have to walk back. so boom. it's like. i'm down for that [laughs]. yep, yep. alison loves hiking. definitely. definitely. heather and matt found their american dream on lake tahoe. and many more are finding that in america, dreams and dream homes still come true. maria: good wednesday morning, everyone. thank you so much for joining us. i'm maria bartiromo and it is wednesday february 16th, your top stories right now 6:00 a.m. on the east coast. treason and the crime of the century. president trump responding to john durham's latest filing revealing the clinton campaign paid a government technology company before and during his time during oval office. trump telling fox news this is a continuation of the crime of the

century. there was never any collusion between russia and president trump and it was a made-up story by the clinton campaign. here is the president last week. >> i had nothing to do with russia. it was a hoax by hillary clinton and the democrats. it was a fake investigation and it turned out no collusions, zero, no collusions. maria: that was the president with me here last week and continue to follow it all morning long. take a look at futures fractional losses to report. dow industrials down 21, stocks lower across the board with ftse 100 down 2 and a half and the nasdaq lower by 8. this is showing a decline so far for the month of february despite easing russia ukraine tensions putin says some troops are pulling back from ukraine but the west wants proof. oil plunging this morning from 7-year high, seeing the steepest loss in two months hovering at

93.21, oil prices back up again this morning up 1.13 or 1 and a quarter percent at 93.19 on crude. yesterday markets were rallying pretty much strong, finishing at session highs in broad-market rally, we are taking a look ahead of resail sales out 8:30 a.m. eastern. look at nasdaq, up 2 and a half percent at 4:00 o'clock on wall street. big earnings out this week. we will be watching cisco this afternoon. it will come out with quarterly numbers after the close and wal-mart will report tomorrow. wal-mart stories down a afraction. cisco down a fraction. in europe overnight, markets closed in the green, best

performer overnight japan nikkei average up 2 and a quarter percent. mornings with maria live right now. ♪ ♪ ♪ maria: morning mover this morning, air b&b stock posting strong fourth quarter revenue, bookings up as travelers are getting longer home stays, upwards $1.48 billion, higher than expectations. the stock this morning up 3.1%. there's road blocks, the stock is tanking after a better, bigger than expected net loss for the fourth quarter despite new record of daily active users up 33% and 28% rise in hours playing the game.

stock is down 16%. it says it's excited of global growth to include older users but investors are reacting with a decline of 16%. we are looking at earnings, right now on the screen, duh industrials down 33, s&p 500 down 4 and a quarter and the nasdaq lower by 17 and a half as the geopolitical tensions remain, markets yesterday snapped a 3-day losing street with big rally, dow finishing 422 points, the nasdaq and s&p 500 also strong throughout the session. yesterday the nasdaq was up 349 points, that was 2 and a half percent on the session. this morning we have economic data that could be market movings. january retail sales coming out this morning. expectations call for gain of 2% on retail sales, we will also get import-export prices all this morning and release of federal reserve meetings.

let's see what the fed says about upcoming march meeting where we are expecting the fed to raise rates possibly by half a point. joining me hermes phil orlando and joining the conversation republican strategist and lead attorney at the madison firm jonathan madison is here and the hill columnist fox news contributor joe concha is here as well, thank you so much for being here. phil, great to see you, thanks for joining the conversation. your thoughts on all of the volatility and show 2022 looking to you in terms of gains for equities. >> good morning, maria, thank you very much for having me back. our view is that the start of calendar '22 is going to be extraordinarily choppy and volatile compared to relatively positive period we enjoyed in calendar '20 and calendar '21. we thought that stocks could drop by 8 to 12% over nine

months or so this year. we got the decline in the first 3 weeks of the year. we had a little bit of a rebound here from 4200 to 4600 on the s&p 500. that gave us the opportunity a week ago monday. we took some more chips off the table, maria. we took our domestic large cap growth underway added to 2%, we are sitting at 5% cash right now which is a lot of cash for us. we think there's going to be a move lower in coming weeks, coming months and we are advising our clients to hunker down and play a little bit of defense here. maria: and is that largely because of rates going higher, phil, what's behind your feeling that you want to sit it out before deploying the cash to work, it does appear that things are getting better on the covid front, the ceo of moderna saying that it's reasonable to believe that the pandemic is now in its

final stages putting that aside, earnings had been largely better than expected, your thoughts on what is going to drive these markets, are you raising cash because of rate hikes? >> exactly right on all counts. we believe that this is the year the pandemic becomes endemic in terms of covid and corporate earnings, we are 3 quarters of the way through the fourth quarter earning season. we are 25% year on year which is terrific. our concern is that inflation right now is running at a 40-year high and we have not yet peaked. oil prices have tripled over the course of the last 15 months. gasoline prices moving higher and as a result the fed is behind the curve and coming on meeting, we will see hawkish turn in policy. we will see the taper, the bond-buying taper will be completed in march.

we expect the federal reserve is going to start to raise rates aggressively, probably 50 basis points in march. maybe 5 additional quarter point hikes over the balance of the year taking the fund rate up 1.75%. we think the federal reserve will start an aggressive, active reduction of trillion dollar balance sheet and taking down to a pace of let's call it trillion dollars a year over the next several years. for all of those reasons i'm not sure -- we are not sure that the market has fully priced that in. we think that will result in more volatility at minimum. we think the s&p 500 could go back and form a double bottom retest that 4200 level and if that level doesn't hold 3800 is for probably the next level where we've got some really good support. maria: so you're speaking of inflation and we showed the price of oil, phil, we are talking another gain for crude

sitting at $93 a barrel. the other day oil hit $95 a barrel. what do you want to do in terms of allocating capital? do you want to buy oil companies, energy-related companies or companies that will have the pricing power to -- to deal with this inflation that you're referring to? >> absolutely. energy has been our single best category over the last 15 months so we have done well with our clients there. more broadly, we are focused on domestic large-cap and small-cap value stocks and international develop and small and mid-cap stocks. the thinking here is that we want to play some defense. those categories i've just mentioned are trading about 40% cheaper than domestic growth companies like technology, for example, the betas, the risk profiles on those stocks significantly lower and you've

got very good dividend yield support, a lot of these companies are offering 3, 4% did end yield. so, again, if we are right that the stock market is going to drop 20% or so before it hits bottom, we think those value stocks might be down 10%, we think the growth companies might be down 40%. so we've raised a little bit of cash and we are focused on companies that we think are going to be, you know, more supportive of the environment. now, we think we are going to hit a bottom somewhere late, somewhere early fall, we are going to end this year we think in a very powerful recovery based upon what we think are going to be strong election results and frankly the pricing in of the volatility associated with what the federal reserve is doing and inflation. so we want to play defense now and offense later in the year. maria: yeah, we will see if the retail sales number tells us anything about inflation's impact on consumers, consumer has been doing well but we are

expecting retail sales to come out this morning. the estimate up 2% month over month. your thoughts on retail sales, sit priced into the market? >> christmas so far has been pretty good. up 17% year on year. january versus a month ago will be very strong, january versus a year ago will be a lot choppier. january is important because of the gift card sales. maria: phil, great to see you. phil orlando joining us this morning. we will catch you up soon. great to see you. flip-flopping on mandates. is it science or politics, calling shots for democrats cities. canadian truckers heading to day 20 of freedom convoy, we are taking you live to ottawa canada for update. you're watching mornings with maria live on fox business. ♪ ♪ ♪

maria: welcome back. some of the top stories that we

are watching this morning. russia plays poker now saying it is open to diplomacy claiming it will ease its military buildup and move tanks away from the ukraine border but the united states and the west remain on high alert and see no evidence of significant draw-down and president biden saying that invasion of ukraine is, quote, distinctly possible. >> could be impact on energy prices if russia attacks ukraine, they would be met with overwhelming nation condemnation. the world will not forget that russia chose needless death and destruction. maria: germany's chancellor says he does not expect ukraine to join nato in the foreseeable future. of course, changing the subject

with hillary clinton, surveillance of trump communication and internet flow. senate republicans blocking votes on five federal reserve nominees including sarah bloom raskin as president biden's as lead banking regulator. raskin also previously called for restrictive lending to the oil and gas industry. pennsylvania senator pat toomey saying she's given insufficient answers and colorado payment firm in 2018 obtained access to the federal reserve's payment system suggests she wants national payment system and not through the bank. sandy hook victims reaching settlement, ar15 style rifle used in 2012 massacre. left children 20 and 6 adults dead. could open the door to more

lawsuits seeking to hold gun companies liable for mass shootings. canadian truckers holding the line for 20 days and counting despite executive action from prime minister justin trudeau threatening to push anyone back against mask mandates. brady, good morning to you. reporter: good morning, maria, despite the prime minister invoking those extraordinary powers we haven't seen much of a change here in terms of the posture of the police or the mood of the truckers, they tell us they are staying put and this comes after we got an update from the ottawa police yesterday, they say that the block aid has cost them about $14 million since the beginning around $800,000 per day. they say there are more than 150 active criminal investigations into the blockade right now and they've issued 3,000 tickets to people for bylaw violations like noise violations, idling for too

long and having open fires, those kinds of smaller violations. yesterday the ottawa police chief resigned. there has been criticism from people who are not participating in this protest that he doesn't -- hasn't done enough to break up the protestors but the truckers, maria, continue at to decide with how politicians are characterizing this as and illegal blockade or taking the city under siege. here is how the head of the providence of ontario described it. >> the we are giving them freedoms but they are hurting more people than the pandemic could ever hurt, ever. hundreds of thousands of jobs, millions of families. >> was hacked earlier in the week but that website is back online. they've been collecting donations for truckers here and we looked this morning and there is an adopt a trucker option where people can once again donate but part of those

sweeping powers that the prime minister announced allows the government to essentially shut down our freeze those crowd funding accounts that are funneling money to the truckers, the police department, maria, says they are in a good position to get this under control in the next few days but exactly how they will do that we still don't know, maria. maria: grady trimble in ottawa this morning, i'm with joe concha and madison, your reaction of freezing the bank accounts of the truckers. unbelievable reaction from trudeau. >> maria, none of this is based on science and logic. that's something that very few people are talking about. cases are down about 90% in canada and trucking as you know, you can't be any more quash teened in any profession than being a trucker. it has nothing to do with the science or keeping people healthy, maria. >> yeah, they are pushing back on a vaccine mandate which was

deemed unconstitutional in this country, jonathan. jonathan: right, deemed uncon unconstitutional. you have to stop the leftist way of thinking of not accepting views, you to accept. maria: yeah, that's true. we will take a break, when we come back the crime of the century, special council john durham's latest filing shows that the clinton campaign paid a technology company to spy on president trump. what this could mean to all involved, we will see when the next indictment comes down is line. soaring to space, how to get your hands on out of the world travel ticket all ahead, don't miss it.

