>> from the fox studios in new york city, this is maria bart record -- bart mow row's d bart

row most if "wall street. >> maria: i'm maria bartiromo, president trump preponderance setting the stage for massive cuts to the federal work force, directing agencies to submit if plans for consolidation and eliminating unnecessary positions by march 13th. watch. >> we're cutting down government. we're cutting down the size of government. we have to. we're bloated, we're sloppy, and we have a lot of people that aren't doing their job. maria: this as the senate doge caucus says they are just getting started with downsizing the government, meeting with elon musk at the white house this week to streamline plans to eliminate $1 trillion in wasteful spending. but many democrats are still embracing the whine instead of the win. >> what doge is doing is not what efficiency looks like. if not take a meat axe, a blow tour the. , call it what you will and then

say we'll retore some of of the things we shouldn't have cut. >> elon musk is dangerous, he's incompetent, he's chaotic and if he's killing programs that we rely on. >> the doge minion that is have been unleashed on the american people are actually stealing taxpayer data and stealing taxpayer money. maria: joining me now is senate doge caucus member, nebraska senator pete ricketts. senator, thanks very much for being here. what is your reaction to all of those dramatic comments? >> well, they clearly don't get what elon musk is trying to do. the doge caucus in the senate, which i'm on, met with elon musk, and let me tell you, maria, i've got to tell you, it is so refreshing to have somebody who has some business sense and, frankly, common sense asking basic questions about how we run our government operations. it's amazing we're able to get anything done at all with some of the stuff that elon musk and

his team have uncovered about how just inefficient our government is. and he and president trump are trying the get that turned around. it's a very, very exciting time. maria: well, i mean, you would imagine that most people when looking to cut bloat or wasteful spending would first look at what a you're spending the money on. >> yeah, absolutely. this is something i did when i was governor of nebraska. we asked basic questions and found a lot of stuff, but compared odd to what elon's finding, it's really stunning. we had one government agency that had 13,000 employees, yet 37,000 software licenses. many of the licenses had never if even been used or opened, just that kind of waste and inefficiency. you know, we've got a couple million people who work in the federal government, 4.6 million credit cards out there. that just leads for opportunities for fraud. there are -- he was saying that there were 22 million people in our social security is system that are clearly dead, and, you

know, just the kind of things like that that that just open it up to fraud and multiple, again, subscriptions to things that aren't being used. he's really going after the low hanging fruit the be able to clean up the government. it's very common sense. he's, like, hey, we want to keep good people, people that are doing jobs that are need, but if your job's not needed, we need to get rid of those folks. maria: yeah. you were in that meeting on thursday, and all of this came up. and it's incredible to me that you've got 4.6 million credit cards and, you know, you should 3 million people working -- under 3 million people working. some people had double credit cards, and the number of people on the social security rolls is also a incredible. just that alone shows you how inefficient things are. is it just that this is just automatic a, the checks go out automatic and nobody was checking? >> yeah. actually, he described some situations where that was the case. you have a contract officer who retired but didn't turn off the faucet. the money was still going out. and he said most companies if

they're getting federal dollars probably don't say anything, but even if you wanted to, even if you were one of those diligent companies that said, hey, we're not supposed to get this money anymore, you'd have almost no way to to find out who you contact to make sure those taxpayer dollars weren't being wasted, get the money shut off. a lot of work in the systems that a make the payments, for example, saying where the appropriation's supposed to hit is optional. and so diligent agencies are using it, but ones that weren't diligent like usaid were not using it. so to there's a lot of basic changes we can make to to help know where our taxpayer dollars are being spent and whether or not they're being spent wisely. maria: meanwhile, the clock is ticking with the shutdown deadline just two weeks away. the house passing their one big, beautiful bill as a president trump calls it, sending it over to the senate this week where there seems to be differing opinions over how to handle the extension of trump's a tax cuts to the end of 20 to 20 the 34 o.

watch. finish. >> this is the most important thing we can do the ensure the economy keeps growing, wages keep growing, end sure that that america remains -- ensure that america remains globally competitive, is to make the trump tax cuts from 2017 permanent. >> i don't really understand the argument about a permanency, because even under the best of circumstances a budget resolution only lasts ten years. i'm not as hung up on permanency as some of my friends are. maria: what about that, senator? i mean, in the house it doesn't look like the numbers actually pan out to make those the tax cuts person innocent. does that ultimately mean -- permanent. does that mean you'll have to do the two-track plan in the senate so that you can try to per pursue permanence here in. >> well, first thing, we're going to unpack this budget package that the house has sent over to the senate. as you know, our committee chair there on the budget committee, lindsey graham, was going down a path of having two different bills.

