maria: have a great day, everybody. thank you so much for joining us. >> all right. maria: brian broken -- brendberg and amy holmes. ashley: do not adjust tv set, i am ashley webster. stu is not here today. hopefully stu will be back tomorrow. not making money, here is the big story, the market back from three-day weekend and we are looking at lower open, triple-digit losses, down 175 on the futures for the dow, but to put all of this in perspective, the market coming off the best weeks of the years and the losses we are looking at less than 1%. wal-mart will be definitely dragging the dow down about 50 points. the stock as you can see off 7% in the premarket. they are seeing stiffer competition online from amazon

and the sales that well, didn't match up during holiday quarter with amazon and as a result the stock getting hit a bit in premarket. speaking of amazon, they are back from three-day weekend with vengeance, no less than three stories relate today them. five companies in all making news because of amazon. the tenticals go out as they say. two political rivals that blasted each other during presidential campaign now friends, apparently. you have to love it. we have three hours to cover it, varney & company about to begin. ♪ ♪ >> i heard that mitt romney made a fairly long speech. and, i mean, honestly, i will address it quickly because it's

irrelevant. look, mitt is a failed candidate. he failed. he failed horribly. ashley: well, how times have changed, now look who is being nice to one another? here is the tweet, mitt romney will make a great senator and worthy successor to orrin hatch and has my full support and here is how romney responded to that, thank you, mr. president for the support, i hope over the course of the campaign i also earn the support of the people of utah. we will have the story in a few minutes. stocks lower, 180 points dow. big drag on the dow, wal-mart even as sales rose and a big problem is drop in online sales. they were up 23% but that is far less than what they were the year before. market watchers, jeff sica here,

okay, not a great holiday period for wal-mart, do we blame amazon for that, jeff? >> you certainly do. wal-mart has launched the war against amazon that was necessary and in my opinion a little late to the battlefield. the reality of this is wal-mart has to step up e-commerce, what wal-mart is doing, they are purchasing online sites and they are advocating for consumers to buy off these sites and pick up merchandise at their stores, it's a risky, risky strategy, but if it works, it'll give them the edge they need. ashley: we will get into more of that, jeff. albertson's, grocery store chain, plans to buy the rest of rite aid that isn't being sold to walgreens.

>> what's interesting here, ashley, all three of the -- the top three of the country's drugstore chains are selling themselves. look at the play here. this is about the cut-throat grocery wars, cvs is merging with aetna, amerisource with walgreens and this is a 627 billion-dollar space. this is about groceries with your cheap generic drugs at the check-out line and in other words, the other two places are different from this merger. so i think, again, this is a way to step up against to jeff's, point amazon, the grocery wars are really picking up speed with this merger. ashley: it really is, jeff? >> keep in mind, i had talked to amazon buying rite aid, this was a strategic move. if you see from rite aid, walgreens, cvs, they are all partnering up to strengthen themselves against the behemoth

amazon, they have distribution license, they want retail drugstores just as they have grocery. grocery will consolidate. amazon will try to own each ecosystem, this is a big -- liz: nasty secret about grocery stores is they are loaded down with private equity debt. we see that wind dixie filing for bankruptcy in the face of amazon. this is interesting for albertson's to pick up chain. ashley: think again. another amazon story. a new perk apparently for members. >> 5% cash back if you're a prime member and shopping at whole foods. ashley: you have to use the prime member credit card? >> this is for amazon to get more prime members beyond the

estimated 90 million it has and high-end whole food shopper that it's targeting with the offer. 5% cash back on rebait on your amazon visa card and it's a pretty sweet deal, no fee, no foreign transaction fee card. again, this is a play for amazon to broaden its universe of 90 million prime members who buy other things on website including not just goods but video services and the like. ashley: jeff, at the same time undercutting prices when it comes to grocery. >> in the grocery world the margin is on organic products. they have room and the big thing is if you go into whole foods, a lot more expensive if they make it less expensive, you're going to see a lot more groceries go out of business and a lot more organic -- liz: how luxurious to get two-hour delivery, austin,

cincinnati and dallas. they are test-driving that as well. ashley: amazon effect, thank you. president trump backing mitt romney in utah senate race. fascinating stuff, politics, let's bring in jason chaffetz, former republican from utah, of course, boy, jason, when i look at some of the previous comments it is quite amusing, isn't it, president trump called mitt romney a loser, a total joke, he choked like a dog in the 2012 election and mitt romney in return called donald trump a phoney and fraud but now they are making nice. >> well, it's a nice little group hug for a moment. interesting note, i don't think mitt romney asked, i don't think mitt romney asked for the president's endorsement. i really do believe having talk today people in romney campaign this this just came out of the blue and so mr. romney was very -- the governor was very

magnanomous about it. we don't know if it'll last long. ashley: orrin was quite a supporter, he called him heck of a leader. what can we expect from mitt romney, maybe not such a glowing endorsement? >> well, look, i don't think mitt romney would even run except for a lot of this was orrin hatch's idea. romney has grandkids and doing his thing and really it was orrin hatch said that he passed the baton or try to pass the baton as much in politics so surprises me that mitt romney is running but he's running hard here in utah, around the rural parts of utah making his case to utah voters, but, look, where he disagrees with donald trump, he will let the world know, he's not going to be bashful in doing that. it'll be very interesting to see how this plays out. ashley: also, jason, seems