maria: welcome back, the crime of the century, president trump calling on the justice department to release the remaining records related to the original russia probe as i've been reporting for years special counsel john durham latest filing shows clinton campaign paid technology contracted company to intercept and spy on president trump before and during his time in office. trump telling fox news exclusively this is the beginning. hillary clinton dodging questions about it from a daily mail reporter yesterday.

watch. >> did you pay to spy on the trump campaign, when are you going to comment on the spying allegations, hillary, did you pay to have him spied on? maria: joining me right now senior editor of the federalist, he's also the right forge.com chief communication officer, christopher bedford, chris, thank you very much for being here. it's finally coming out what took place, your reaction on the indictments and where they lead next. >> incredibly vindiating now, maria, we have been talking about this for years on the show and a lot of folks saying something really fishy here. is further proof of what we saw with carter page and what we saw with the steele dossier and media outlets and the cia and any fbi, excuse me, working together and using each other to corroborate evidence. hillary clinton here pays a firm that is alleged by durham, the chief technology officer goes in and is stealing information or mining information from white

house communication, incoming communication and using as further proof as allegations they made at the very beginning. the trump administration was working with russia. this is a coup leverage attack on the administration. it was used for four years to try to hampster the administration and investigate it and knock out the attorney general and indict members of the campaign team. the entire thing from the very beginning was a hoax and now if you look at it you see the new york times trying to say it's too complicated to explain and you see democrats silent and you see most of the media completely ignoring the explosive allegations. maria: unbelievable. i couldn't believe the article in the time saying it's complicated to explain. we are talking on something bordering on treason, that may very well be treason working with outsiders. russia, she was the one working with russia to try the take down

trump. i wonder if john brennan will face the cia. he knew the dossier was garbage and yet no evidence of collusion and he kept going all on tv saying that there was collusion and trump colluded. i wonder if jim comey is going to be brought to justice at the fbi and let me just point out that one part of the story that has not been exposed broadly yet is the entrapment part of the story. let's not forget the cia running around, running into trump officials dropping things so that they repeat them. i'm talking about papadopoulos, george papadopoulos was an attempted entrapment and, of course, carter passenger and general michael flynn which they also try today set him up and i wonder if the entrapment story will get exposed the way the surveillance has now. >> i think it absolutely should. this whole thing was based on allegations the hillary clinton

campaign made that he was involved with russia and then after that the secret into the intelligence services, the u.s. media, a bunch of spies paid by the hillary clinton campaign and the campaign itself all ran around in circles and circles looking at each other playing a game of telephone where they confirmed their own rumors over and over again and trapping people, and trying to ruin lives and it's insane, at the end of the day, it's going to take a lot of courage from republicans and will power to hold anyone accountable and it's been so disappointing so far outside of few courageous figures like devin nunes and disappointing to see actions that i'm excited by this newest revelation but i'm still waiting to be disappointed again. maria: devin nunes and john ratcliffe for sure. let me just say that it wasn't just spying on your political operative, these are major, major national security issues. i mean, to think that an outside technology company could be able to mind the internet flow and the data of the office of the president without the -- the

president knowing it's just extraordinary. so many of our adversaries want to do just that so this is so important to really be a focus. we will see if the mainstream media is not continuing to be as shameful as they have been all of these years. washington, d.c. major flip-flopping on the vaccine mandate, chris, for businesses just one month after the program began. the mask mandates are also gone, not for everybody. in your latest piece most telling, however, it helps to spare the city's school children. for them there's no lobby and so for them there's no rest fight, chris, you have the ceo of moderna out saying that the pandemic is in the final stages, you have masks coming down across the country and yet not for these school kids in washington? >> it's absolutely shameful to see it. you see big restaurant tourism, powerful businessmen in dc trying to push back, thankfully they did against the mayor last

week, you are destroying our businesses and no longer welcoming place to americans and no longer welcoming place to 60% of the dc black population that can no longer get access to restaurants. she rescinded the order after month of chaos and sadness and people being banned from restaurants and confrontations, that was gone at the same time she said in two weeks no one is going to have to wear a mask but then at the end of that she said the children will have to wear them indefinitely and what connects those things is the children are not a voting block, the children don't have lobby interest, the children don't make money for this district, the children are actually among the first people when we are learning the basics of this pandemic when it first to came, you know what, it isn't affecting children. entering our third year because of the teachers unions we are still victimizing these children so there is a lobby that supposedly reflects the children's wishes but for the last 3 years it's been lobbying against them. my neighbor dropped 5-year-old child in school just yesterday having the door shut in their

face and yelled at because he wasn't wearing a mask. this is abusive treatment across the country. maria: well, yeah, our kids are really at a disadvantage now and you talk about lobbying, the parents are the new lobby right now for the children for sure. christopher, good to see you, thank you so much. christopher bedford, joining us, stay with us. ♪ ♪ ♪

maria: welcome back, good wednesday morning, everybody. thank you so much for joining us. i'm maria bartiromo and it is wednesday february 16th, a look at market this is half an hour. futures are indicating lower this morning. dow industrials down 45, s&p 500 and the nasdaq down fractionally, 4 points, 5 points on the s&p and the nasdaq. the dow and the nasdaq rallying yesterday pretty much across the board all about 1 and a quarter percent higher finishing the session at highs. the session highs, dow industrials up 422 yesterday. one and a quarter percent. the nasdaq was up 348 points. those two and a half percent

yesterday and the s&p 500 higher by 1 and a half percent, 69 points. this morning all eyes on retail sales. that is the number to watch this morning out in about 2-hours time, it will likely move markets, we are expecting a gain of 2% for the retail sales for month of january. import. port data out as well. european markets look like this. a mixed story here. ftse 100 down 19, but the cac up a fraction and dax index higher by 12. in asia overnight markets green across the board, best performer in asia was japan. nikkei average up 2 and a quarter percent. meanwhile back in the u.s. the securities and exchange commission examining the relationship between the world's largest crypto currency exchange and two trading firms. cheryl casone with the details. cheryl: well, maria, good morning to you. the two trading firms the sec is looking at sigma chain, well, the agency wants to know how binance disclosed to customers. affiliated market makers made

trade on the exchange but doesn't name which ones. putting documents ties ceo to the two firms and former executives say that as of last year xao controlled them both. prince andrew and virginia jeffrey settling, some of the reach deal not disclosed but substantial donation to her charity. jeffrey filed the lawsuit against the prince last year alleging that the disgraced and maxwell forced to have sex with the prince as a teenager. the national weather service says heavy snow drenching rape, drenching rainare all on top. all in risk of severe weather.

download the fox weather app for all of the latest updates on this storm. and finally this starting today, virgin galactic is opening space trips to the general public, $450,000, maria, and you have to put a deposit of 150,000 bucks to hold the spot. tickets available for 1,000 customers for trips later this year, each flight about 90 minutes. stock is down by the way, about 66% since last october and down a quarter percent right now. yeah, no thanks, maria. but you go. i will cheer you from down here on the ground. maria: no, i will be cheering everybody else on, cheryl. thank you so much. i'm staying here as well. russia playing poker now saying it is open to diplomacy and claiming to ease military build-up by moving tanks away from ukraine's border, president trump claiming an invasion could

remain possible. >> i will not pretend this could be painless f russia attack ukraine it will be met with overwhelming international condemnation. the world will not forget that russia chose needless death and destruction. maria: joining me right now is two-star marine corps general, author of the book, the ever-shrinking fighting force, general arnold penero. general, thank you for being here. let's start with russia and reaction of changing course, over the weekend the state department was hyping everything up telling us to get out of ukraine immediately, the leakers actually give us a specific date that russia would be invading ukraine today and, of course, yesterday we see that russia started pulling troops back, your thoughts? >> well, maria, it's always a privilege to be with you and i

would say in the military we look at capabilities and not intentions and putin has put a massive invasion force at a razer's age, belarus, the east flank and southern flank through crimea and within a snap of finger, putin can have them go into ukraine. we have to look at that no matter what he says. should he invade, lose situation to everybody involved. lose to ukraine because of life, property and democratic freedoms and the ukrainians will fight but as someone who has personal experience going against russian tanks and artillery, physical courage are no match for the ruthless russian military. lose for nato because the destabilization of nato, the

weak german center, the new nato members that haven't beefed up their own military although lose for russia with the sanctions he's already amassing additional $120 billion more because he's driven out the price of oil and gas but to me, maria, the biggest loss is the shift away from real threat which is china and we need to beef up offensive and defensive capabilities in taiwan immediately. maria: as you know, we have talked about that a lot. i will get into the readiness of the u.s. versus china in a moment but does putin really want to see all of those losses, does putin really want to see the potential for soldiers to be lost in russia? that's why i'm feeling like he's playing the world here. the markets, of course, still on edge. look at where oil is right now. we've already seen a significant impact of the standoff with oil at $93 a barrel. it was at 95 just a couple of days ago, general.

