whole walmart thing, right in that a lower end that the maybe they're worried about. certainly, the upper middle class seem to be doing just fine, and if the economy stays as robust and the labor market stays strong and and wages continue to rise, i fully expect that people want experiences, that that they're going to start doing traveling more, and booking holdings speaks exactly

to that point. stuart: now take a look at alibaba. up again today, i believe. yes, they are, up another 5%. they pledged to aggressively invest in a.i.. oak. now, listen to this. according to "the wall street journal", ryan cohen has a billion dollar stake inial ally baa a baa, and he's been increasing investment over the last several yearings -- alibaba. he's bullish on long-term economic growth in china. what say you, kenny? >> reason, i think that's -- listen, i think that's great. i don't do anything in china because i don't trust a thing that comes out of china. i don't trust the data, the government, they can change the rules at any time. but ryan can cohen wants to put that much money into alibaba and into the china a story, i think that's great. i, for one, don't play in china at all. i have other ways of addressing a.i. it doesn't have to be through alibaba. there are other ways, certainly, microsoft is a perfect example. stuart: so look at this, chinese tech names having the best week

since 2020. strong earnings, optimism around artificial intelligence and a tilt from hawaii jinping towardg towards private enterprise. you still wouldn't touch any of these companies, kenny, none of them? >> nope, none of them. because i just don't trust it. en i don't trust what comes out of it, i don't trust xi jinping, i don't trust the government. there are other ways to get yourself involved in the a.i. story. you don't have the go to china to do that. stuart: okay, got it. kenny poll car a ray, thanks for joining us -- kenny polcari. coming up, anti-i.c.e. protesters patrolling cities. they're warning migrants when officials are going to to show up. griff jenkins will tell us about that. trump's national security adviser, mike waltz, says while the president is frustrate thed with zelenskyy, trump's really focused on getting a peace deal done. watch. >> president trump, as we made clear to our russian counterparts and i want to make clear today, he's focused on stopping the fighting and moving forward.

and we could argue all day long about what's happened in the past. stuart: probably will. i want to know when will trump and putin meet face to face? if we've got a report on that. president trump doubling down on the claim that the revenue from tariffs can replace our income tax? watch this. >> a lot of money is coming in from these tariffs. you could wipe out your income tax. you could maybe not even have an income tax system when this thing works out to. stuart: well, tariffs instead of the income tax? peter morici on that thank you. ♪ -- on that next. ♪ we're american, in god we trust. ♪ just living the dream and never giving up. ♪ what we believe in, yeah, we're all a american ♪

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stuart: we are 12 minutes into the trading session is. we've got red across the board, but not much. s&p down 10, nasdaq down 10, the dow down 275.

all of that loss accounted for by one stock, unitedhealth. elon musk wants to make government more efficient through modernization. hillary vaughn on capitol hill. all right, hillary, what does musk want the modernize? >> reporter: stuart, every government agency that is out of date right now, turns out going high-tech and modernizing the government is as simple as switching to to high-speed internet and getting rid of floppy disks. >> the faa uses their own internet, right? if spacex, everyone uses the internet,. of they have their own internet, and it doesn't work. it'll go out. the the faa's use withing floppy disks to manage some of their system ises and, again, some gen-zers might not know what it is. but if you're old enough, this is ancient technology. >> reporter: the government spends 80% of its i.t. budget, about $80 billion, just maintaining old, outdated technology instead of just upgrading to new technology. some of the technology the

government agencies are still operating on is over 50 years old. that's before the high-speed internet existed for the general public. tackling these things won't just save money, but make the government work faster and more efficiently for taxpayers. elon musk, who's been take a -- taking a chainsaw to government waste, says democrats don't care about american taxpayers whose money is being wasted. >> they really lack empathy for the average taxpayer who's working hard paying taxes, and then they say, oh, a million dollars doesn't matter. i'm, like, i think the it matters a lot. just push option on things a little bit, and you save of millions of dollars, just a little bit. you know in it's wild. >> reporter: elon musk and president trump want some of those savings to go back to taxpayers. there is talk of a doge dividend possibly being included in the reconciliation package that's being negotiated here on capitol hill. but speaker mike johnson doesn't seem to be for that.

instead he really wants every penny that doge is finding to go back to paying off the debt. stuart? stuart: hillary, thanks very much, indeed. now, time to listen to what trump's national economic council director kevin hassett had to say about the administration's efforts on inflation. watch. >> we're doing it with a plan that president trump and i and and others have talked about in the oval that involves, like, every level of fighting inflation. first, the macroeconomic level. we're cutting spending. we're cutting spending in negotiations with people on the hill, we're cutting spending with the advice of of our i.t. the consultant, elon musk, and then we're also looking into supply-side things like retoring trump's tax cuts -- restoring trump's tax cuts, maybe even expensing new factories so that there's an explosion of supply. if you have an explosion of supply and a reduction in government demand, inflation goes way down. stuart: sounds good. economist peter morici joins me now. peter, it's been three months since trump was elected, 30-odd

days since he walked into the oval office. what's your judgment of trump's inflation fight so far? >> it's a failure. his tariffs will raise prices. they're not cutting spending very much as we can see so far. and their tax cuts will increase the deficit to probably about a 8% of gdp. you have to remember kevin hassett is the same guy who told us that trump's first term tax cuts would pay for themselves in additional growth. instead, the deficit went up a couple of percentage points of gdp. biden continued that, and that's how we got to 6 or 7%. now, hay do a very squirrely kind of math where kevin went to school, and i'm not quite sure where that was. [laughter] stuart: so -- >> i'd like to see his math. i'd like to see his math. stuart: okay. well, the president is saying, look, we could use tariffs to replace the income tax. i take it you -- >> well, this is a good example. this is a good example. our imports are about $3.3-3.4

trillion. the corporate and personal income tax is about the same amount. so if you could levy a 100% tax on imports and imports would not go down, then you'd get enough money to to replace the income tax. but what are the chances of putting a 100% tariff on imports and having the price of imports go up 100% and people continuing to import the same amount? stuart: okay. >> i mean, that's absurd. it's just absurd. stuart: i see your math, peter. but suppose you've got a lot of revenue coming in from tariffs, i don't know how much, but you reduce income taxes by the amount that you're bringing in on tariffs? so you've got lower taxes, but you keep the tariffs what's wrong with that? >> okay. let's suppose you put a 20% tariff on all imports. that will probably give you something in the range of $100-200 billion a year. the bill that's going through the house right now is going to increase the deficit by about a