romney, by the way was right about russia. remember when he said this about russia during 2012 presidential campaign. take a listen. >> this is without question our number one geopolitical foe, they fight every cause for the world's worst actor. ashley: at the time president obama dismissed that saying the cold war is over decades ago and kind of, you know, kind of tried to embarrass him, but you know what, looks like mitt romney was right, correct? >> yeah, look, president obama dismissed it and mocked mitt romney saying the 80's called and they want their foreign policy back, i think president obama did a great disservice to this country by poopooind the idea and moving forward with the congressional investigation, a lot of questions for the obama administration when they knew in 2014 that russia was going to maybe play in this space, what

did they do about it, particularly mr. clapper and mr. brennan, they've got some questions to answer and the president himself, mitt mitt roy was right in the election and president obama was dead wrong. ashley: as always, thanks for joining us, appreciate it. >> thank you. ashley: check the features again as we come back from three-day weekend. dow down 173 points. we will talk about that throughout the program. some mcdonalds customers less than satisfied with the new mozorella sticks because social media is lighting up that people that are ordering them are getting empty sticks, no cheese, now that is a problem. [laughter] ashley: and update on the story brought to you last week, top military officials reportedly think president trump's idea to hold a military parade could end up being a national security

nightmare, coming up rob o'neil, the man who killed osama bin laden, what he call it is planned parade bs, he will make this case later in the hour, more varney after this.

ashley: higher profit at home depot, the chain drew in more shoppers who spent more on average. good stuff. >> yes, wal-mart is dragging down the dow preearnings, look at home depot, up 7 and a half percent in fourth quarter of january. this is the sixth straight quarter that home depot beaten sales. basically housing starts at best in year or two years and home builders one year high in home building going out. this is an interesting story that's happening with homing -- home depot, it's about the economic growth and wages going

up. >> it's also, we were talking about the amazon effect, the amazon effect, home depot has proven that they are immune -- ashley: lucky them. >> immune because of the way they service customers and the fact that a lot of what people buy at home depot does not translate very well to the internet. when i walk into home depot i generally don't know what i want. somebody helps me and i walk out. incredible -- ashley: all right, jeff, thank you. let's go to florida shooting now. let's bring in congressman carlos curbello, republican from florida. thank you for joining us, give me a realistic response, if you can to the shooting, what can you and your colleagues in congress do to prevent something like this from ever happening again? >> thank you, ashley, and good morning from south florida, a community that's still in mourning and probably will be for a very long time, our hearts are truly broken for what

happened and i'm encouraged to see so many young people standing up and demanding action because the truth is for too long, law mickers have punted -- lawmakers have punted on this issue and something must be done now. i do see growing bipartisan consensus and i can say on the republican part of the aisle, every day i'm getting more calls and more interest in doing things like raising the minimum age for all gun purchases across the board. we know that there are inconsistencies, 18, 19 or 20 you can purchase a handgun, you can't buy a beer but you can buy the powerful long guns and that's something that certainly should change. something else we can do is allow the cdc to study gun violence as a public health issue, right now the law bans that type of research and that doesn't seem to make sense either and then, of course, i think we should run every sickle gun transfer through the

background system. right now person-to-person transfers, that's not required. that is something that should change. by the way, these are ideas that are being considered now in the state of florida by an all-republican legislature, so i think in washington, d.c. we should take that cue and deliver something meaningful on gun safety legislation for the first time in a long time. ashley: congressman, there's a bipartisan bill out there, senator john cornyn republican of texas and republican of connecticut, would hold agencies accountable for relevant information in database and better monitor gun bias with records of domestic abuse. is that enough? >> well, that's the fixed nix legislation but i certainly support that. a lot of americans rightly asked why is an 18-year-old, 19-year-old able to acquire these powerful when they can't

buy alcohol, when they can't buy a handgun. we just can't risk it anymore. look at what the consequences are. i'm hopeful that in the coming weeks we can have bipartisan consensus. by the way, we want to protect responsible gun owners which is the vast majority of people who own guns in america and by strengthening these laws, we actually protect their rights and quite frankly another thing we have to do is ban bump stocks which is something that most responsible gun -- ashley: i was just going to ask you about that, congressman, what's the update on that? >> well, that was very frustrating because everyone in washington dc after the las vegas shooting said at the very at least we should be able to ban these devices which clearly help people circumvent the law and make semiautomatic weapons perform like automatic weapons

but washington, d.c. is the only town where everyone can agree that something is a good idea and it still doesn't get done. that cannot continue to be the case. we have to ban bump stocks, that's a simple step that we should also incorporate into a broader package that will, again, keep americans safer while protecting second amendment rights for everyone. ashley: all right, congressman curbello, appreciate it and the update on your efforts, appreciate it. >> thank you, ashley. ashley: rough start from the market, also we look to be starting the day lower down about half a percent. by the way, chipotle testing out a new menu item, you may soon be able to full burrito with quinoa instead of rice, more on it after this.