part of the signs that russia-ukraine tensions this morning are still sort of questioned. republicans and democrats are divided on when the sanction russian pipelines but, you know, it's incredible to me that the one piece of leverage that we have is what joe biden gave putin six months ago and that's the north stream pipeline. i know that you think that imposing sanctions won't have much of an impact, little if any impact on russia? >> well, maria, you've summed up extremely well and we have to remember that when putin was still in the kgb, the russian intelligence apparatus he never made it past the rank of lieutenant colonel because superiors thought he was too reckless, this is a reckless individual. i'm certainly not an expert on how putin thinks and operates but, again, you have to lack at the capabilities he's had there and you have to look at the fact that he's amassing huge because he's driven the price of oil and

gas up. and so i think that military, the russian military remains at the ready and putin is playing us to a certain extent and it's having an effect. maria: yeah. well, i mean, he's playing us, the state department may also be playing us because the hysteria over the weekend was obviously an opportunity to take the conversation away from hillary clinton paying an outside technology company to spy on president trump which is an incredible national security issue in and of itself. but let's talk china for a moment, pentagon press secretary kirby saying china has destabilizing europe but we are waiting to see whether joe biden agrees and take a stands against the ccp.

it's incredible to me that he hasn't brought up the origins of covid-19 to xi jinping and we are looking at defense spending declining. so here we are now investing in the military and china has been investing in military, speak to the readiness to have military right now in the united states and compare the navy, for example, for example, to china's navy? >> well, maria, we have to deal with the world the way it is now the world our diplomats would like to see it and you have assessed the military of order in china correctly. they have built up massive navy, larger than the u.s. navy. congress by the way still has not passed the defense funding bill. they hope to pass something by march 11th but we've been 5 months under flat spending and we lost $30 billion and congress which claims it wants to basically send a strong signal to putin has not able to pass the sanction's bill even though

there's bipartisan support. our military is ready as it can be, certainly we have to basically beef up to deal with china, not just from a policy standpoint, our force structure in the pacific, maria, is the same as it was in the year 2000 and so china sees all of that. they are very smart. the other development that's very distressing to me is during the peak of the cold war our whole policy was to keep russia and china at each other's throat. russia had 44 divisions on the mongolian border and now they are together. we have to basically -- if congress will pass the funding bill, congress increase the amount. they haven't passed it. we have to get that done. maria: yeah, it's another -- it's another example of why politics should be nowhere near the military. all of the last four years when the democrats and the media were

running around creating stories of -- of collusion with donald trump, china was building hypersonic missiles, so there you go in terms of the indirect implications of this scandal. general, great to see you, thank you very much for being here this morning and always spot on, gem arnold punaro, we are talking about crypto and the impact. we will be right back. ♪ ♪ ♪

maria: welcome back, weekly mortgage applications due out at 7:00 a.m. this morning earlier this month they slipped to 8.1%. biggest decline in almost a year as buyers face higher interest rates on the way. crypto is also making its way into the housing market as digital assets are now being promoted as collateral for down payments. joining right now emphasis digital risk cofounder, managing director there as well, jeff taylor, jeff, great to see you, thank you very much for being here. i want to ask you about crypto and how it's changing the landscape, first assess the market for us in terms of mortgages right now. we've got all of the questions about the economy with rates on the way to go higher, how would you assess the market today? >> it's great seeing you again, maria. so right now the housing market is probably the strongest it's ever been.

we are coming off $3.9 trillion year in 2021 and as we head into 2022 the key stat that we are looking at we are projecting $1.7 trillion purchase market to get perspective this is the strongest purchase market in the last 25 years. and with home equity at all-time record highs at $23 trillion this is a strong across the nation as you have seen the housing market in the last couple of decades. maria: yeah, that's terrific. does anything slow it down with rates going higher or do you think this gets managed within the market because rates are going to be very changed at the end of this year from where they were boosting the mortgage market in the past couple of. >> 100% right. from a refinance perspective this year you can see 8,011,000,000 in refinances. a year ago about 1.8 trillion -- trillion in refinancing. so that obviously come down significantly. rates are going to be higher but, again, such tight inventory across the country and you're

seeing price appreciation grow about 7 to 8% nationally right now so rates will change it, refinances will go down but the purchase market will come up. and then to your question about the crypto market, right, we have talked a lot about crypto and all different asset classes in the housing market we talked about two aspects, number 1 if i'm a buyer right now and i want to use crypto to buy a house and i'm buying a loan backed by freddie or fannie, we are still not there yet. the gsc's are looking to be able to take crypto over the course of the next couple of but we are not there yet, however, we have seen crypto being pledged to buy houses in the housing market, we are using crypto today and make you a home loan but to give you an idea, that's only $10 million in annual basis of what was a $3.9 trillion market last year. maria: so is crypto being used largely in luxury home markets or across the board, how is crypto changing the situation?

>> so right now crypto is being used in niche products where it's literally one-off-type luxury homes where somebody is willing to stand behind the backing of that house which is not your traditionalback and not your traditional fannie or freddie to buy the loan. right now it's a niche product between crypto and block chain which is different, to originate loans we will see that increase significantly over the next couple of. to give you a couple of data points in the home equity loan, we saw $3 billion originated on the block chain in 2021. maria: wow. >> that's significant because in the origination we took out 101 basis points of cost and much faster and much secure transaction. maria: gad stuff, jeff, great to get your take, thank you so much. >> thank you so much for having me, maria, great to see you again. maria: jeff taylor joining us big announcement from our panelists today, jonathan

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maria: welcome back. time for the hot topic buzz. a special announcement from one of our panelists this morning. jonathan madison, you are taking

a turn in the world of politics. tell us about it. >> absolutely, maria. i'm here to announce i'm running for congress in congressional district nine in the central valley where i live. and in short, maria, i'm running because there's a rise if in crime, i'm running because there's a rise in homelessness, i'm running because of the rise in the cost of living and inflation and as we continue to see as the troubles continue to rise, the anxieties and fears of the american people so too rise as well. we've got to send a message to washington, d.c. and every leader that's taken a stand, that they can no longer be tone deaf of to the concerns of the american people, particularly my district in the central valley. that's why i'm running, maria. homelessness, we've seen in this state and california i'm sure you know, we're home to nearly half the nation's homeless population. we pump more money into it than any other state. crime is skyrocketing at a level

we've never seen before. we hear from people on the left we need to defund the police, the people tasked with safeguarding us. we've got to do more. that's why i'm running for congress, maria. maria: i'm thrilled for you. congratulations. there are a lot of things to fix in your district. homelessness among the big issues. this is not just a problem in your part of the country. joe, we're looking at homelessness and drug addicts on the vote in a lot of big cities run by democrats, joe. >> oh, maria, we should go have lunch at penn station in new york some time, you will see what that looks like. jonathan has an excellent chance in california. it's been over two decades since a republican captured a democratic held district in california. in 2020, republicans flipped four seats. even in blue california, people are sick of homelessness, they're sick of the crime, sick of the leadership and i think mr. madison here has an excellent chance of doing quite

well in his race this year given the trends and given his message. maria: well, your friends here on "mornings with maria," jonathan, will be watching and rooting you on. good luck with all and thanks for breaking the news right here. jonathan and joe, stay right there. the next hour of "mornings with maria" begins right now. ♪ maria: good wednesday morning, everybody. thanks so much for joining us. i'm maria bartiromo. it is wednesday, february 16th. treason and the crime of the century, president trump responding to john durham's latest filing revealing the clinton campaign paid a government contracted technology company to intercept and spy on the previous president before and during his time in office. hacking the office of the president. trump telling fox news yesterday this is all a continuation of the crime of the century as this program has reported over

several years now. there was never any collusion between russia and president trump. it was a made up story by the clinton campaign. here's what the president told me just last week on this program. >> i had nothing to do with russia, it was a hoax made up by hillary clinton and the democrats. it was a fake investigation and it turned out no collusion, zero, no collusion. maria: we're on i'll all morning long. first taxer a look at markets, futures little changed this morning as we await a big economic data point in retail sales. the dow industrials right now down 35, s&p 500 down 2 and a quarter, nasdaq is up 2 and a quarter. we are standing by for retail sales and import, export prices out at 8:30 a.m. this morning. the expectations are for retail sales to rise 2% month over month. we'll have the numbers as soon as they hit the tape. oil has been a big mover, it's

at $93 a barrel this morning. take a look at where we stand with another gain in oil, up 1 and-a-half percent right now. nervousness about supplies given the uncertainty in russia and ukraine among other areas crude oil at $93.36 a barrel. after falling from a seven year high yesterday, the steepest loss in more than two months yesterday when news of russia pullback became apparent. this as all the major averages snapped a three day losing streak yesterday, easing tensions after vladimir putin said russia would pull back troops from ukraine, that sent oil lower and stocks higher. the dow industrials were up 422 points at the close, that was 1 and a quarter percent. the nasdaq was up 348 points, 2 and-a-half percent. and the s&p 500 higher by 70, 1 and-a-half percent higher on the stan darned poor's. -- standard and poor's. fractional moves across the board in european markets, the cac down a quarter, the dax higher by 5. big moves in asia overnight, japan was the best performer,

the nikkei average up better than 2% on the session. the others also higher. "mornings with maria" is live right now. now some of the top stories we are watching this morning. russia plays poker, now saying that it is open to diplomacy, claiming it will ease its military buildup and move tanks away from ukraine's border but the united states and the west remain on high alert, saying they see no evidence so far of any significant drawdown. president biden saying an invasion of ukraine remains, quote, distinctly possible. >> i will not pretend this will be painless. it could be impact on our energy prices. if russia attacks ukraine, they'll be met with overwhelming international consistent dem nation. the -- condemnation, the world will not forget russia chose needless death and destruction. maria: well, they are looking to stick to their story after jake sullivan told us to leave

ukraine immediately, that an invasion would happen today as a way to change the conversation of hillary clinton's bad behavior. russia is looking for concessions as it appears he is getting them, germany's chancellor says he doesn't expect ukraine to join nato for the foreseeable future. meanwhile, changing the subject from hillary clinton's blockbuster attempted entrapment was the name of the story over the weekend from jake sullivan who by the way was the person pedaling the collusion lie for so many years. the people who abuse power are now back in power. meanwhile, senate republicans blocking votes on all five federal reserve nominees yesterday including sarah bloom raskin as president biden's pick for lead banking regulator. they're taking issue with her prior statements on climate change and private banking. raskin previously called for he restrictive lending to the oil and gas industry. senator pat toomey says she's

given insufficient and misleading answers about her past history. time for the word on wall street, top investors watching your money. joining me right now is chief investment officer christopher zook, baird strategist ross mayfield, and the fitzgerald group principal, keith fitzgerald. thank you for being here. keith, kicking things off with you, with the market on watch this morning, we are waiting on retail sales but of course we're watching tensions between russia and ukraine. markets yesterday snapping a three day losing streak as january's producer price index showed a jump in wholesale prices. we're in the middle of the highest rate of inflation in 40 years. we're waiting on retail sales. the question is, will they higher inflation and worries about higher interest rates to come cut into consumer spending and impact the retail sales number that we're expecting today? what is your expectation for the markets and retail sales?

