they did not want that video released. >> joining us now from connecticut, charlie gasparino, the seniorrespondent for fox business network. somebody is obviously feeding this to the press, somebody told the clip about bloomberg talking about how redlining caused the financial crisis and how is being portrayed as discrimination against minorities. the washington post has a long front page speech, what he's made about women over the years and the harassment about his company, some of this was 30 years ago, some was disrespectful and wrong, what are you hearing about the way he treated people at his company. >> mike bloomberg has a sense of humor and a disposition, this is what i'm getting for people who worked with him. donald trump even behind-the-scenes is more crash than what we see on twitter or during his press conference. he's a rough customer, and mike bloomberg from what i understand, the people who dealt with him directly in deal with him can be the same way. in many ways in terms of disposition or demeanor and what they say and how they present things, they're almost the same pe

commissioner brendan carr joins us live along with charlie gasparino. just begin by looking at at & t and verizon stock. they are taking a hit, not a huge one, but they are both in the red right now and to me, that signifies that people think this will actually be not hurtful to the consumer. how do you see it? >> you're right, this is a really big win today for u.s. leadership in 5g and for every family that wants to see better, cheaper, faster service and frankly, it's a huge loss to the democrat ags that brought this partisan lawsuit. the judge exposed the game they were playing. they elevated partisan politics in their own pursuit of higher office over their own constituents getting better service. they got no conditions, they got no concessions, they got nothing back on the taxpayer dollars they invested in these lawsuits. total loss and i'm happy about that. charlie: the democratic judge, we should point out, john l legere, i interviewed him three weeks ago where he point-blank said he thought he was going to win. the market did not think he w t l

charlie gasparino was on hours and hours ago, congratulations to you, young man. about this? charlie: the president has been speaking with friends of his and associates, even people in the media. i don't want to say who, to gauge their opinion about this, to the man or to the woman, from what i understand, it was like okay, let's take berniekerik, break down exactly what he did. i don't know all the details of the blagojevich case but i know bernie. i was very aggressive covering bernie. i still think he deserves a pardon. i have known him for many years. i actually like the man. if you think about what he did, they got him for lying, see if i got this right, lying theo a ba on a mortgage application about the source of funds that he already paid off the mortgage. it was something that you really have to come to someone's financial history to unearth, to put him in jail for five years or i think he served three of the five. you look -- i mean, awhile. blagojevich -- neil: he was trying to sell his senate seat, right? barack obama had when he moved on to president.

charlie gasparino is up next on whether there is way more work to be done to close the books for good on this one. charlie breaks it next. flexshares may look simple on the outside. but inside every etf... there are untold hours of careful construction... infinite "what ifs?" and contingency plans. creating funds that help target gaps in client portfolios. tap untapped potential. and strengthen confidence in you. flexshares. powered by over a century of investment expertise before investing consider the fund's investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. go to flexshares.com for a prospectus containing this information. read it carefully. liz: a new front opening in the 5g world war. the u.s. turning up the heat on huawei. the chinese telecom giant filing new charges against the giant on allegations of racketeering and conspiracy to steal trade secrets from the united states. the official indictment coming just 48 hours after a u.s. judge approved these two guys merging. t-mobile and sprint's mega-merger. both firms saying their tie-up would be a key element to the u.s. taking

liz: charlie gasparino has been looking at plans of other exchanges what can you tell us i guess you're starting? charlie: as i reported earlier today the new york stock exchange is beginning to prepare for the possibility that the floor might not be able to open. now as you know the new york stock exchange has an automated system as well, it's a mixture of both humans and an automated trading system, computerized training system so they're planning for a possibility that the floor traders, the brokers, the designated market makers can't make it in because they have to stay home, so they are preparing for that from what i understand they will have some test runoff that in a couple days, stay tuned on that. major wall street firms are taking steps from what we understand we've been surveying them, my producer and i have been serving the big firms and they are taking steps to restrict travel amid the virus panic. they are restricting obviously travel to china, parts of italy and parts of asia. they are also asking employees to self-quarantine if they didn't in these certain areas where th