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ashley: well, i guess chipotle adding quinoa to menu, i know that stu won't trying, what do you say emac? >> i wonder quinoa versus lettuce. so they are testing new trendy

new item quinoa. the queso kind of felt flat when they tried that out. so red and gold quinoa with citrus juice and cilantro. ashley: very good. we will stick with fast food here. mcdonalds reportedly serving mozzarella sticks without mozzarella, that's just the stick, right, emac? >> the story came out of england. people call it a food tragedy. people also laughed to say they are devastated because all of a sudden they order mozzarella sticks. ashley: hard to carry on after that. liz: if it's overheated the cheese will ooze out. [laughter] >> another tragedy is the way most people pronounce

mozzarella. >> i'm italian. >> but you're an italian. >> you win over the whole state of new jersey if you use that. ashley: would you like mozzarella, what do you say? >> i would get up and leave, i would be offended. ashley: tough customer. way to be. >> calamari. america is going to take italian cuisine they have to take -- pizza is fine. ashley: judge napolitano will be here to set the record straight. all right, jeff. >> thank you for setting up straight. ashley: empty mozzarella. let's take a look at the futures. we will start the day in the red firmly. dow off 181 points, the s&p and nasdaq also pointing lower. closing bell coming up in just about, well, four minutes from

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♪ ♪ [laughter] ashley: mama mia. mozzarella. jeff sica is with us and he gets very upset about the mispronungsuation he says of

italian food, we will get more into that when he calms down. the opening bell is about to ring in 10 seconds from now, we will start from the downside, up for three-day weekend. where do we go from here, now the bells have rung and people are clapping and smiling and boom we are off to downside, down 110 on dow. the dow stocks on the left, a lot more red. a couple green stocks in there. all right, we are down 140, thereabouts which is pretty much where the futures had us. futures had us 171 points, we will let trading get underway here but certainly a down stock to the day. let's take a look at s&p, same story, down nearly half a percent at 27.20, nasdaq, the big tech index, certainly tech heavy also down about half a percent, just under 72.08, okay, higher profit at home depot, good report from hd, the chain

drew in more shoppers who spent more on average. that's good news, the stock up two bucks and 37 cents at 1.89. lower profit at wal-mart even though sales rose in the u.s. wal-mart down down almost 7 and a half percent. seven-dollar hit at 97 bucks for wal-mart. wall street journal reporting that albertson's plans to buy the rest of rite aid that isn't sold to walgreens. this is a stock that's worth 2.29. up 16 cents. who is joining us liz mcdonalds, mike murphy in the house and jeff sica still calming down from the food issues. lower profit at wal-mart, even as sales rose in the u.s. would you buy as you see dip in wal-mart, is this a buy? >> yes. ashley: why, you see results, struggled with online growth. >> really the way i see, ash,

they didn't hit the number that is wall street had projected for them and now they their forecast for earnings for the coming year they are saying between 4.75 and $5 where wall street wants $5. that's why you are getting the selloff. we've talked so often about amazon's business. this is a one-time blip in the wal-mart story, i believe, so i will be looking to get long wal-mart today. ashley: kind of a transitional phase, try to pivot in order to take on amazon. >> yes w the jet.com purchase and going after amazon, they ha to refigure the entire business as it goes for inventory and shipping -- same-day shipping. this is something that they are working through. they are still putting up huge numbers. i think wal-mart -- this to me, if you liked wal-mart a week ago or a month ago, it's the same company and discount, you buy it. ashley: morgan stanley says the

recent stock lied was just the appetizer and not the main course, jeff sica, do you agree, more pain to come? >> i certainly agree. let's put perspective on this, market has been up 200%. we had near about a 10% correction, last week was probably the best week in about 6 years in terms of the rebound. i think we have just begun to see some of the volatility. remember, i have been talking nonstop about the level of complacency. i don't think it disappeared. it might have taken a little bit of a break but i think it's going to come back and i think when it finally ends as rates move up as maybe we begin to see some of this inflation, we have a much, much greater decline out there. ashley: pressure on the downside. >> if the market gets complacent again, the impact is greater.

liz: economist said a mini flash crash. ashley: that's gone? >> the talk is if ten year goes to 3 and a half percent, looks like it can, here is a back story to inflation, virtually nonexistent because of global economic growth, wages not going up as high, so lack of inflation pressure there. robotic, technology, automated factories, keeping inflation, there's some supply chain inflation keeping in but not that big of a deal for markets right now. global story is the bigger story for inflation right now and i don't think fed raises rates. ashley: the dollar getting a bit more strength, does all this put downward pressure on the market? >> it definitely brings volatility to the market. to add to what both jeff and liz were saying, last year and the

year before the market was going in one direction. low rates and we were just throwing fuel on the fire. we were trying to get the economy going. well, now we are seeing the economy going. now you have two different forces there. so that is what i believe -- so instead everyone going in one direction which they were, grow, grow, now you have people pulling in two different ways, if we grow too much, maybe i want to sell. that's what's creating volatility in the market. overall, i would take the other side of jeff, earnings are strong enough to support the market here at these levels. i think you look at names like wal-mart and get a selloff, use the volatility as friend as an opportunity. ashley: good stuff. let's get to home depot, higher profit with this company. the chain drew in more shoppers who spent more on average. jeff, you mentioned this earlier, explain that home depot is amazon proof, own little niche?