ours was focused on the border and beefing up our defense. we'll take a look at this. we're probably going the make some amendments to it. i think, broadly speaking, most of the senate republicans want to make these tax cuts permanent because business -- because businesses want that certainty. we've got to to make that fit together with regard to how it fits within the budget and so forth. we're going to be looking at that. frankly, again, i'm -- me, personally, i'm indifferent whether it's one bill or two bills, but we've got to accomplish the goals of making these tax cuts, and and i prefer the make them permanent, but we've got to make sure we're doing that, securing the border, beefing up our national defense. you know, this is the most dangerous time in our country's history since world war ii, and the biden administration was cutting defense. letting our military degrade. and that only encourages our adversaries like communist china. we've got a lot of work to do as senate republicans on this bill, and that's what we'll be picking up. maria: will you be cutting into

medicaid. >>some. >> we're going to be taking a look at all of that. i think there's opportunity to streamline organizations to make them work better, and so we'll be picking that up. i think there's other things too. you know, for example, we think in the senate that, frankly, the current tax policy is current policy. this is what obama did, when he wanted to extend the bush era tax cuts. we think that's a policy we've got to be incorporating into this budget resolution that, hey, these tax cuts are just policy, so we should keep them rolling out the way they are. maria: well, with just over a month if under his belt, the president is making his prime time address to a joint session of congress this tuesday. what are you expecting? >> what i expect president trump to do is lay out how how he's really living up to his campaign promises. he wants to unleash a golden era here in america. he's doing it by, frankly, reducing the size of government is that we can free up the economy, cut back on the number of regulations so that small businesses can create those jobs, working on making those

tax cuts permanent will also be able to help do it, and by reducing the amount of government, you know, we're talking about elon miss, he wants to -- musk, he wants to reduce a trillion dollar run rate by 2026, and we'll start bringing inflation back down, start seeing the economy grow. and that's really going to help make sure we create prosperity for american families. maria: all right. senator, good to see you this weekend. thanks so much. >> great. thanks very much, maria. maria: if senator pete ricketts, good to see you. up next, bracing for impact. investors anxiously awaiting u.s. tariffs on mexico, canada and china set to begin this tuesday. up next, mark matson on where to invest now. stay with us.am ♪ to retire the way you want to. or worse yet, running low on money during your retirement is a genuine concern. safe money iq is dedicated to helping you retire forever. and best yet, we don't charge a fee

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♪ maria: welcome back. here's a look where markets ended the week. and also the month as we closed out the month of february with

declines. we got a fresh read on inflation with the latest pce index showing prices holding ted from december. they dipped slightly year-over-year but till above 2 president. investors are anxiously awaiting the start of new tariffs, 25% on canada and mexico, 10% on canadian energy and an additional 10% on china, all of which president trump says will take effect this tuesday. china, meanwhile, is vowing retaliation. joining me now is mark matson. mark, you say you're9 not concerned about the tariffs coming. >> no, i'm not really concerned about the tariffs because i think that donald trump is holding all the cards when you look at the trade between these countries. for example, over 60% of the gdp from canada comes from america. for mexico it's 70%. and from china it's 30%. so i think it's -- i think he's really leveraging this, he's

trying to help shut down the borders, he's helping to reduce fentanyl, he's reducing terrorism in the form of cartels coming into our country with fentanyl. i think he's holding all the cards on this, and i suspect that these countries will capitulate. and the other thing is investors should really be looking at investing internationally. u.s. has been so good for so long, investors have forgotten about the benefits of diversify being. the s&p this year, on the other hand, is relatively flat while large value international stocks are up about% year the date -- 9. a lot of people have missed that, and they're not diversifying their portfolios properly. i think it's a big mistake. maria: where specifically internationally? >> i think you've got to look everywhere. we're in over 20,000 stocks in all of europe, emerging markets, countries like egypt, singapore, malaysia, all these countries that have great opportunities for growth in the future, and they're great diversifiers with