not going well, charlie gasparino. charlie: yes, that would be mets owner fred wilpon. we reported earlier today. it has now been confirmed by major league baseball, bob manfred, the ceo of major league baseball. that deal that was highly touted between hedge fund steve cohen, billion dollar heir, he runs a hedge fund, that deal where he was going to buy 80% of the mets is off. steve cohen has walked away from the deal. sources tell fox business. as i say, mr. manfred, mlb commissioner, now confirmed it. he said at the owners meeting down in orlando, which is taking place right now, there is no deal as far as he's concerned. liz: so rob manfred -- charlie: confirmed the story from earlier today. there is no deal. now, i would point out that i have been told by a lot of baseball executives while there's no deal like now, it's done, steve cohen has walked away, the latest reports as of early today, there was a snag and they are working through it. i understand it's done, okay. now, could it come back is the real question. and you know, i think there is more than a theoret

if they throw the towel, who knows, maybe 6,000 -- ashley: some people have said that, charlie gasparino is ringing in just about ten minutes from now, coming up next today is countdown closer has no love for any sector of this e are companies that are hisay heart raise races, let's find out what they are when the claman countdown comes invested at a great rate. that's why fidelity leads the industry in value back. president trump warned the drug companies. it's unacceptable that americans pay vastly more than people in other countries, for the exact same drugs. but they aren't listening. they've just raised the prices of over five hundred drugs. president trump supports a bipartisan plan, that would force drug companies to lower prices. but the senate won't act. tell senate leaders to stop drug company price gouging and lower drug prices now. apps except work.rywhere... why is that? is it because people love filling out forms? maybe they like checking with their supervisor to see how much vacation time they have. or sending corporate their expense reports. i'll let you in on a little se

charlie gasparino. coronavirus turns out to be so infectious it may have penetrated even north korea. but north koreans have a particularly bloody way of keeping that virus in check. we will tell what you they are doing in response to it. also democrats have a plan to foreign felons back into this country at your expense and maybe into your neighborhoods. actorring secretary of dhs is here to respond. adam carolla is back. great interview as always. we'll be right back. ♪ ♪ i feel like i'm losing my identity. business cards...new logo...outdoor sign. you always get me. now, get free 1 hour in-store pick up... ...at office depot officemax and officedepot.com. same time next week. yes! let me tell you something, i wouldn't be here if i thought reverse mortgages took advantage of any american senior, or worse, that it was some way to take your home. learn how homeowners are strategically using a reverse mortgage loan to cover expenses, pay for healthcare, preserve your portfolio and so much more. a reverse

but if you follow charlie gasparino on twitter, these pardons should come as no surprise. this morning. there it is. he's now here with more details. the president on a roll right now. charlie: on blago and kerik. the timing was surprising, coming out right around the time he gave his presser today. he kind of snuck it in in the presser, saying something about milken. most people didn't really pick it up. when he was done, apparently they put out -- ashley: that's a name i haven't heard for a long time. charlie: i know him somewhat. i have covered him for years. i know him a little bit. i go to the milken conference. let's take each one of them in isolation. first off, i would like donald to pardon me for that panty raid i got caught up in back in high school. ashley: last week? oh, high school. okay. charlie: maybe he could put a good word in. ashley: sure. very disturbing news. charlie: i'm only kidding about that. it wasn't yorktown. guess where it was. ashley: i'm not going to speculate. charlie: so let's take kerik. kerik, long-time friend of rudy giuliani, worked for

charlie gasparino just referred to it. south carolina saturday. super tuesday. chris, i'll show you something. where we stand at the moment. down in south carolina, we have been watching the map. four years ago. hillary clinton, easy winner in the state. she is in blue. bernie sanders is in purple. looking at some of the polling in south carolina. if you average them together, joe biden has a pretty sizable lead. 12 points over sanders. tom steyer at 14%. the delegate math is interesting because you have 54 delegates on saturday. watch what happens. 72 hours later, this is super tuesday. 415 in california at stake and bernie sanders has a huge lead. the point to you and i know you've got joe biden on the show over the weekend will see how he answers a lot of these questions. what if biden wins in south carolina? is it the margin of his victory, let's argue, that will determine whether or not you get any momentum towards tuesday? >> first of all he's got to win. people are saying make or break. i don't think it's a make state but it could be a break. he has inves