>> good morning. i tell you what, that is a very sophisticated question with a lot packed into it. i think it's going to have a marginal impact on the rel tail numbers because -- retail numbers because the spending of consumers is separate from geo politics and washington when it comes to inflation. i think there's going to be marginal impact. i'm hoping the retail numbers come in strong. that will tell me people are getting out. i remain concerned. the russians don't gibb up that easily -- give up that easily. that tells me something else is afoot and the will to solve inflation politically is different from the economic reality that we experience in our wallets. maria: does that mean you want to raise cash p again this week? do you want to get out of the way with all of this uncertainity then? >> i'm not so much interested in getting out of the way as i am in picking up anything that gets put on sale. but i've been doing this a long time. my guts are telling me that something else is afoot. when everi fear experience that, there's no need be rash. i'm going to step back, let the

markets work this out because there are great companies take are going to be put on sale if i'm bright ' right and this is one of the instances where i hope i'm not. maria: definitely cautious trading this morning, christopher. let's talk retail. we'll get the retail sales number in an hour and-a-half. it's going to show the retail sales performance for the month of january and the expectations call for a gain of 2% month over month. walmart is also set to report earnings tomorrow. so we will certainly hear about the quarter from walmart's perspective as well. these two giving us a real good window into the consumer and macro story, christopher. your thoughts? >> right now what we have is a situation where the market is priced very, very, very expensively and we have a situation where everybody's talking about slowing growth, profit margins that are under pressure and ultimately they're going to have to deliver in a different way. we're not going to get fiscal stimulus. we're not going to get monetary

stimulus. we're going to get tightening. so we're concerned about valuation compression and the punch to the t gut that this market has not seen in a long time since 2020. you're talking about a situation where revenue's coming down, earnings are coming down and obviously multiples are coming down at the same time. that can get very painful for people. maria: so, i mean, rates are going higher, right, christopher? does this mean that a we're going to see a slowdown in the economy? i know the fed is focused on inflation but what does that mean for the growth story? we had nancy lazar on recently. she said we're going to see a recession in '23. >> it's a very significant fear right now that we could enter a period of stagflation. we haven't seen it in several decades really. what we have is the markets are forecasting we'll have an inverted yield curve within the next six to 12 months. if we look at history, there's virtually no times other than very minor blips where you have seen an inverted yield curve not followed by a he recession so

it's very likely that we could have high rates of inflation and actually a slowing down of the economy had that could be really detrimental to stock prices in a major way that we haven't seen really since the '70s. maria: yeah. so the question becomes how do you want to invest, ross? tell me about youral he locating of -- allocating of capital and the sectors you think could whip in this environment. >> absolutely. well, to start, we still want to be in equities, we think the fundamental underpinning of the stock market, earnings are strong, policy getting tighter but still accomodative. we'll get consumer data in the next couple days. the picture looks pretty good. consumers are still getting out and spending. they got out and spent in the holiday season, did it through omicron. consumer strength is still a big part of the story here. as far as sector positioning, we still like the near term cyclical as the take have been working. we have liked those for a while,

things like financials, energy, maybe a bit overextended here but for the longer term still a big fan. on the flip side, i do think the sentiment on the kind of big tech space has gotten negative to the point of starting to look interesting. there's still long-term secular growth stories. to me, at least the mega cap kind of big tech cash rich debt low names are still quite impressive. they're high quality names at a time when you want to allocate to quality. we like barbelling those two ideas and don't want to get too defensive at this point. moderating expectations, maybe, but not getting too he defensive. maria: great to talk with you all. christopher, ross, keith, thank you, gentlemen. great conversation this morning. we so appreciate i we'll see you soon. >> thank you, maria. maria: coming up, america's crime surge hit reg tailors, how are -- retailers. how some are forced to take it into their own hands. americans are paying top dollar for a new ride.

we have a look at rising car prices. wait until you see the numbers. joining the conversation all morning long, jonathan madison and joe concha. we'll get back to this fan takes panel when we come right back. you're watching "mornings with maria" live on fox business. yeah, you'll get used to it. this mom's depositing money with tools on-hand. cha ching. and this mom, well, she's setting an appointment here, so her son can get set up there and start his own financial journey. that's because these moms all have chase. smart bankers. convenient tools. one bank with the power of both. chase. make more of what's yours. since i left for college, my dad has gotten back into some of his old hobbies. and now he's taking trulicity, and it looks like he's gotten into some new healthier habits, too. what changes are you making for your type 2 diabetes? maybe it's time to try trulicity. it's proven to help lower a1c. it can help you lose up to 10 pounds.

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maria: welcome back. inflation hitting consumers in the car market hard for both new and used vehicles. dealerships are facing high prices, low inventory and unsatisfied customers. jeff flock is live at a used car lot in philadelphia with a closer look. jeff, i notice the price of used cars, even higher than the increase that you're seeing on new cars. >> reporter: it is just crazy, maria. a cold morning here in philadelphia. i tell you, what is hot is the price of used cars. take a look at this number in terms of inflation for used cars. 40% more expensive this january compared to last january. unheard of, almost. and you know, some people blame the administration for inflation. in the case of vehicles, it is

all about the chips, they can't get the chips, can't sell new cars, used car prices go up and the experts say they have never seen anything like this. listen. >> when we talk about new car price, used car prices, all used cars, trade-ins, i don't care what it is, if you're looking at car anything, it's getting expensive but absolutely nothing compares to what we're seeing in today's market. >> reporter: i want to give you a couple example these are crazy. a three-year-old dodge caravan, folks at edmonds look at this, it was selling for 15 grand last january, that same three-year-old caravan is now 25 grand. it's not just the suvs, the any nissan versa was selling for under $10,000 last january, now

16,000. this is a final example of a car we're looking at right now, a 2019 chevy equinox, here at barbara autoland in philadelphia. this one off the lot in 2019, $26,700, now it's on sale for 29,984. don't invest in crypto, maria. invest in cars. maria. maria: jeff, it's incredible that used cars are seeing bigger increases than new cars. it's just because that's where the demand is. i know it's the chips. >> reporter: it's the chips. they can't get the features on the new cars. they can't even get the new cars. so they go to the used market. i've never bought a new car in my life. and i'm 60 some years old. maria: wow. >> reporter: i've always bought used cars. now i'm going to keep what i got. maria: good plan. thank you so much, jeff flock.

joe, what do you make of that? what about that? you can't get the chips in a new car so you see the demand moving to the used cars, joe concha. >> i've always been a pro-lease guy. the old saying used to be the minute you drive your car off the lot it loses x amount in value you never get back. now i've got a 15-year-old 15-yr with over 200,000 miles on it, i could probably sell it for a decent amount of money given the inventory is so low. this is incredible. we've never seen this before where used cars are actually gaining in value. go figure. maria: that's a good point. you can sell it for big bucks right now. jonathan, what about you? do you have a new or used or what? >> well, it's used now. but i mean, i'm sticking with jeff. i'm sticking with what i got for now. it's just not worth the investment. california, by the way, gas prices to topple are at an

all-time high, record breaking the last couple years, san francisco you're looking at prices of $5.50 at least. so it's bad. it sure is. we're going to take a break. when we come bacghts of migrants dropped off in westchester. the race is on for the next governor of new york. my next guest throwing his hat in the ring, hear his plans for the state, coming up. as a struggling actor, i need all the breaks that i can get. at liberty butchumal- cut. liberty biberty- cut. we'll dub it. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ it's our ultimate sleep number event on the sleep number 360 smart bed. it senses your movements and automatically adjusts to relieve pressure points. and it's temperature balancing so you both sleep just right.