>> here is what home depot has that a lot of retailers don't have, the bulk items that people buy at home depot they can't really buy through amazon right now and the second thing which makes home depot a truly great company is the level of sale support that you get when you walk into a store, you could walk into a store undergoing -- undertaking a project, not know what to do and have somebody help you get what you need, that's an incredible incentive and i think it's a transcribe ui to the service model that's worked for home depot and will continue to work and amazon can't beat that. ashley, take a look at the big board, we are down 72 on the dow, wal-mart is about 50-point drag on the dow right now. so almost flat without wal-mart, there you go. we have paired some of the losses in the first six minutes wall street journal reporting that albertson's plans to buy the rest of rite aid that isn't being sold to walgreens. mike, the amazon effect, is this just amazon getting into another

part of economy mike: for sure. full disclosure, we own rite aid, indicating a lot higher early this morning. not much going on now. albertson does this for a couple of reason, they want to go public. they were taken private equity, they wanting to public so this will help. you look at this entire space, they haven't performed well as the markets rallied in the last year, the entire drugstore chain space is trading down by about 11%. so they need to look out with the tax cuts that are out there, take a strong balance sheet, acquire some of the competition so you can ultimately try to compete with amazon. ashley: makes sense, all right, mike, quick check on the big board for you, don't forget about bitcoin as well. do we ever forget about bitcoin? the dow for you, down 72 points, we are down 150 points at the open. cut that in half and again wal-mart a big drag. now, there's bitcoin.

up another 460 at 11,530 not close to 20,000 or thereabouts that it hit earlier but certainly a comeback. a new amazon prime perk to tell you about. >> amazon prime visa at whole foods will get 5% back on purchases. amazon's big play to expand beyond, to grow 90 -- thought to be 90 million estimated prime members, whole foods shoppers are high-end shoppers, can amazon get more whole food shoppers to become prime members and buy prime video and the like. ashley: very good. higher sales, i love cracker barrel. also 11 bucks. dominoes, take a look at dominoes, sales growth short, hurting the stock 5%, close to

11 bucks, 209 for dominoes pizza. sales flat at mgm compared to last year. stock up about 1% at 34 bucks, more money coming in at six flags, that should be a good thing, right? there you go. apparently not, down 2 and a half percent at 67 bucks, 1.72. chip maker qualcomm raising to buy nxp, will help bolster by overtake of bradcomm. both higher this morning. the trump administration waiving tariffs to curve steel to protect national security. we did a bit of the story yesterday, mike, turns out that chinese steel import is only 1% of all the steel we import. we get the majority actually from canada s. this a dangerous road to go down when you start slapping tariffs and end up in a

big-ole trade war? >> if you look at the headlines, yes, i look at it differently. what the trump administration is saying here, we don't want to increase crazy tariffs or start a trade war, we want a fair balance gain. you will tax our steel over there, we will tax your steel over here. for me having a level playing field is what the streel producers in this country need and you saw the move in the stock prices on friday, i think that had -- ashley: all of a sudden you get retaliation. >> so if the deal is fair, it should be fair for both parties. it can't be all in favor of one side and expect the u.s. companies to sit back and take it. i'm not saying to start a trade war. i'm saying keep it fair and balanced for all parties. i think that you have to have that in order for the u.s. companies to succeed. ashley: we will see how china reacts. >> just to add what mike said because we just bought a bunch of steel and i will tell you that the tariffs are not a good thing because manufacturing in the u.s. is not where it needs to be right now, so unless we

want to see rising steel prices, we have to get manufacturing way, way past where it is because i'm telling you, we are paying for money than we ever anticipated. ashley: interesting, we will continue to follow it. mike, thank you so much mike murphy, jeff sica, mozzarella man, thank you, jeff for being here. quick check on the big board for you, okay, we are down a little bit more, 92, 93 points at 25,127 for radio listeners, the dow up about a third of a percent which just started the new day. big guest by the way at 11:00 a.m. hour, austin dillon, how cool is that? on big win on new tattoo. i wonder if he can show it to us. he cannot show it to us. [laughter] ashley: okay. we will leave that to your imagination. also facebook says it will use u.s. mail to verify the identity of anyone who buys a political ad. question, will that be enough to stop the russians from meddling with our elections more varney

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♪ i made my own way, now it's time to make yours. ♪ ♪ everything is working, working, just like it should ♪ ashley: all right, let's check the big board again for you. 14 minutes into the session on tuesday after a three-day weekend and the dow begins down 94 points. again, i want to point out that wal-mart, big drag today accounting for about 50 points of the 94-95 drop on the dow at this hour. snap, getting one star review since new redesign, let's go to stock exchange on that story. >> 73% of folks giving a one-star review to this new discovery that snapchat rolled

out. i have to tell you, citigroup cut their rating on the stock to sell today on these reviews worrying that people wouldn't like this. snapchat might not use it. basically it's very ad friendly and so people don't like the fact that they are getting advertising, you will see olympic highlights, e-news videos, ceo evan says we are not going to change it back despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of users signing a petition against snap, what they call annoying design. so very controversial and translating here in the trading today, stock down pretty dramatically. ashley: yeah, not good when you get annoying in the review. gerri willis, thank you, gerri. let's take a look at facebook, the company facing some heat over russian meddling, facebook executive rob goldman tweeting this, we are also taking aggressive steps to prevent this sort of med until the future by requiring verification of political advertisers and making all ads on the platform visible