charlie gasparino, why? you are getting exclusive details. charlie: this is what hedge fund traders are telling me, is tomorrow is a big test. it's pretty simple. if you talk to traders and you look at how they are positioning, the last thing they want to be is long going into the weekend. particularly with the dearth of information. barring something like an emergency fed rate cut which is always possible, tomorrow could be a pretty messy day. you don't want to have your positions long going into the weekend. who knows what's going to happen over the weekend. obviously there could be more deaths or another development that shakes the market. it's just not worth it. so what people are telling me is the algos are all set up and tomorrow might be the freight train. now, just so you know out there, i'm getting this from a consensus of hedge funds. i can't tell you what the margin of error is on the number of people i called. i'm relaying what my reporting's saying. if it doesn't happen, don't tell me that i sold all my stocks because of you. alwa

liz: charlie gasparino, less than 20 minutes before the closing bell rings. thank you, charlie. to charlie's point, thursday, a big investment guy, he has a big venture capital firm, he also deals with mergers and acquisitions, he said to me liz, i am selling all my equity today. he used the past tense. i sold them today. this was his personal account. i said okay, why. he said i think nobody understands how far-reaching the coronavirus is. however, as we look at the u.s. dollar, here's another opportunity. we're not just about saying doom and gloom, right. look at the u.s. greenback where this is truly the place where people are diving into the bomb shelter that is the u.s. greenback, against the euro, you can see it is much, much stronger. people are piling into this. the yen is sort of showing a little bit of strength. i think that's interesting. but we are talking about an aussie dollar, australian dollar, hitting an 11-year low. sometimes that's a proxy for china risk because the two countries do a lot of iron ore exchange and you get a sense of the trade between the two. a

we heard from charlie gasparino the hope was this would be $1 million, could this be a sign the moneyit comes to joe biden and where is the money going? bernie sanders, beneficiary of that, they are looking for support. he excuses the big money crowd. the democratic candidate hope to seize on developments. are they making traction? the best read i had, how much money they are raising or not but the latest news on biden is an encouragement. >> we are seeing numbers, the fragmentation of the party. all the time you have bernie sanders, they are nervous what that means. electability is of concern for him, too far left, biden is more to the center. he does have enough money. everyone else is bickering up against it which is a dysfunctional way of going into a race, finding one that we carry their voice. it is very dysfunctional. neil: not to endorse anybody, i wonder why it is. sanders and medicare for all, excusing very generous plans. >> they were worried about sanders asking, promoting medicare for all. and the healthcare they have, in las vegas. they were not endorsing anybody yet, an

i actually think, i know you hate to give him credit, but charlie gasparino made a good point before said that he -- neil: i hate to give charlie credit? you think i go against a fellow italian? >> i think he made a good point related to he said mike pence should be out there every day giving updates because if he's not doing that, he's allowing the market to fill in the blanks, and that's dangerous territory. we saw how the market was reacting to china trade, literally it was uncanny how it would go up and down based upon that news. i think this administration has to take control of the information being transparent and letting everybody know what's going on, and i think when that starts to happen, the markets will start to calm down. neil: they just need clarity or something to go on. i did wonder, i give full credit for the best and the brightest in the administration, but it's getting to be a pretty crowded car, the task force. now you have larry kudlow added to that, steve mnuchin, others. that's a lot of cops. >> that's a lot of cops. i think it's really important in these inst

charlie gasparino hasn't been told you can exercise too much. i see him there three times a day. s it for us. we'll see you back here next time. >> gentlemen, start your engines. liz: that was president trump revving up the daytona 500 after air force one did a fly over of the daytona speedway yesterday. president trump becoming the first sitting president to take a lap in the presidential armored limousine, called the beast. this, as the 2020 democrat primary season is now in the homestretch but the headlines now dominated by potentially even more voting app and technological voting meltdowns? also michael bloomberg's own words being used against the bloomberg campaign as the 2020