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maria: welcome back. a rush of candidates flooding the field for new york's next governor after andrew cuomos' sudden departure last august. kathy hochul leading on the democrat side right now. republicans who have not won a statewide election in decades will duke it out for the election. joining me now is one of the candidates, rob esterrino. consistent -- congratulations to you. thank you for being here. tell us about your platform. why are you running? >> thanks, maria. look, new york is so screwed up right now, i mean, is always been messed up in the past but it's reached heights unseen before with crime completely rampant in new york city. this leftist lurch, it's always been liberal but now it's completely radical in new york city and around the state.

education which has been exposed through the pandemic and these schools that have been shut down, the remote learning, masking kids still as governor hochul is in court to overturn a decision that she lost with all of the things going on, this is what she's worried about. taxes and the inflation and the economy, it's just a mess. and so often i'll pick up the phone and i'll dial a friend or somebody who supported me in the past and you dial 212 or 646 or 917 or 914, all the area codes around here, 516, and they pick up and they're like yeah, i'm in palm beach, i'm in miami, i'm in charleston, anywhere but new york they've moved to and we've got to stop that because last year alone, 400,000 new yorkers left to go elsewhere because they couldn't take it anymore. so it's time to fight. it's time to save new york and i'm just telling people, help is on the way and it can be won. hochul is a very weak, unelected governor going very far left at a time where people just want

normalcy and balance. maria: well, you make some great points, rob. it's absolutely true that people are leaving new york in droves for many of the reasons you discussed and then there's the federal government and the biden administration as i've been reporting, this administration secretly sending migrants into the interior of the country, flying them on private jets to private airports. as you know, you broke open the story where you have video of people being dropped off in new york. then they disappear into the country. we've got this footage showing one of those migrant flights landing in westchester new york, back in august because of the freedom of information act. tell me how you got this and what you've been doing in terms of these illegal migrants being dropped off in westchester. >> you know the crisis because you've been down at the border. the crisis i've seen and everyone in new york gets to see because it's being shipped to new york and the flights back in

august, i broke it, but they were happening since april almost every other night with planes that large coming into a regional airport like westchester. they were coming in, in the middle of the night, when the airport doesn't allow flights coming in or leaving. we had police body cam footage that we were able to foil and we released. it's on all my social media accounts. and what it -- it's so shocking that people would be like what the hell is going on. but what's happening is they are flying migrants not just to westchester, but all over regional airports in the middle of the night so nobody finds out. and they were saying, these government workers were saying caught on the video that they do them in the middle of the night so nobody finds out. the press doesn't know. it's hush-hush. it's down on the down-he low. if anyone found out it would be a betrayal of the american public. think about that and when i would ask questions of governor hochul on the president, what's

happening, who is getting off these flights, are they vaccinated, this is a public safety issue, a public health issue. obviously the public's right to know. and had they wouldn't say anything. they deflected or they lied and they would call me racist, if you ask them or challenge them, that's what they do. but they were caught. and we do have a right to know because this border crisis, which is reaching the worst proportion right now we've ever seen, has a major effect on our communities, on jobs, on everything. maria: well, you're right, governor. and let me just say, rob, as far as what you've done, i want to thank you for blowing this open and ensuring that people understand what's taking place in new york with these secret flights because we have an immigration plan and structure in place but these flights are putting people able to cut the line and getting here without going through the structure that's in place. it has led to crime.

democrat leaders are deflecting the blame for the rising crime in the wake of the murder of a korean american woman in new york's chinatown. the white house even blamed president trump for the uptick in crimes against asian americans. listen to jen psaki. watch this. >> we've seen this rise unfortunately because of hate-filled rhetoric and language around the origins of the pandemic. and that is something that say p sahn americans a-- asian americans across the country have been feeling. maria: rob, that is so incredible that she said that yesterday. so we're not allowed to say wuhan virus even though we know that this pandemic originated in a wuhan lab. and of course everyone knows this is not about the chinese people, it's about the chinese communist party. your thoughts? >> well, what a crock of you know what by jen psaki and the white house and that's all they do, whether it's the illegal flights coming in, whether it's

the economy. first try to blame trump. if that doesn't work, scream racist. that's what they do, that's their playbook. we have to keep asking questions, holding their feet to the fire. there was another person arrested in new york city, he was arrested 167 prior times and again he was out on bail to commit his 168th crime. i think maybe the 169th is the threshold in new york. i'm not sure. but the no cash bail law that the radicals keep pushing, emptying our prisons, the parole board released 24 cop killers in the last two years, handcuffing our cops and coddling our criminals. that's why we have rising crime and a poor economy. has nothing to do with president trump. maria: before you go, if you were to win and become governor of new york, will you overturn

no cash bail? >> absolutely. day one. all these mandates for covid go. we've got to get back to normal. no cash bail goes. we've got to get back to normal and support our police, not defund them. just common sense and balance is what people want right now, normal people. maria: yeah. rob, thanks very much. we'll be watching this race. great to have you on the program this morning. thank you, sir. quick break and then retailers are forced to take action as the crime is skyrocketing across the country. john kasamatides is here with his plan to crack down on theft. stay with us. money with a simple text. like what you see abe? yes! 2b's covered with zero overdraft fees when he overdraws his account by fifty bucks or less. and 2c, well, she's not going to let a lost card get her stressed. am i right? that's right. that's because these neighbors all have chase.

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throughout history yeah... oh. i've observed markets shaped by the intentional and unforeseeable. for investors who can navigate this landscape, leveraging gold, a strategic and sustainable asset... the path is gilded with the potential for rich returns. maria: welcome back. researchers say that they may have cured hiv in a woman for the first time. cheryl casone with details right now. cheryl. cheryl: it's really interesting, maria. the middle aged woman said to be of mixed race, the third person to be cured. the patient suffers from

leukemia as well as hiv, received a transplant of stem cells and umbilical cord blood. she has been in remission from the cancer and free of hiv for 14 months. the procedure provides researchers a possible road map to cure one of the world's most resilient viruses. well, everything is going to be all right. that was the message from alec baldwin hours after he was sued by the family of cinemaing to cinema tographe. are. they allege reckless behavior and cost cutting. hutchins husband and 9-year-old son alleged baldwin and others callusly disregarded safety complaints which led to her death. baldwin denied any wrong doing. well, viacom cbs is renaming itself paramount, meant to focus on the company's goal of becoming a major player in

streaming. its streaming service, paramount plus, has more than 32 million subscribers, adding 7.3 million in the latest quarter as far as sales go. the company wants to hit 100 million subscribers by 2024. the name change takes effect tomorrow. the company will start trading under a new ticker and there is the current ticker, it's down 11% right now. and the happiest place on earth updating the mask policy, disney parks ditching masks for fully vacation vatted -- vaccinated guests. they will require masks on shuttles and first aid. send it back to you. you have to get paramount plus the app to watch 1883 and catch up on that and you've got to catch up on yellow stone, our favorite show. maria: yes. cheryl: that's important. maria: i love yellow stone, of course. now i'm into the guilded age.

have you seen it. cheryl: i've got start that. thank you very much. maria: i'm loving it. the gilded age, check it out. shoplifting skyrocketing in in new york city. we have been telling you these dreadful headlines for months, a man was arrested 12 times since march of last year and he was caught stealing again. this week, at a manhattan dwayne reed yesterday after another serial thief with 167 arrests on his record was busted on monday, stealing $430 worth of items at a rite aid. so no bail is putting people back on the street and they're committing crimes again. the rise in crime across the country forcing store owners to take matters in their own hands. one walmart in florida locking up steaks with security wire. look at this. joining me now is the ceo of ofgristedes foods, john

catsimatidis. what do you make of steaks being locked up. >> we have the bail bond allure that is running havoc. people could go in and steal and i've always said, we don't worry about the person that's hungry and comes in and steals some salami and bread. these are professional, organized thieves. they go in there in gangs. they go in there and steal for the purpose of reselling the product. and i've said that to the das. i've said that to the mayor and i've said that to the governor. i said these are professionals. and it's not that they're only stealing $200, $300 at a time. they may be doing that 10 times a day. and the joke i tell is, especially new jersey, the thieves come into new york,

steal, make money and go home for dinner. and the thieves come in, get caught in new york, they still go home for dinner. it's just crazy. and the prices are going to skyrocket now. the prices you see on your shelves and the prices you see at the gas tank right now are the prices when oil was $75 a barrel. it has not reflected when president putin stirred the pot. he stirred the pot, forced the price up to 93, 94, 95. you're going to see massive increases in late february and early march and like i said to friends, fasten your seat belt. that's going to happen. this is part of an international chess game. maria: i want to get to the inflation in a second. let me get back to the crime for a second. you hired extra security to crack down on thieves who are coming in your stores. tell me about they that. what kind of an expense has this

been for you and for business in general because of the need to hire more security? >> it's a big expense. and eventually the consumer is going to pay for it one way or another. one way, look what happened to drugstores, a lot of drugstores announced they're closing. cvs announced they're closing stores. rite aid announced they're closing stores so in neighborhoods you're going to have let stores for consumers to shop in. and i've always taken the attitude, we've been in business -- i've been running a supermarket chain for 52 years. i said the tough get going when times are tough. and i've asked my person, my chief of staff, used to be with the fbi and i asked him to beef up forces, security forces in the store and people outside the

store watching the stores. so it's time for the tough to get going and that's what we're doing. maria: you're right. this is the security issue for new yorkers and really americans across the country. i'm with joe concha this morning. jump in here, joe. >> hey, john. nypd says the department saw a 35% spike in city-wide retail theft complaints from 2020 to 2021, they're creating their own supermarket chains. they steal from you and resell it on a discount on the street. this is madness. maybe the bigger chains can absorb this cost to a certain accident it is an expense to you and will go back to the consumer eventually. what about the smaller bodegas and one man shops, they can't afford this. this puts them at risk of going out of business if the goods are stole n and the nypd is helpless

to stop them because the da is saying it's not really a crime, if you get caught you'll be back on the street in a couple hours anyway. >> the smaller bodegas, a lot are buying it from the crooks. they don't get held up because they have guns underneath their counters or big bats underneath the counters. when i used to run the stores i used to carry a bat. i never hit anybody. but the fact that they saw the bat and me swinging it around, they left. but -- maria: wow, this is serious stuff. >> but the large chains are not going to do that, those kind of things, and they close the stores and pick up and leave. and that's what's happening. maria: let me ask you about inflation. now at the fastest rate in 40 years, cpi climbing 7 and-a-half percent in january compared to