$300 billion a year. the math over at the oval office doesn't work anymore. you know, this guy thinks he's selling a real estate project when he's running a country. the thing is absurd is. you know, what works when you want to put up trump towers does not work in the dollars and cents of economics. stuart: that's pretty harsh. >> i'll be honest with you, what's coming out of the white house these days, this is like an nfl team that a drafted basketball players instead of football players -- stuart: okay, real fast. you're obviously down on in this, so you give me a prediction if what's the inflation rate at the end of the year? >> oh, it's going to be more than 3%. it's 3% now, it has to go up from here. but we don't know exactly what he's going to implement and so forth. we don't know how much of this is smoke and how much of this is true. you have to tell we what he's going to do for me the give you a number. but when you start talking about 100% tariffs, the impact on inflation is incalculable. stuart: okay. i'm going to leave it right there but, look, we've got to

have you back because you've to got an interesting point of view, and we're going to talk it out. thanks, peter. we'll listen, thanks. coming up, 2024, a charity group called power forward communities, got a $2 billion grant from the epa. good lord. lee zeldin, the new epa administrator, he's been investigating. he calls the whole thing wasteful fraud. that is a going to be my take, top of the hour. many of us are waiting for the return of warmer weather. ski resorts celebrating a record amount of snow coming out this year. madison is at the biggest ski resort in the northeast. she's there, that's her. she's going to take a look at how they're dealing with the surgery of visitors. she's on the slopes right now. she's pretty good. we'll be back after this. ♪ it's a marshmallow world in the winter -- ♪ when the know comes to cover the ground -- the snow comes to to cover the ground.hey, ♪ it's time for play, it's a whipped cream day ♪

and it's grown nicely. so i say, let a gramps be a gramps. okay, just promise me it doesn't make a lot of noise. (engine roars) (♪) go, baby! go! (♪) thanks, grandpa! get good at money. so you can be a little bad. empower. (luke) so why can't we say we're the best home shopping site? (lawyer) because while true, you just can't say that legally. (luke) so i can't say... “homes-dot-com is the best!” (lawyer) no. (marci) what if we jumbled up the words? (luke) homes best is com dot the. (lawyer) no. (luke) what if we said it in spanish? (marci) homes-punto-com es el mejor. (lawyer) no. (marci) what if we whispered it? (luke) homes-dot-com is the best. (lawyer) no. (luke) fine! what if he said it? (morgan) homes-dot-com. it's the best. (lawyer) mr. freeman, i'm sorry, but we can't say that. (morgan) say what? (lawyer) homes-dot-com is the best. (morgan) ah-ha! (luke) homes-dot-com. (morgan) it's the best.

is

stuart: the northeast has seen a record amount of snow this season. good news for skiers and snowboarders. madison alworth is in killington, vermont. all right, madison, park your snowboard, or maybe you can to the interview as you're coming down the slopes. you've got to tell me, how many more visitors has the resort seen this year in. >> yeah. so, stuart, they've seen a

increases in visitors. that a means on a given saturday you're looking at -- ooh -- 11,000 people carving up the mountain here at killington or snowboarding down as i am right now. i got an incredible team with me, mark in the sled and on my head a gopro so you can have my point of view. and underneath me, 205 inches of snow. that is incredible. that's why we're seeing this 10% increase because that's 100 inches more than they had two years ago. so if someone sees this know report and they want to come up and buy a ticket at the window tomorrow, they're going to spend $200 per person. but this is a partner with icon, so you can get seven days on the icon pass. families are spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars to enjoy a mountain like this. they pit all a back in the mountain. they are investing $12 million in a brand new lift this summer, and over last summer and this

summer, 7 million in new sonoma if chiens so that they can make this last as long as possible. take a listen. >> since we're killington, we are still making snow. many other ski resorts are have -- have stopped, but we're proud to have the longest season in the east. so is we plan to ski long into may. >> reporter: so if you can imagine, people will be on this mountain until potentially june 1st. so get on the list are, it takes about 10 minutes of wait which is really not bad. but for me, because of these reports, i'm getting on, getting to cut the line. so, stuart, thanks for giving me a pretty smooth sailing snowboarding day. this is vice president at its best, arguably even better than out west -- vermont. stuart: madison is, we're very impressed with your snowboarding ability and the camera guy being dragged along -- that is fascinating. >> reporter: i know! [laughter] stuart: that is really cool.

well done, everybody. just get down there safely, okay? maybe we'll see you later in the show. we've got another couple of hours. thank you, madison. check the markets real fast, please. dow is now down 350 points. most of it united health. down 17, s&p, down 22, nasdaq. still ahead, griff jenkins on mexico trying to ban foreign intervention after trump labeled the cartels criminal organizations. nigel farage will be with us. he's on the trump revolution that really is shakeing up europe. and the "wall street journal"'s kimberly strassel on president trump and elon musk dismantling our bloated bureaucracy. 10:00's next. ♪ -- with arms wide open, under the sunlight. ♪ welcome to this place, i'll show you everything ♪

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