charlie gasparino has the latest. hey, charlie. >> he is seeking out. has learned because we were alerted by some madoff victims who i spoke to over the weekend, the federal judge in this case who sentenced bernie madoff to 150 years in prison whether he gets out to spend time with his family. bernie madoff says he is dying following his 150 year sentence before running one much the biggest ponzi schemes in history. the federal judge asked the victims, he put it out as part of the court filing, give us your input whether he should be released or not? again a novel thing. it doesn't happen much. it did happen with bernie inners ceo of worldcom when he asked to be released from prison. worldcom was one of the biggest financial crimes ever, a big accounting scandal. the difference between worldcom and madoff scandal, madoff hurt a lot of average people. people lost their life savings. they got back pennies on the dollar or made whole in a sense they were given back their initial investment, not the investment gains they thought they were accruing over the

[laughter] neil: thank you, my friend, charlie gasparino.e globe, and then there's charily. >>> in the meantime, california is pushing a new law for tenants, how it could upend the housing market there. after this. ♪ ♪ at fidelity, online u.s. stocks and etfs are commission-free. and when you open a new brokerage account, your cash is automatically invested at a great rate. that's why fidelity leads the industry in value while our competition continues to talk. ♪ talk, talk while our competition continues to talk. through the at&t network, edge-to-edge intelligence gives you the power to see every corner of your growing business. from finding out what's selling best... to managing your fleet... to collaborating remotely with your teams. giving you a nice big edge over your competition. that's the power of edge-to-edge intelligence. we were paying an arm and a leg for postage. i remember setting up shipstation. one or two clicks and everything was up and running. i was printing out labels and saving money. shipstation saves us so much time. i

charlie gasparino. more power to them? e: by the way, you think our demo is going up or down on this thing? liz: on you, probably not. stick around tonight because, oh, this is a good one, special edition of "bulls & bears." looky who's joining david asman. charlie: is that lou dobbs? liz: that's right. sparks are going to fly. charlie: think he'll say something nice about donald? liz: i'll tell you something. dagen will crush all of you. all right. when we come back, stay tuned. we are watching the last 26 minutes of the trading session here. buy china, just at the point where china is getting hammered from the coronavirus, oh, yeah, we have the guy who says you might be an idiot not to. you met on an app. delete it. why? he's the one. awww. gesundheit. i see something else... a star... with three points. you're in a... mercedes. yeah, we wish. wish granted. with four models starting under 37 thousand, there could be a mercedes-benz in your near future. lease the a 220 sedan for just $349 a month at your local mercedes-ben

charlie gasparino is looking at all these latest cross-currents and what wall street might be lookingo make a point what hillary just said about james clyburn and biden, what i understand, the biden campaign does have an ad cut to run with clyburn endorsing biden as soon as that endorsement is made official, so watch for it tomorrow and they hope that will increase black voter turnout and easily give him the south carolina primary this weekend. but getting back to bernie sanders, listen, this selloff, i have been speaking with a lot of investors, a lot of people running the major brokerage firms, are investors really worried about the coronavirus right now, is that why they are selling, or are they worried about bernie sanders, the socialist, getting in there? everybody is saying that the main worry is the coronavirus. that's the selling point and its impact potentially on gdp going forward if it keeps going on, supply chains are disrupted. that said, as bernie sanders racks up victories, every brokerage firm, every major wall street firm that deals with an investor is preparing for t