2021. yesterday we saw the ppi up 9.7%. everything is up, the price of bacon up 18% compared to last year, ground beef, eggs, both up 13% year over year. how much have prices gone up already in your stores and you just said a minute ago with where oil prices is, it's a lag effect, we're going to see more price increases with oil now at $93 a barrel, later in february and beyond. tell me about the inflation and whether or not you think it gets worse from here. >> it's going to get much worse from here. it's going to get worse and people are going to start seeing it at the gas pump in february or late march and they'll see it in food prices in february and late march and it's part of the game that president putin is playing and i don't think president putin ever intended to create war in the ukraine because he was just stirring the

pot. maria, i don't know if anybody said this on your show. putin is selling 10 million barrels a day. i'm just going to estimate that. at 100 -- let's say $100 a barrel. that's a billion dollars a day in oil. 365 days, that's $365 billion. that covers the entire budget of russia. he is not going to fool around and start a war. i mean, that's the whole budget of russia is oil. and all he's doing is stirring the pot and look at yesterday's market, maria. yesterday putin announced that he's with drawing some forces because it was getting a little bit out of control pr-wise. and biden announced that oh, we're standing still and the market goes up 400 points. who do they believe? putin or biden? they believe putin. maria: yeah. i think you make such a great point. $365 billion a year in oil and

he's going to go invade and be put that in jeopardy. i totally agree. and that's what some congressmen were telling me over the weekend which is why i questioned whether or not the whole thing was a ruse with jake sullivan coming out so hysterical over the weekend, telling us to get out of ukraine and that russia is going to invade today. obviously, in retrospect, he was trying the to change the conversation from hillary clinton and her bad behavior and her dirty tricks against donald trump. >> maria. maria: yeah. >> as our old friend used to be president used to say, that's a lot of p crap. the fact is, putin was never going to invade. putin was never going to invade. i've said that president biden needs a war and putin was afraid that president biden was going to do something stupider. that's why he withdrew the troops. president biden needs a war.

have you watched the movie, wag the dog? that's what it's all about. if he starts a war and a it takes inflation off the front page of the new york times, it -- maria: that's right. .it takes off the front page inflation, it also takes off the front page hillary clinton and jake sullivan pushing the russia collusion hoax for so many years. john catsimatidis, thank you. great to see you as always, john catsimatidis. >> thank you, maria. maria: we'll see you soon. cats. we'll be right back. you're a one-man stitchwork master. but your staffing plan needs to go up a size. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates

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what are you seeing in the housing market right now? >> it's an interesting market. we've got the average loan size way up. about 450 grand. that tells you that the deals that are getting done for the most part are getting done the upper end. that's bad news for first time buyers. so if you're a first time buyer in this market you're sitting on sidelines and you're not very good mood at the moment, 70% of folks say not a good time to buy. that's a negative sentiment. supply is way down as you know. and it's really due to couple things. number one, the housing prices way up and mortgage rates are up, we're at about 4.2%, something like that for a 30 year mortgage which to you and i sounds quite low by historical standards but for a whole generation of buyers, that sounds like a lot of money. maria: yeah, it certainly gus does. does. here we have the tax season upon us, the irs is warning of an increase in scams targeting

taxpayers. what are you expecting in terms of irs season and are there common scams you want to tell us about and how to spot them? >> it's scam season. they come out of the woodwork this time of year. they're two types, tax collection scams where you get that phone call, that you owe money to the irs and if you don't pay immediately we're sending you rikers. they're scams. the other is a tax verification, give us your personal data so you we can verify your identity. they're clearly scams. you've got to be especially on guard for the next few months as we get through tax season. maria: yeah, so what should we be doing going into tax season? what are some of the most

important items that you think we should know about today given the changes in policy and what we might see in terms of changes coming as relates to the irs. >> great question. first of all, our tax system is messed up. you and i both know this. it is way too complicated for this great country of ours to have a tax system that reads like a horror story. it's not appropriate. so that complexity adds to the scammer's ability to get inside our wallets and purses. irs doesn't call, so be on the lookout to that. irs doesn't text. they use snail mail. folks should know how the irs does communicate. so suspicious e-mails, things like that, don't even open them. hit delete. if you get a snail mail, then we can respond. maria: yeah. that's a good point. real quick, dan, before you go, i understand companies like venmo and pay pal are reporting transactions of $600 to the irs right now. that was supposed to be in the

build back better agenda which got killed and yet they're doing it anyway, i guess, on guidance from this administration. why? and what should we know about this? >> that's a great question. i'm glad you asked the question. i would like to know why too. obviously, it's done on a voluntary basis because it's not been part of the legislative -- it has been a successful part of the agenda. i would like to know why too. for consumers, folks using the apps, give them a call, ask them why they're doing it. maria: all right, dan. great to get your take on all of that. thank you so much. dan ricotto joining us from credible. we'll be right back.

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>> maria: welcome back. good wednesday morning. thanks so much for joining us. i'm maria bartiromo. it is wednesday february 16, top stories right now just before 8:00 am on the east coast, treason crime of the century president trump responding to john durham's filing clinton campaign paid a government contractor technology company to spy on the trump before and during time in office trump telling fox news a continuation of the crime of the century as this program reported several years he is there was never any collusion between russia and president trump, it was a made-up story by clinton campaign, here is what the president told me on this program just last week. >> i have nothing to do with

russia it was hoax made up by hillary clinton and the democrats. it was a fake investigation. and it turned out you the no collusion, zero, no collusion. maria: [laughter] we are on it all morning long first take a look at markets this morning, head into the retail sales number this morning dow industrials down 70 points s&p 500 down 10, nasdaq lower by 63 1/2 we are standing by for a real sales import export data next half an hour estimates, call for a gain in retail sales, of 2%, month over month we will gt numbers to you as soon as they hit the tape meanwhile, oil prices, a hovering near 93 dollars a barrel, this morning after hitting 95 earlier this week, the -- price of oil you will off 1% 1.01 higher 93.08 billing back from seven-year high steepest loss yesterday in more than two mourners, on the calm news out of russia,

after all three major indices snapped three-day losing streak easing russia-ukraine tensions after vladimir putin said russia would be pulling back some troops from ukraine dow industrials up 422, nasdaq up 38 s&p 500 higher by 69 european markets volatile mixed session in europe this morning, we have declines krovsh now ft 100 down 26, cac quarante down 4 and 1/2 dax lower by 11 1/2 in asia overnight, green across the board, japan was best performer, nikkei average up, 2%, on the session, "mornings with maria" is live right now. . maria: morning mover viacomcbs non as paramount down 11 3/4 media company announcing at investor day yesterday that the company will rebrand now go to name of paramount but, the company also reported earnings, and that investor day clearly

upset investors ticker changing by paraa, and earnings, weaker than expected stock down 11 3/4%, also moving amc entertainment up in free market stock is trading in heavy volume, up 1 1/3% 1974 the chain acquiring a theatre in chicago previously operated by cinemark announced this week closing of a 950-million-dollar private offering, to refinance high debt owed from pandemic awaiting january retail sales it is out in 25 minutes, economists expecting 2% gain month-over-month spending was down 1.9% in month of december. retail giant walmart is also set to report earnings tomorrow, we will also get a window into -- consumer spending walmart reports its quarter joining me ahead of

numbers macromavens president stephanie pomboy, jonathan madison joe concha he stephanie thank you so much for being here, you are you're pg negative news on retail sales what are you looking for. >> we know -- going to be up a lot in january, so, i am looking at the number -- and i think, you know consumer cartels suggest that it will be substantially weaker than con access suspects north of 1% including negative even what we're seeing in terms of consumer sentiment, also, as you know, i have been stressing relationship between, spending almost to this day. the check in the mailbox goes up when goes to mailbox there is nothing there, that means -- we have seen this relationship played out, very strongly over the last two years.

becoming a -- in january, obviously, stimulus is over, and now, even child tax credit will be first month child tax credit -- so, i think there is a lot of reason to expect a much weaker number, remember that retail sales are reported in nominal terms not adjusted for inflation, so whatever the -- print is you got to take 6/10 away we saw last week cpi rose 6/10 of a percent in january to give an accurate read of what real consumer spending is in other words, the number of units people are buying, i would make that adjustment in your head. when number hits the tape. maria: so stephanie how weak are you expecting things to get, i mean here we are going into a period where, most people do expect multiple federal reserve increases i know you've said in the pasts not able o to get through all

these hikes, but there is also a -- a feeling that a things are slowing down quite a bit and we could see recession where are you on that as we also await the release of the federal reserve minutes, from the january meeting. we've got inflation data, with january procedure procedure up 9.7% highest in 11 years clearly that will be a topic in the minutes. >> yeah, no, well, as you know, i have been on this case for a long time the reason why i made the bold call that i didn't think fed would be able to get off a single rate hike is that in my view the strength in the economy has been entirely stimulus and more recently inflation -- when you start to weigh inflation, growth is really pumped, and -- especially when you look at consumer i mean looked at last march biden administration came in made

first round of stimulus checks. on the -- pop in spending. since that in following nine months of the year total real consumer spending up 116 billion so nine months i mean that is a shockingly low number. so, after stimulus this economy might lapse into recession on its own layer on top higher interest rates market tightening in advance of fed, higher energy prices which is a further tax, on the economy. i think it is kind of amusing people are waking up to reality that all of this and -- end of stimulus even -- might actually slow the economy, you know. the economy was pretty weak to begin with, and seemed pretty clear this isn't going to help the situation. maria: stephanie i mean can they walkway from this promise to raise rates in march?