the u.s. because they have very low correlations with our tock market -- stock market. i think we want to today away from china, countries that really don't have free markets like russia. but really asia a in general, the better diversified you are as an investor, the better your likelihood of fulfilling on your american dream and having decent returns without getting destroyed in down markets. maria: all right. i want to get your take on yields. the 10-year yield has been plummeting. we're all the way down to 4.2%. treasury secretary scott bessent has been focused on the 10-year. the trump administration wants interest rates lower, but there are worries that this dedecline in the 10-year yield all the way down to 4.2% is indicative of a slowing economy. what do you think is behind the move? >> well, it's typical supply and demand for debt. but here's what it tells me when i look at that, for investors they have to have high quality, short-term fixed income. and the reason they want to do that, because when we have a

crash and investors have largely forgotten what a crash actually feels like. in in and 2009 tech stocks lost 75%, large stocks lost 50%. so in the event of something like that happening in the future, you have to stress test your portfolio. and then you have to have high quality short-term fixed income. ten years and out's not going to cut it because those things are highly volatile, and when markets crash, they tend to crash also. then you rebalance, sell your fixed income, rebalance your portfolio. it sounds simple, but it's one of the hardest things for investors to actually do. and don't go out chasing long bonds. big mistake. don't -- they call them high yield bonds. what they really are, maria, is junk bonds. don't chase that, it's dangerous as an investor. maria: but in terms of a reason yields have dropped so much, some people say it's because of a slowing economy. there was a report from the if lindsay group which asked the question, can doge induce a recession. how do you see that in terms of

the reason behind these yields have movedded lower? >> yeah. well, i think inflation has come down, you mentioned that earlier in the show. interest rates largely move with inflation. inflation has cooled a lot over the last couple of years. and i think this idea that reducing corporate, government bloat, rather, cutting out all this waste is somehow going to cause a recession, i think that's just insanity. if. maria: okay. >> interest rates, lower interest rates point to the fact that investors should be looking even more to equities because historically equities have beaten short-term fixed income by about a 9-10% per year. look, interest rates are coming down -- global interest rates are coming down not just in the united states, i don't think it signals a slowing of i our economy. maria: all right. mark, great to catch up. thanks so much. >> pleasure. thanks a lot, maria. maria: mark if matteson. doling out the doge dough, should americans get a refund

check from the billions in savings elon musk and his team have found? the president seems to be onboard. the man behind this plan fakes his case -- makes his case to us next. stay with us. >> so many millions -- billions, hundreds of billions, and we're think about giving 20 back to the american citizens. ♪ at ameriprise financial we know our clients are so much more than clients. they're conquerors and champions, parents and caretakers, believers and breadwinners. the goals that matter most to you matter most to us. helping you achieve them is what we do best. with personal financial advice from an advisor you can trust, and goal-based investing in solutions. it's no wonder we have a 4.9 out of five client satisfaction rating. ameriprise financial advice worth talking about. after careful review of medical guidance and research on pain relief, my recommendation is simple:

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our xfinity network is built for streaming go to sofi.com to view your rate. all the stuff people love. how can it get any better? -i'm just spitballin' here, but,

what if we offer people apple tv+, netflix and peacock? for one low monthly price. -yes. so, people could stream the shows they love. and we could call it... xfinity streamsaver! mmmmm. what about something like: streamsaver? ooooooo. -i love that. add streamsaver with apple tv+, netflix and peacock included for only $15 a month... and stream all your favorite entertainment, all in one place. >> i love it. a 20% dividend, so to speak, for the money that a we're saving by going after the waste, fraud and abuse. to -- 20% would give back a lot of money to the taxpayer. and also a it'd give an incentive for the taxpayer to go out and report things to us where we could save money. maria: that's president trump backing the idea of a doge dividend that could send $5,000

checks to american taxpayers funded by the money saved from the federal government by doge. here to make the case is the man who first pitched the proposal, james fishback. james, thanks so much for being here. you were on capitol hill thursday meeting with senate republicans to go over this plan. tell us about the details. >> hi, maria. the plan, i'm honored to have the president's support, but the plan if is very simple. doge is going to save x amount of money, let's take 20% and send it right back to the taxpayers who sent it to d.c. in the first place. my meetings on capitol hill were great, spoke with the chief of staff luncheon and really getting good feedback and overwhelming, positive support for this bold plan to really pay restitution to the taxpayer for all of the shenanigans that doge has exposed and then, second, as the president said on on air force one, to incentivize american taxpayers to report