neil: i'm putting 1000 bucks to put charlie gasparino in one of those puppies to see what happens. >>acked a joke about one of our colleagues. he hears you. i don't know why i'm repeating it. neil: very nice having both of you. thanks for taking the time. meantime we have some low mortgage rates today following the low rate environment that we've been seeing at the corner of wall and broad all this week. it was already firmly in place for housing. we already had numbers out on home sales that blew all estimates away. can you imagine with added catalyst of much lower, indeed all-time low rates, what happens after this? well after this. don't just plan to retire. plan to live. an annuity helps cover your essential monthly expenses, so you're free to live the life you want. find out how an annuity can give you lifetime income at protectedincome.org neil: the u.s. state department issuing a travel advisory for italy saying that u.s. citizens should take extreme caution when traveling there. jackman -- jackmandela in a university of wisconsin, i believe at the airport there. good to have y

charlie gasparino hasn't been told you can exercise too much. i see him there three times a day. every time i'm there, charlie is there. that does it for us. we'll see you back here next time. >> gentlemen, start your engines. liz: that was president trump revving up the daytona 500 after air force one did a fly over of the daytona speedway yesterday. president trump becoming the first sitting president to take a lap in the presidential armored limousine, called the beast. this, as the 2020 democrat primary season is now in the homestretch but the headlines now dominated by potentially even more voting app and technological voting meltdowns? also michael bloomberg's own words being used against the bloomberg campaign as the 2020 democrats are piling on. the debates, will this steady barrage hurt the bloomberg campaign? we have new sound of him belittling the nation's farmers as quote, not needing a lot of gray matter to do their jobs. plus even more damaging leaks about michael bloomberg's negative comments about women and stop-and-frisk and even president obama. the bloomberg tea

charlie gasparino here on the latest details. point out that yesterday, our reporting on the repricing of the t-mobile/sprint deal came out. they did reprice it yesterday so if you were following us for the last i would say six to eight months, we have been saying the repricing is on the table. they actually did it yesterday. if you were a t-mobile shareholder, you had to give up a few less shares to make this thing work. it was beneficial to t-mobile because sprint shares went down. that's the first thing. the second thing is in the aftermath of all this, there is now charlie ergen looking to do -- he's going to do another wireless carrier but he's got to do something with his dish network which is not making a lot of money. from what we understand, back on the table is both a merger possibly with directv that ergen is still contemplating that, but also, from what we understand, sources are telling us he's approaching tech to invest in dish. so clearly, there's a play here on dish, something is going on. look at that stock chart

we have lou dobbs, dagen mcdowell, charlie gasparino and deirdre bolton, all here for the full hour.to talk about all the subjects in the news. melissa: a-team, you got the a-team. i'm not giving up any wine. >> we call it the dream team but you can call it the a-team. connell: that will be a nice calm show i'm sure. wealth tax beware, details on exodus from high-taxed states. ♪. which most pills don't. flonase helps block 6 key inflammatory substances. most pills only block one. flonase. attacks for wealthy, a new study showing four out of five states with the slowest population growth also have a graduated income tax. now illinois wants to join the club. jeff is in chicago with the details. jeff: i am walking what i guess is the rodeo drive chicago, oak street here. a lot of fancy shops in all piping. he's of the folks that bear the burden if the new amendment to the old constitution goes into effect which would implement a graduated tax. you mentioned the slowest growing states, look at the fastest growing states. put those up there. utah, texas, colorado, florida. what do they al

charlie gasparino is reporting behind the scenes that they want biden to drop out in favor of michaelloomberg. he even said he feels sorry for biden but he has no chance. joe is not letting go telling the ladies on the view that he still has the edge on bloomberg. >> i don't think you can buy an election. everybody thinks that. one of the advantages and disadvantage, i've been only got to the process who has been totally vetted. i've had a target on my back since i got in, i'm still standing. and i will get a chance to debate their bluebird, get a chance to debate him from redlining to stop and frisk and whole list of other things. david: does joe biden have enough political mojo left to reverse the mode known to him of sanders and bloomberg. >> i think that the wall street folks are onto something. i put into context, wall street likes to invest in what they are seeing, joe biden is not necessarily a good investment. he has performed poorly in the last two contest and i will caucus in the new hampshire primary. i guess joe biden's defense, he has been looking towards performing stron