no you the betting is that we are going to see at least, a 50-basis point hike in march 16 meeting you are saying they are not going to be able to raise rates how that is possible since they promised us they are going to do it this march do you think maybe one rate hike then markets respond with a big sell-off and then they get out of the way or you are not even counting on one promise in march so that well, march is a long way away i would say, i really made that argument, not able to complete taper to discussion so might get people thinking about the backdrop against can when fed is preparing price that is how it is going to be more aggressive than 2015 a backdrop that suggests that is absolutely impossible. so sure. maybe they will make a rate hike in march, but i still think my thesis is correct that the economy just can't handle that, and so they have

to backpedal rapidly but i think would be really interesting today though maria if i am right retail sales number disappoints, and then -- we get fed minutes find out we are all you know, at meeting whether go 50 basis points in march or -- that contrast is going to be unsettling for the waeshgs weaker he go consumer data on same day we learned fed was really posturing for much more aggressive stance to be very -- for the market, also you mentioned, the procure prices earlier i want to layer that on in terms of my economic slowdown thesis, as you and i have talked about many times before, the inflation pressure, for a long time we're going to be primarily continued producer

side slowdown consumer spending would limit ability for companies to pass own all those rising costs that is another reason to expect a real slowdown in the economy, because, margins are going to get squeezed big time when margins squeezed companies don't and an capex and hiring. quite a contrary another headwind we are going to see as the year moves forward. maria: this is so important, so, what i hear you saying is today is incredibly important, we're not only getting the retail sales number, that is going to show us one picture of the consumer, and of this macrostory but then going to get the fed minutes those fed minutes are going to show negotiations a debate on whether or not to go 50 basis points or a quarter you are saying you don't think they are able to get anything done maybe one hike, if are there lucky but they have to get out of the way. >> right.

i mean i think concept today if i am right, is retail sales number comes to weaker than expected will be one that gets the market gets the conversation going, about what i have been saying all along hey, maybe we are being really aggressive assuming fed can raise rates many times maybe about to make a huge policy mistake we knew economy was slowing already it was just a debate as to the magnitude of the slowdown, so, i think this could be a difficult day in the market. if we do get a weaker real sales the same day we learn fed is you know, still with blinders on thinking about pricing more aggressively. >> really good stuff stephanie great to talk to you about we will be watching all that of course check back with you soon thank you so muchs stephanie pomboy. >> great to see you. maria: we will see you soon, senator tommy tib --

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. >> . maria: russia is more than 150,000 troops circling ukraine belarus in a long ukraine's border. and invasion remains distingly possible i asked several times all americans in ukraine legislative now before it is too late to legislative now before too right there leave safely. >> following mixed messages in moscowrun president vladimir putin saying he is withdrawing some troops from ukraine border, and is open to renewed talks to end the standoff, the nato chief is warning, this morning, that russia is continuing to build up forces joining me tommy tuberville senator great to see you. thanks very much for being here, where are we on this russia standoff?

>> well, decision lead to failed outcome maria. and this administration, has had its share of them starting with afghanistan, we really don't know what is going on i have been in meetings, hearings for the last couple weeks you don't know who is shooting straight to you it should go in end of the miniwait till ground gets frozen i would like to know where, vladimir putin stands, i would like to snow, what we are working with him on trying to resolve this without you thousands an thousands of people killed why don't we get president zelensky i 34e9 with five months ago in kyiv get people together let them talk it out figure this out putin doesn't want to get his people killed it is going to fall back on him, he is pushing us to the limit, but we don't need this fight this is not our fight, this is the fight for ukraine, they need to fight their own fight, president even told me says coach i don't need people fighting for me. from anywhere we want to fight our own fight give us some

help that is what we're doing. maria: coach what about about what about this hysteria on friday jake sullivan, telling us, that russia would invade ukraine today i mean to be so specific and all leakers leaking it was today wednesday to be so specific joe biden telling us get out of ukraine immediately,was this a ruse was this whole thing an effort to take everybody's attention away from what hillary clinton dided? and what we know, he to be a complete hoax over this russia investigation? what are your thoughts? because i know jake sullivan worked for hillary clinton he was one of the people who was peddling russia collusion lie for four years, there he is now as nsa hysteria over russia. >> scrambling there is no

doubt about it i wouldn't trust jake sullivan or mayorkas or, secretary blinken as far as i could there -- themive heard them talk they give us information spending a in circles they don't talk directly to you they talk around you. the they have their own agenda. and, the american people eventually will find this out catching up with them, are this durham report unbelievable spying on american president that being said they've got a problem in ukraine to work out they need to work it out with the people that are within the problem. the president of ukraine, and putin we need he had to be intermediary get them together talk let's don't get people killed our number one adversary is china all they want to do is take our mind -- our eyes off the ball china in on this you know they are behind it pushed putin seeing how far we will go, this is just the start of something is that we're going to see for

the next few years with president biden and administration that can't make decisions, the right way. maria: what are we supposed to think in terms of the nord stream 2, you know, the senate, apparently there is disagreement over how to handle this nord stream 2 pipeline, laurel effort to cut a deal on sanctions -- a lot of people have told me, sanctions should have been in place weeks ago, months ago. in fact six months ago joe biden should not have allowed nord stream 2 pipeline to go through now germany completely reliant has what is going on. >> russia is one-trick pony they have energy they can sell energy to prop up their economy they have pipeline downing the baltic see two pipelines from two different cities running into germany,put president trump tried to get germany to back out of this they wouldn't do it. we can't get to him to see you

no more nord stream if they come to ukraine all they got to do is say that president biden said that right now we need to say there are sanctions on certification, of the pipeline as we speak there are sanctions on insurance on pooin as we speak, you are not going to either able to get it certified or ensured not able to prop it up not able o to send that oil, that is what they believe in, everything else is kind of fodder around we can't get germany to fall in line president biden actually said i couldn't believe he said it that there will be no more nord stream 2 i hope we can hold to him that i think putin starting to listen a little bit i don't think he wants to go into ukraine nothing to earn out of this i think all going to backfire on him we will have to wait and see what happens. >> we know your in an important moment joe concha go ahead joe. >> senator, this is a question he have national importance

never in you a 13wur7b 16 years history has college basketball team ranked number one as national champion yourself do tigers have what it takes to win. >> they have got a great basketball team play hard, hard to be number one team in the country i have been, cooperative university, with jimmy erickson we ran table to be number one people shoot at you right and left they got a good basketball team made final four a couple years ago hopefully get back there and finish the detail. maria: you are a winner, senator great to see you this morning such that. >> thank you. >> this you coach, tommy tuberville in d.c. we'll be right back. . we gotta tell people that liberty mutual customizes car insurance so you only pay for what you need, and we gotta do it fast. [limu emu squawks] woo! new personal record, limu!

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maria: welcome back. markets this morning we are looking at a selling right now situation with dow down 53 s&p down 6 3/4 nasdaq lower by 4 1/2 we are standing by for retail sales this morning, we will be k import export for january real sales number out if five minutes expecting a gain you you heard stephanie pomboy say she could expect negative meaning decline in

retail sales your thoughts. >> -- don't see a last decline, particularly, when the president is pushing, issues like russia-ukraine conflict instilling fare in american people keep in mind jobs numbers 2.5 million jobs, less than we did, coming into the pandemic, so we're not out of the woods there. you know. potentially hopeful but -- i -- i expect to see more losing numbers before it gets better maria. maria: let's take a break get retail sales number out right after this short break stay with us market lower going into the report. .

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cheryl: we are looking for getting 3.8% for january retail sales .8%, that is much hotter than expected, maria we were looking for 2% on headline number for january retail sales, now strip out autos, that was incredibly strong 3.3% strip -- excuse me? >> okay, 3.3%, autos we are only looking for gain .8%, no i remember this is better than december we got for both okay? so if you look at -- december, we -- stripped out autos a loss 2.3% now coming in 3.3% for month of january. as for december, we had a loss remember negative number for retail sales 1.9% downside now 3.8% reversal for both as well, gasoline sales, down 1.3% month-over-month car

parts sales a gain 5.7%. looking at if you strip out gasoline retail sales xgasoline strong number looking at there, again hotter than expected numbers, quick i am getting import export back to you we are looking at i am pot export gain 1.3% on import prices c froze import, 2%, export gain 2.9% both numbers maria better-than-expected hotter than expected, one thing that stephanie pomboy said getting fed minutes if you get weak sales go ahead fed minutes maybe you get a negative market reaction dow jones industrial average reversing course, again, inflation at 40-year high

somehow the consumer remains strong in january, a big piece maria is car sales also a i showed you that number that the 5.7% jump but, also, we had omicron kinds of pulling out decreasing, loads across the country so those are numbers, and dow down only 29 points back to you. maria: cheryl thanks very much numbers are better than expected on retail sales, 3.8% versus estimate 2% auto sales, we have been telling you serious nation in auto sector jonathan madison we're seeing a market perform better on numbers we are expecting rate hikes from the federal reserve, but this seems to be in step with what most people were expecting, a strong economy, even if numbers are much better than expected, 2% estimate talking about, retail sales up 3.8%. >> absolutely, i think this

speaks maria to the resilience of american people the american consumer, things are going to look a little bit better than hoped for. that is a good thing. my concern uncertainty still in 2 future we still are grappling with omicron grappling with rising inflation crippling gas prices average american voter pumping gas, just wondering how to make ends meet just to be able to afford certain groceries basic necessities i think numbers good but better than expected but we can't be too comfortable we have to be mindful of the uncertainty factions going forward. >> why market have been down year-to-date, as we are expecting the federal reserve, to raise interest rates, jonathan biden administration meanwhile, is asking for another 30 billion dollars, for covid relief efforts, despite out-of-control inflation white house insisting that it is not the time to ease up on spending,

watch this. >> we continue to have sufficient found respond to current omicron surge in coming weeks our goal has always been ensure that we are well prepared to stay ahead of virginias we have been in ongoing conversation what might look like. former, chief charlottes staff mick mulvaney federal reserve expected to raise interest rates retail sales up in, 3.8% will fed tamp down inflation. thanks for having me i hope so you saw comments from kansas city fed president bullard late last week early this week maybe raising interest rates is not enough i think doesn't get nearly enough attention despite conversation about inflation we've been talking about it out for what now? more than a year fed continues

quantitative easing still buying mortgage-backed securities buying treasurys expanding balance sheet, i give credit to mr. bullard at least raising the issue when do we start to see that decline stop pumping money into system interest rates one tool the fed has, about it certainly, when you are raising interest rates, but still expanding the balance sheet not going to have the same impact i am glad the discussion is turned serious, i also seems about debilitating inflation under control i don't think raising interest rates is going to be enough. >> how do you assess where we are in the economy right now? i mean, you know, there is talk of recession, on the horizon in 2023 we know that the stimulus has gone away, the consumer had a very strong balance sheet obviously, still does, with 3.8% retail sales number what would you expect, in terms of the impact of all of this, change, in policy? from the fed. >> you said something very interesting i heard this a lot about how stimulus has gone away even last surplus i thank