to anyone who cares to examine them. the company just unveiled a plan to verify ads, get this, using postcards. bring in the host of the next revolution with steve hilton, steve, great to see you, who would have thought that the best way to check russians is a postcard through the mail, what say you? >> it's incredible. the old technologies end up being the best. i think, look, before we get going, i should do my version of full disclosure here. my wife works at facebook, she's a senior executive there so the audience ought to be aware of that. i think that the thing that we should acknowledge is they are recognizing what was done on their platform and they are trying to do something about it and whether it will make any difference remains to be seen. i think the thing that we all really noted from what's coming out about the russian efforts to kind of cause trouble in our political conversations here in america is how sophisticated

they were using a wide-range of techniques and so i think it's going to be something that it's going to be more facebook that needs to address this, it's a bigger problem. on the other hand, we can say it's a big problem but we have to always remember it didn't really make that much difference and that's the big thing that also capable -- came out of the mueller indictment. ashley: at one point they had pro and antitrump rallies in new york that was organized by russian operatives. i guess in that sense they weren't quite successful? >> yes, incredibly sophisticated and it's interesting how they were able to do that and then the media cover it and i saw some images just the other day of incredibly gullible reporters on cnn, for example, just sort of going about this incredible

up swell of sentiment against donald trump after the election and incredible how they are mobilizing all prompted by the russians, incredible. ashley: let's be honest, the u.s. has done things, the uk has done things around the world, they will do everything they can to undermine the dictator and help those that are more prodemocratic, i mean, is it just a reality of today? >> well, i think it is basically and the big thing that we have to remember, if you want to look at an international operations to undermine other countries and the real threats to us here in america, the big villain of the piece is china and what they are doing to use everything in their disposal to try and pursue their goal of world domination. they literally talk about it in those terms especially in trying to steal technology and also to force american companies to hand

over the technology that they, the chinese government wants to beat america in important areas particularly in artificial intelligence. that's what we should be worried about it. ashley: thank you so much, steve, for joining us. appreciate it. >> great to see you. ashley: the dow stocks for you, more red than green as you can see. the dow itself up 79 points, you have some winners in there. i think that's intel and visa at the top there leading the way and wal-mart and verizon, thank you, you have better eyesight. wal-mart and verizon on the downside. certainly more selling than buying. president trump says he wants the military parade, big show of force to the world, but ro -- rob o'neil does not like the plan. he said the military parade is a third-world bs.

rob o'neil makes his case next.

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ashley: let's take a look at the tow for you, just almost half an hour into trading, we are down close to 150 when we began the day but certainly starting on the lower platform if you like on the dow and across the s&p

and nasdaq. wal-mart, though, we have to point out big drag on the dow after disappointing results, that shais off 60 points on the loss of dow is all thanks to wal-mart. if it wasn't for wal-mart, it wouldn't be a big deal. still not a big deal. president trump wants a military parade but cnn reporting that the pentagon may ask for donations to pay for it. i kid you not and they say military parade can be a national security nightmare. our next guest says no, former navy seal rob o'neil. >> thank you for having me. ashley: make your case. >> on the surface president trump want ad parade because he saw a parade in france and thought he would honor the troops. with something that quick let's have a parade, you need to look at micro level stuff. how do we get people there, look at all the troops that could be training for combat. you don't show up and march like

north korea, you train for days and weeks, we have been at war, constant combat for nation's history, when we get people back home, they don't want to get everything from getting uniform resized, get ribbons and everything to match. they won't be able to show up and just marched. we fight, we train, we detour, that's what we do. imagine one misstep in the parade that large with 10,000 troops. we don't need to do that. how to we get tanks there. tanks were not designed to go down civilian freeways unless we are invading. look at the security risk. not one of the troops there will be armed. so that many unarmed troops in one spot, imagine the terrorist -- we step up the security around the place. how much security do we pay for? if you want to support the troops, which i know -- ashley: yeah.

>> you'll be able to tell by the haircut and probably -- yeah, right. buy them their beer. buy them their meal. ashley: follow us on social media. >> i used language because once the president says he wants a parade they'll be a room full of people at the pentagon, how do we do it. third-world b.s. we have people to do demonstration, the navy jump themes, thunderbirds, blue angels. you can do that in large area, show the air support. have the golden knights jump in, you can have hundreds of thousands of people watching, that's what they do. there's our air power. if we want to deter, put a carrier off of someone's coast. ashley: rob o'neil. point very well, thank you very much, second hour of varney &

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ashley: good morning everyone, 10:00 a.m. on the east coast. 7:00 a.m. on the west coast. good morning to you, i'm ashley webster in for stuart varney today. session lows unfortunately. we're all over your money but here is what else we got for you at this hour. the man challenging the heidi heitkamp for her seat in north dakota. ally of president trump. it went auld-no for president trump in -- all in for president trump in 2016. 13 russian individuals are being indicted but no collusion, does this vindicate trump? sebastian gorka, former trump advisor joins us. bernie sanders's daughter running for senate but her mom's past, could that be hahning her?