that could've been because charlie gasparino said people should sell 30% of their portfolio at this point everybody realized i'm safe it's not going down further. i'm kidding. [laughter] or it could be the digestion that maybe we put in a whole lot of selling and maybe overdone if you think about some of the things susan said, if it swept through china and there already reopening, it gives you a little bit of a luck of how long things elsewhere might be closed and frankly is not that long from a business perspective. >> at the end of the day we have no idea but we do know that the market was puking up all week long and this gives people an opportunity who did not necessarily want to get into the broader market because we don't know broadly what's going to happen or what the timeframe or the volatility to pick and choose key names. if your long-term investor, when you start seeing names that you really like on a major sale, that's when you build a position. that's what i see happening here, certainly not all the way back because were going into a weekend and a lot of people don't want to h

charlie gasparino, best in the business, with us right now. now what?u know, you kind of want to say the state ags, liberal state ags led by the ag in california and here in new york, are the big losers but really, the big losers here is wall street. coming into this, wall street was betting heavily the states would win the suit, they would break up the merger. i interviewed at the courthouse a couple weeks ago john legere, the ceo of t-mobile, great guy, and john -- neil: he was running away with you. charlie: actually, he wasn't. by the way, one of the few people that said night thince t about me, like i break a lot of stories. and you know, he said we're going to win. so the companies are winners here -- neil: he's a winner here. charlie: sprint shareholders are winners. neil: does he run the show? charlie: he's stepping down. he's handing it over. that was kind of baked in the cards. if the deal didn't happen, who knows what would have gone on. you know, this is a big story today because the u.s., the reason why the trump administration really pushe

charlie gasparino just ran down to the set with new details on just how close a public/private partnership out there may be to putting an end to the deadly virus and the market's pain. charlie: i can't tell you how close they are, but i can tell you the trump administration is working pretty hard. how do i know this. i have some sources at these biochemical companies. they are being openly courted by the trump administration to basically talk to them, tell them where they are in terms of the phase of their trials with the fda, what type of products they have. the whole thing is being conducted through something called a biomedical advance research and development authority. never knew about that authority. it does exist. they have a website. what happened was they had a website, they have been contacted drug makers like phase one, phase two. phase one, phase two, fda approval process. what are you pointing to? liz: i want to tell the viewers because it's a weird setup on the screen. it's better if you look directly at them. charlie: you want me to look at them? liz: yes. charlie: okay. in

charlie gasparino was the first to break the story.re you are in the political stripes of things something like this is, just a good feeling. >> i have to admit it was moving, listening to him with the kids and everything there today. i have mean, really touched me. i don't know, listen he is a trained politician. you know is still good. blago was always a good politician. people forget he became a punch line for a little bit but he was always a good politician. he still knows how to -- neil: you wonder the sentence for the crime. he was getting into this a lot. republicans and democrats, whether that really -- >> i stumble, i kind of stumbled on the blago story and kerik. i'm a financial reporter. how do i do this? i covered white-collar crime. i have sources in that area. one thing i will tell you in terms of white collar crimes. he made statements about the '94 crime bill which i think are very pertinent. that bill disproportionately affects african-americans mainly because of the drug offenses and heightened sentencing for non-viol

charlie gasparino has the story. >> i can tell you will all about the story.leave your hour on a high note. neil: right. i was thinking like, you know, ripping up stuff. all right. what is going on withwith softbank. there we go. >> there we go. you want to talk about? neil: softbank. >> the bigger story is not the gentleman that left. i don't know his name. you don't know his name. very smart guy i'm sure. it is the guy staying, misra, the head of softbank vision fund. the guy has taken a lot of flak for wework. neil: this just isn't any fund. there is a lot of money behind it. >> 100 billion-dollar colossus that basically incubates every major tech company and made really bad bets this year including wework. we knew, we the rotted in the past there would be a shake-up in the fund. we thought misra is going but we is is not. he is staying. his number two is going. here is the interesting thing. this is where the rubber meets the road on this, misra is trying to raise money for the second vision fund. he is trying to get the biggest investor of the first visio