you 1.9 trillion dollars if you take stimulus put in economy might approach six trillion insane amount of money if you wrote a check for a million dollars you have to do that 1.9 million times, to spend 1.9 trillion dollars there is civil no way all of that money has entered economy yet government can't spend fast enough i scratch my head when white house says 30 billion dollars more covid no way they spent money they will i hope fed knows that says look a while since the exclusive bill all that money inflation is too much money chasing too few goods all the money that the government has dumped into the economy, hasn't entered the economy yet, so i still think inflation is a risk, in the near-term and midterm i hope the fed sees it the same way. >> what about pushing more

spending they want more for covid relief, you mentioned 1.9 trillion-dollar package, it seems like the inflation 9.7% increase ppi 7 1/2 cpi just, you know, not focused on just ignoring that in the administration, they want more spending don't think more spending leads to more inflation. >> yeah. either a misunderstanding of economics possible or just hard-core politics, and old masters don't the let a good crisis go to waste if you bring a bill up love to spend money what is our excuse? covid my guess you will here that more than one time between now and midterm elections, as often the case my guess the bill they will offer for 30 billion dollars will have some money for covid relief a bunch of other stuff absolutely nothing to do with covid keep in mind, back in 1.9 trillion-dollar bill, 10 times as much money was

actually went to ppe, covid is style covid bills sometimes a way to pass anything you want to pass generally i this is what you are seeing with next round of, spending democrats want to put in place. maria: meanwhile let's talk about biden nominees for the federal reserve senate republicans blocked votes on all five federal reserve nominees jay powell, brainard sarah bloom raskin president biden pick to be lead banking regulator most important overseeing banks pat toomey specifically taking issue with radical views on climate change private banking yesterday, watch this. miss raskin ras repeatedly frequently in writing speechesing would go advocated turning the fed into a policy bioespecially with respect to the to climate that in my view more than sufficient cause to reject her

nomination. >> i am reading the tea levees here a lot of wall street enactments think she is going to get through even so with a are your thoughts? >> there is a couple different things, pat is right senator toomey right okay for one running for office study say feds should be involved in climate change sort of a policy position not okay nominated to say i know with a dual mandate says full employment stable prices if you put me on i want to work for climate change i think senator toomey is right to raise this another thing at play hasn't got a lot of psychics, which is the biden administration offered this as a panel as a group all five people i think at one time, that is highly unusual you usually only do that for lower level people, deputies subdeputies so forth to have somebody in positions as part of a panel, is it is a tool you yued to force somebody you

don't want a lot of attention my guess a lot of senators upset with that as well don't be surprised if the pressure comes on biden administration,to strip these out and send each of these nominees separately to the i'll have that would be interesting dynamic if we see it play out a. >> political analyst at cowen and company this morning telling clients, that raskin will not stop biden's regulatory agenda including higher capital requirements, climate change stress-testing he says federal governor brainard will push policy part of agenda the upside for fight beyond tactics he believes all five will be one dimmered if you have got lael brainard there that is priority for banks regardless are they going to stop accepting

business stop lending to the fossil fuel companies like major oil companies? exxonmobile, et cetera,. >> that is the plan right at least part of the plan part of the democrats green new deal climate change plan what you are seeing next step in the politicization of everything federal reserve he is supposed to be one few above politics democrats offering very politicized names folks willing to talk about -- are sort of changing the landscape. >> quick before you go i know you are testifying today, on house budget can he whont to abolish debt ceiling 30 trillion dollars in debt. >> yeah, the democrats don't like the debt ceiling, like filibuster want to get rid of that continue like appropriations give money to places like -- ebb debt ceiling i think will say if you get rid of debt ceiling

would be in better fiscal position,. great to see you. thank you so much, we will talk soon thank you, sir. quick break american crime crisis where it's is not taking rise in crime askers seriously as it should be. we will get into it why are they not reacting to what is taking place across the country don't forget tune in fox business prime 8:00 p.m. earn followed by the pursuit with john rich at 9:00 you are watching "mornings with maria" live on fox business. . . dad, we got this. we got this.

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there's a simple test you can take—from anywhere. try to lay your hand flat against a surface. if you can't, you may have dupuytren's contracture. talk to a hand specialist about your options, including nonsurgical treatments. >> maria: we've seen unfortunately because of hate-filled rhetoric and language around the origins of the pandemic asian americans across the country have been feeling. maria: white house press secretary jen psaki blaming president trump because he told the truth about the

origins of the pandemic, calling it the china virus wuhan virus. the administration is now blaming him for hate crimes. the the outrage coming after a homeless man with long criminal history brutally murdered a woman in new york's chinatown joining me former drug enforcement administration senior special agent globally security group founder, thanks very much for being here thoughts on what you just heard. >> you know i wonder if miss psaki has taken time to try to convince herself for what she said or makes it up on the fly it is outrageous despicable nobody with an wrap around the headed the murder followed this young woman to apartment stabbed her over 40 times you have to believe that that

person but for that rhetoric would not have done that it is outrageous con con. >> criticism the covid pandemic did come from a lab in wuhan all of the circumstantial evidence points to that ccp has been stopping any true investigation into the origin so i am wondering is jen psaki protecting the ccp with that answer? >> a you know i just don't think i think any anything attributed to former administration reject outright, i am not a virologist but idea that virus

you origins in wuhan down road from institute where this is being studied engineered defies logic. >> exactly right what do you attribute this crime spike to new york city judge blasting, this week refusing to let him out of detention saying big apple is fired of violent teenagers the prosecutor from a controversial district attorneys general office al alvin bragg's office asking to get released monitor with curfew want to continue no bail whatsoever you commit a crime get processed back on streets commit another crime. >> if anyone has tried to figure out why -- crime through the roof look no further than local district attorney. i also said there is no public if i believe has greater effect on you as citizen

personally than the d.a., when da's office prosecutorial discretion is enormous they decide the person comes in, person just comes in committed charged with committing a robbery, at knifepoint this office, according to the guidelines, that this new prosecutor, alvin bag put in place have to make assessment if no real jury was possible likely even by a weapon not charging as a felony we're charging as misdemeanor, eligible for no bail, insanity keeps piling on following this down the road, where we see results there is no mystery here. maria: yeah, but david why then are we seeing this serious very serious dereliction of duty in white house, you are he former dea, you've seen it all, and now

what we're seeing in terms of fentanyl into this country willing americans more people were killed by fentanyl between 18 and 45 if last year than cancer, heart disease car wrecks whatever it is fentanyl is made in china pushed through mexico into the united states, through our ports our borders what can you tell us about that? i mean, is it possible that this administration, can continue to completely ignore this? >> well okay. so,ing in order to address those overdose statistics to have you say focus on the porous border if you we what you said right manufactured in china, to large extent brought into united states across the southern border open and

porous, if you look at the deaths past year you can't put two and two together saying -- a year ago relatively closed border we had security now there is no such thing as closed border and pouring across into the country with predictable effect. maria: are a i don't know who has more he dereliction of duty is it joe biden ignoring open border fentanyl that killed 100,000 americans or jen psaki has the nerve to pull the race card talking about the -- the way to -- characterize patterned and its origin she is actual defending ccp in this answer. >> she absolutely is i think both collectively have to take responsibility you have to look at "man in the mirror"

as saying goes, right so easy to point finger at previous administration say, yeah, that is not the case 10,000 more than 10,000 hate crimes against people of asian descent occurred since march of 2020 you can't just blame previous administration you have to take responsibility that is what real leadership is unfortunately we are seeing the lack of it. maria: david final word. >> i couldn't agree more, i mean, people starting to wake up and understand, that politicians say doesn't matter it is what they do, and i think we will see results of that in the ballot box shortly. maria: all right, great to get your insights thanks so much, joining us this morning on all of that, big buzz of the morning is next. stay with us. . ♪♪ it inspires us to go further.

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vanguard. become an owner. ♪ ♪ [laughter] maria: time for the big buzz of the morning. you just saw one puppy's performance joining the animals in the movies, "the lion king," and taking a bow as the song, "the circle of life," plays. i love this video, jonathan. what do you say? that's sweet. >> i think that dog would get along with my 4-year-old quite well. that movie's always playing in

our home. but i think it goes to show that even dogs know who the real king of the jungle is. that's all i can say. [laughter] maria: good point. joe, i think you have some little best friend with you right now. [laughter] you've got your dog. >> yeah -- maria: happy birthday, joe. a little birdie told me it's your birthday. >> oh, thank you. you know, you only turn 39 ten times, so i appreciate that, or so. yeah, this is max maximus. i played this video five times, and we got no reaction. thank you for the balloons. yeah, what can i say? that dog's special because this one's special and had no reaction whatsoever. go figure. [laughter] maria: he's so cute. maximilian, is what -- that what you said? >> maximilian -- maximus, actually, after the russell

crowe character in gladiator. there you go. maria: very, very sweet. i love it. joe concha, jonathan, great to be with you both this morning. we had a great show. we're looking at another triple-digit decline, the dow industrials down 128 despite the fact we got much -- better than expected retail sales numbers. "varney & company" if begins right now. stu, take it away. stuart: all right. good morning, maria, and good morning, everyone. the russian military announced the pullback of troops on the ukraine border, stocks went up even though our military sees no troop movement yet, and cyber attacks have been reported in ukraine. stocks are holding relatively close to those big gains we saw yesterday. by the way, a half hour ago a very strong 3.8% gain in retail sales was reported for january. this number is not adjusted for inflation. and it did make something of a difference to stock prices. it turned them lower. the dow jones