>> we have to the it all. you're watching the second hour of "varney & company." ♪ ashley: let's get straight to your money. big bored around session lows. the dow off 154 points. as we've been saying since the open, walmart dragging down the dow. online sales slowing at walmart. we'll have more on that in a minute. walmart's stock down more than $9 this morning. home depot, better report, higher profits. marginally higher. home depot, we'll call it flat at 186 bucks. the buy out of nxp will help qualcomm bolster the defense by a hostile takeover attempt by broadcom. hope you got that.

of course the big tech names we like to check every day. they're all higher. apple, alphabet, amazon. only fast book moving lower. down half a percent. congressman kevin cramer announced over the weekend that he is challenging democratic incumbent heidi hide cam. camer is a trump alley in a state that voted 63% are to the state. congressman kevin cramer joins us now. thank you so much for joining us. what is the key to this campaign? what is going to make the difference for you? >> sure, drawing the distinction, ashley, between senator heitkamp and me, senator heitkamp won election to congress on the same day, with the same state, with the exact same constituency. we both have a record little over five years old. i'm more than happy to run on my record and she will be running from hers. i'm looking forward to drawing the distinction between somebody who supported repealing and

replacing obamacare with much more centric, patient centric, state centric plan. she was decided vote in not passing that bill in the senate. i supported tax cuts wildly popular and proving to be very, very favorable to the economy, to jobs creation. she of course voted against those. i oppose sanctuary cities. last week she supported sanctuary cities. there are a whole host of policy differences between senator heitkamp and me that i look forward to debating. ashley: of course our topic right now, congressman, gun control. the president has said he's open to perhaps improving certainly the background checks in purchasing funds. where do you stand on that -- guns. >> first of all i'm a strong proponent of the second amendment as most north dakotans are. i believe the president sports position that house already passed the cornyn bill is the something the house of

representatives passed in december. we tied that bill to another bill that provides second amendment rights for, highlights the fact that states have patchwork of policies related to conceal and carry. we make that reciprocal. so law-abiding gun owners and can seal and carry their weapons, while at the same time we beef up nix system, the nicks system to enforce the laws. that is frankly the recent big shootings we've seen certainly in texas, charleston, now in florida, there have been red flags where local and federal law enforcement largely ignored their own laws. ashley: quickly endorsement from president trump for you would go a long way based on what we saw in the presidential election and his success in north dakota, is that right? >> no question, i was one of the first members of congress to endorse him when people thought i was crazy. he encouraged me over the course of last couple years to get in

the race. he closed the deal along with many people on his team, along with thousands of north dakotans. we're looking forward to the year. ashley: congressman, thank you, appreciate it. >> thank you. ashley: thank you, sir. morgan stanley says the recent stock slide was just the appetizer, not the main course, right, emac? liz: talking about the 10-year-year-old going up. some wall street estimates having the 10-year going to 3.5%. it is touching 2.9%. can the market digest it? that 10-year was about double what it is now in the '90s. the market still hummed along. what is the global backstory is key here. is inflation going to be tam -- tamped down? is it a problem? is global earnings growth firing much pretty much on all cylinders? all the answers to those questions is yes. is the 10-year yield going to be a problem. i don't think it is going to be

a problem. i think the market is trading nicely given the global backstory. ashley: normalizing. 10 year at 2.98. liz: market hoping for volatility. we got to have volatility. we have volatility now they're worried about volatility. ashley: they want calm. all right. want to get to this story, emac, back to walmart. we saw disappointing numbers especially the online sales growth. does this bring up questions about whether they compete with amazon? liz: walmart's online prices higher than store? is walmart raising prices a little higher on the website to do internet shopping on the website in order to offset shipping cost? that is the fear out there on part of consumers? is it a deal to shop online is as compared to amazon. liz: as compared to amazon. amazon still has way more small businesses offering different

things. jet.com was a brilliant acquisition according to analysts on wall street. walmart is still positions nicely. they are still having cap-ex expenditures weighing on bottom line, inventory problems, slight shakeout in the holiday quarter. analysts say they could surmount it. ashley: interesting. by the way we have two more amazon-related stories, we have every day it seems. albertson's is buying rest of rite aid not sold to walgreens. amazon is giving 5% discount at whole foods, if you're a prime member. amazon is having another attempt to. liz: this is grocery wars where amazon is trying to get the prime members, beyond 90 million it has. can walmart, excuse me amazon pull them into its website to spend on its platform? that is the play for amazon. this albert son deal, we've

talked about it, it is really interesting, them picking up remaining 1900 plus rite aid stores. a lot of grocery stores are still weak. they have a lot of debt put on them i bet private equity crowd. the this is different from cvs is doing and walgreens is doing. cvs merging with aetna. walgreen's with amerisourcebergen. rite aid going different direction with a grocery store chain. very interesting play. ashley: we haven't talked talket a apple. it is all about amazon. sales of the iphone x apparently struggling in asia simply it costs so much. weak demand further 10 hurting samsung which makes screens for iphone x. kind of a double-whammy. liz: all across asia apple is struggling against companies like vivo and show me. they have a same product like