charlie gasparino has details. what are you hearing? arlie: as you can tell, the white house is in full campaign mode and they should. they are using every knock as a push, as they say back in the neighborhood. next week, you can see another push. what we understand, we are getting this from congressional sources, that speculation is swirling that that tax increase, excuse me, that tax cut plan i have been talking about for awhile, a stimulus plan, is going to be released very soon, it's going to be released possibly as early as next week, in conjunction what we understand with an infrastructure plan. it's interesting. on the heels of the impeachment, on the heels of the president being xexonerated by the senate on the heels of the iowa caucus debacle for the democrats, the white house is not wasting any time. from what we understand, they are scrambling essentially to put together some sort of stimulus package. it will be an election year stimulus package. what i don't know, i'm hearing lots of different rumors out there, whether it's g

charlie gasparino, which is kind of like infant all the way up to mature. arlie: thanks for having me. neil: what's happening here? charlie: right now, michael milken and the milken institute are having a big conference in aeb dae aeb da abu dhabi. this is very controversial. the first couple years, didn't do good lately because of wework, they are trying to start a second one. there's a lot of pushback on the second one. first off, in the conference, we understand mike milken in abu dhabi is basically giving yoifrits overall performance a vote of confidence, at a time when this fund and softbank's playing in this fund is coming under incredible scrutiny. again, elliott management, the activist investor, is involved. the reason why, they made a lot of bad investments recently, a lot of good ones over the years and they are essentially the incubator for tech unicorns. take them out of the business, there's not going to be -- this is such a -- if they cut back on financing unicorns, there may not be a union cocorn market go forward. uber was financed by them.

charlie gasparino has been looking into all of this? say business stories coming out of this besides the obvious market reaction is, i am talking to a lot of hedge fund traders they believe this is overblown. how rational wall street looks at stuff, overly rational. they're basically calculating the death toll of the coronavirus. what they're saying don't equate this to the bubonic plague where everybody dies. that is how they're looking at it because the initial market selloff is catastrophic. we're down 1000, 900 points right now. this thing is not, as bad in terms of a death toll than -- neil: scare them the fact that it is much more widespread than earlier thought. italy saying that 28, 30 countries now. >> those are bad headlines, no doubt but just remember this is not something that everybody automatically dies and people touching something and dying. the market is reacting to that. the thing that scared them, china, reaction to it, lack of real information. it was a very bad way that china handled this out of the gate. markets ar

charlie gasparino here, ubs financial adviser richard leon. good to see you. richard, on that, hedge funds always have this reputation for, you know, exacerbating things. do they risk exacerbating this? >> you know, i don't really think this is going to have a long-term impact on the u.s. economy. what's going on here is that markets don't like uncertainty. there's a lot of uncertainty surrounding this virus right now. neil: you just pointed to more. >> whether or not this extends into april, may or june, we think it's very unlikely this will send the u.s. economy into recession. neil: what if it does extend into the so-called warmer months where the president was quoting a lot of medical types who are saying that kills off something like this. what if it doesn't? >> even if this moves into the second quarter, we still think it's unlikely this drives the u.s. economy into recession. we have to keep in mind that the economic backdrop here, the fundamentals of the u.s. economy are very healthy. we have a strong u.s. consumer, banks are very strong. we are really

brian: charlie gasparino knows him well. >> i know him well.s of wall street. helped create the nasdaq stock market and successful firm. then he had this mysterious size business, investment business. that's what turned out to be a upon z ponzi scheme. he wants to get out of jail early. please let me out. his family came out. he is suffering, he is going to die in a couple months and he has dementia. bernie evers didn't cause the type of strife. steve: so many people wiped out. >> people committed suicide. his son committed suicide. i wonder who he wants to spend time with. his one son committed suicide, mark. because he couldn't take what was thrown at him. steve: being a madoff. >> he wasn't a bad guy. most people they couldn't find anything. his second son andrew died of cancer. the stress, who knows whether the stress caused it. he had a -- i mean, there were people that committed suicide. brian: what about his wife. >> his wife is estranged last time i have heard. maybe they have spoken recently. ainsley: they haven't gotten divorced. >> n