wasteful spending that they are seeing. that's how we wild on this fiscal -- build on this fiscal responsibility movement. maria: well, my pushback would be, look, the whole point of this exercise is to cut down our deficit and debts. so if the priority is to cut out wasteful spending so that we could focus if on the debt, shouldn't we just prioritize all of that money towards deficits and debt? >> when we're $36 trillion in debt, we've dug ourselves a pretty deep hole. so we need to address that first. >> we need to turn what doge's identifying into real spending reductions. we need to to actually reduce the deficit if not balance the budget before we start paying out dividend checks. >> i care about the $36 trillion in debt too, and i think that's why urn our proposal and the president has suggested this as well that 80% of it would go to narrowing the deficit and paying down the debt. remember, maria, the number one holder of our national debt is the american taxpayer.

they sent their money to d.c. to be spend responsibly and wisely. it the turns out as doge has exposed, it wasn't. they are overdue for a refund. and so if you think about incentivizing the taxpayer in the long term, we have to get them onboard x. what better way to tackle the debt long term than to deputize 100 million americans to report waste, fraud and abuse that they are seeing from the federal government and then report it to doge? why? because the more that doge saves, maria, the bigger the doge dividend check will be. economics, as you know, show me the incentive, and i show you the outcome. we are giving every american the incentive to call out waste, fraud and abuse, and the outcome is less waste, fraud and abuse, a smaller budge, a narrower deficit and a much more manageable national debt picture. maria: yeah, but we saw stimulus checks go out during covid or after the pandemic, and what happened? it caused inflation. we saw the consumer price index go to 40-year highs.

so how worried are you that sending money out to taxpayers is going to trigger inflation once again? >> you're right, maria. and we are still recovering from the biden-harris inflation, the worst in 40 years. as i'm sure you can appreciate the nuance here, the situation a little bit different. here's why. think about the macro backdrop when those checks went out in 2021. we had a supply chain crisis, we had a labor shortage a, we had all sorts of dislocations in the economy not to mention the fact that the fed was printing $100 billion a month and rates were at zero. the macro backdrop today is very, very different. drill, baby, drill means lower energy prices. deregulation, fiscal spending actually being reined in. is so the backdrop very, very different. and then polling data suggests that 70% of americans who would receive a doge dividend check like this would actually use it the pay down debt of their own, much of which they took on just to keep their head above water during the biden-harris regime. and so if you pay down debt with

a check like this, that's not if inflationary, that's actually deflationary. and so is i trust the american people. they sent this money to d.c. just a couple years ago. they're getting it back as a refund. the macro backdrop has changed, so i don't have the inflationary if concerns which i did have, by the way, back in 2021, and i called out the biden-harris administration then. that was reckless policy, this is sound policy, and and i'm honored that president trump supports it. maria: okay. that's a great answer a for that. james, it's good to see you. thank you very much. >> thank you, maria. >> thank you, maria. maria: i've got one important o know about ahead of next week. that's next. 't. car, where are we going? we're here. (♪) surprise!!! the future isn't scary. not investing in it is. car, were you in on this? nothing gets by you james. nasdaq-100 innovators. one etf. before investing, carefully read and consider fund

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(traffic noises) (♪) the road to opportunity. is often the road overlooked. (♪) at enterprise mobility, we guide companies to unique solutions, from our team of mobility experts. because we believe the more ways we all have to move forward. the further we'll all go. maria: welcome back. one thing you need to know ahead of next week, you might need 40 cups of coffee to make up for the loss of your favorite espresso or java chip starting on tuesday. starbucks is slashing 13 beverages from its menu.

the dumped drinks include the iced match cha lemonade, white hot chocolate, chai cream. starbucks says these items are less popular. not according to my team. but i'm not going away. watch "mornings with maria" every weekday 6-9 a.m. eastern here on fox business. i hope you'll wake up with us every morning. and i'll see you this weekend on sunday, "sunday morning futures," live on the fox news channel at 10 a.m. eastern, exclusive interviews with commerce secretary howard lutnick, congressman byron donalds and ohio guber that iftorial candidate vivek ramaswamy. join us sunday live on "sunday morning futures" on fox news. that'll do it for us here on fox business. thank you so much for joining us. are a great rest of the weekend, and i'll see you again next time weekend, and i'll see you again next time.