iphone x but at cheaper price. they say, facial i.d., people don't want it in asia. they don't care about facial i.d. facial i.d. is a face plant. we reported you, other people, different people can open your phone with their faces. so people don't care about that. what they care about is a solid, selfie-taking camera, fingerprint, opening with a fingerprint and a strong battery. that is what the chinese companies and asian suppliers are doing. this is knock off on effect to samsung because samsung, they made oled, the screens for apple. we're watching that story. ashley: interesting. liz: by the way big story with the chinese and asian phone companies and smartphones, their networks are open. apple's closed. that story matter. apple moving on robot cars with apple software is closed, not open to technology. very interesting stuff. ashley: very interesting, emac,

thank you very much. check this out, actor daniel craig selling his aston martin vanquish at charity auction. the fought fourth model expected to raise anywhere between 400,000 and 600,000 bucks. only 100 of these cars were built. he worked with aston-martin to personalize his. the serial number you know what it is, don't you? 007. the mueller investigation resulting in 13 russian companies and 13 russian individuals being indicted by no collusion. the question, does this vindicate president trump? sebastian gorka will join us. the basketball scandal that took down coach rick pittino could have more names. ♪

ashley: let's get back to that big board for you. the dow off now 132, 133 points. we're at 25,085 on the dow just about an hour 14 minutes into today's session. there you have it. a gap falling after announcing its brand president is leaving. investors don't like the sound of that. the gap down a buck 20 at 32.0, down 3 1/2%. guess, i'm not asking you to guess, the company guess, up after announcing it is investigating allegations of improper conduct for the cofounder paul marsh auno. he will give up his day-to-day duties during the investigation. guess stock down 3.25%. robert mueller indicted three russian companies, 13 russian individuals for interfering with the 2016 presidential election but no

collusion was found. facebook saying the russian ads appearing after the election. sebastian gorka, the maga coalition chief strategist. great to see you, sebastian. okay -- >> actually i'm a fox news contributor now, ashley. ashley: they didn't put that in there, sebastian gorka, fox news contributor. congratulations on that. >> thank you. ashley: does the investigation on this issue vindicate president trump? >> look it is quite a pathetic result because 13 russians indicted. we don't have extradition treaty with russia. they will not stand in a federal dock anytime soon. likewise the amounts of money that were spent is pretty pathetic, look at indictment listings of social media purchases. at same time it is good news, it kind of sheds like what russians have been doing here in america for 100 years. they mess in other people's

democratic elections. it seems like some people forgot that. answering real questions of collusion with the regards to the steele dossier, hillary clinton paying for opposition research that was used for an illegal surveillance warrant from the fisa court, we get no answers, no connection to the trump campaign, zero, ashley. no connection at all to the trump administration. so what's mueller's job? well he didn't do his job clearly so far. ashley: at what point do we say enough is enough? it could go on ad nauseam, right? there has to be a point where we say, let's move on? >> this is the big trouble with the special counsel office in general. i'm not a fan of them whether there is a democrat in the white house or a republican. these amorphous mandates and usually end up investigating things that have nothing to do with the original accusation. they spend millions and millions of taxpayer dollars. they go on for years. these crimes or alleged crimes should be investigated by the doj or the fbi. if there is no crime, then why

is there an investigation? ashley, you can't have obstruction of justice. they accused the president of obstruction of justice. you can't have that unless there has been a crime. what's the crime? ashley: right. you know, what we find out is, that you know, the obama administration was well aware of the threat and president obama was warned back all the way in 2014. i read somewhere he confronted putin and said, cut it out. was that the extent he tried to combat russian meddling? >> what did we do? when hillary clinton was famous reset but tone which was translated overcharge. the chairman of the sieve just committee -- cfius committee, sale of 20% of our uranium assets to russia. if there is owecution, look at last eight years, than one year of president trump,. ashley: very interesting, thanks for joining us. you are the chief strategist for

the maga coalition? >> no no. national security strategist for fox news. that's it. that's it. ashley: you're not even with the maga coalition anymore? >> not since i signed with you guys. great to be back. ashley: great to have you with us, sebastian. we really appreciate it. as always thanks for your expertise this morning. >> thank you, ashley,. ashley: we got it straight. another wall street analyst downgraded snapchat's stocks rating because users are hating the redesign so much. i guess they blew it. liz: look at the hits snap is taking in trading. citigroup is downgrading below the ipo price of $17 a share. citi says it could go to 14. why? users do not like snap's redesign. snap's redesign is geared more getting more advertisers on its sign. it has sponsor stories, celebrity stories and not geared toward users. snap is saying user growth is up at 5%.

187 million, but now there is online petition, we haven't seen this, i think in a while. ashley: to go back? liz: 1.5 million people signed a petition saying we hate the redesign. go back. right. it is on change.org. citigroup is saying, this redesign is so bad it could hit the financial results. ashley: wow. liz: could flatten the user growth. ashley: if it ain't broke don't fix it apparently. emac, thank you very much. bitcoin trading at a three-week high, heading above 11,000 bucks. 11,440. venezuela officially launches its cryptocurrency. we'll have details after this. ♪ you know what they say about the early bird...

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ashley: domino's pizza, that is, sales falling short, hurting the stock, down six bucks at $214. that is dominoes. chipotle getting upgrade to hold testing kinoa at in new york city. venezuela's petro cryptocurrency launches today. to would want to buy any currency of venezuela? liz: that is the point. they will back each virtual coin with one barrel of its oil. who -- >> really? liz: looking to raise $6 billion. the opposition in venezuela ashley, saying don't do this. this is basically a forward sale of venezuela's oil that hasn't even been lifted out of ground yet.

can you trust venezuela with now its new virtual currency, when its central bank created hyperinflation? the socialists in the government there, basically taken a lot of the assets. the u.s. justice department are investigating the cronies of maduro and chavez expropriating assets for their own personal gain. this is basically a blockade-busting petro currency to avoid eu and u.s. sanctions. in other words -- ashley: who will buy into that? liz: that is the question. who will buy into it? again, opaque, right. ashley: exactly. talking of weird headlines, how about this one. a south korean cryptocurrency regulator has been found dead? liz: 52 years old, found suddenly in his sleep of a heart attack. he was thought to have been under stress. potentially an investigation into his death because we know he was spearheading a crackdown

on cryptocurrencies, right, because of the manipulation in that market. so it is presumed he suffered a heart attack. authorities still looking into the matter. ashley: 52 years old. young. liz: young. ashley: weird. emac, thank you very much. liz: sure. ashley: billionaire bill gates says rich people like him should pay significantly higher taxes. go ahead. nothing is stopping him from sending a check to the treasury department, right? we're on that story. ben bernanke's stepdaughter running for mayor in burlington, vermont. but her mom's past as president of burlington college could haunt that. ♪ at fidelity, trades are now just $4.95.

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♪ ashley: coming up to 10:30. that means beatles time of course. even when stu is not here. if he is watching, that one is for you. liz: he would probably hate that song. ashley: that and "lucy in the sky with diamonds." that is not his style. the dow is off 145 points. we've been telling all morning walmart is the biggest drag. at least 60 points of that loss can be attributed to walmart. big tech names we like to check every day. look at those. most in the green. only one suffer something facebook. down 51 on the big board. only down a third of a percent. the rest of them moving higher. walmart's down big today. we mentioned walmart. other retailers down in sympathy though. target, costco, kroger all moving lower.

jcpenney and sears bucking the trend a little bit moving slightly higher. let's get back to taxes, our favorite topic, right. the president is suggesting that raising the federal gas tax and he would like to do that. he is also in favor of an internet tax. grover norquist is americans for tax reform. i would suspect you're not a fan of either of those plans? >> there will not be a gas tax. it would the knob passed in an election year. it would be devastating to trump-voting states and claw back as many middle income people as much as 60% of tax reduction we just got them. great idea for democrats to trick the president into saying we'll think about it in order to sound polite but the democrats would go to town and it would be a massive tax on middle income americans. if you want to put more money in road, stop siphoning 25% off of

it into subways. stop having the davis bacon bill. everything costs more. get rid of davis bacon. stop siphoning money off. you have twice as much money for roads. you don't need to raise taxes. ashley: very good. internet sales issue around for a long time. that could generate a lot of revenue? >> no, actually it won't? ashley: no? >> because the big person in the game was amazon and amazon is now in all 50 states. if you have a presence if 50 states you pay taxes in 50 states. what the present supreme court decision which says you can't tax across state lines, you can't take a utah company that sells things to 49 states and have 49 states beat it up. ashley: right. >> if that company expands, walmart is into this, they're in all 59, 57, states, amazons in all 50 states. the big guys are all paying taxes already. all this change would take,

maybe a supreme court decision that lets states do this, would be to tax smaller companies that try and sell throughout the country from somebody's back room. it would hurt ebay people who sell on ebay. it is a bad idea. i know the president was unhappy with amazon but he is about 15 years off in thinking this -- amazon is for this. maybe somebody at the white house need to tell the president, amazon likes this. this is not a good idea. tax on its competitors. ashley: gas tax was in reference to this infrastructure bill. >> yep. ashley: it seems to me, based on what the funding proposals are on facebook, consumers will pay more one way or another. whether it is road tolls or some form or fashion, that we'll have to pay for a lot of these projects. >> there is a difference between a road toll for a new road or widened bridge, that people who use it actually pay it. it is not a user fee when they take your gas tax because you drive up and down new jersey highways and they take it and

build highways or worst, subways somewhere else. that is not user fee. that is not a tax. excise tax is not a user fee. there is something to be said for user fees instead of raising other taxes, but the most important thing to do, the president talked about this, the tax increase is not in his proposal. it was a comment. it is not written down or in the proposal. the most important part of the proposal, taking ten years it can take to give a permit for any kind of expansion of infrastructure, broadband. ashley: right. >> energy facilities and taking it to two years. it is estimated that in six years would save 3, 4, trillion dollars by reducing waiting cost on this stuff. that is the big win for taxpayers. you got to get those permits. ashley: but, grover, still a lot is on the backs of states and local governments and they are notoriously difficult to deal with when it comes to these kind of projects. yes you can streamline the federal process but still can

get bogged down. >> they're not, they're not going to allow, giving money to states if they haven't actually got the permits ready. ashley: okay. >> the states will have to fix their permitting process. i know people like to talk about infrastructure this. is about permitting reforms which has a huge impact on fixing our infrastructure problems which largely stem from ridiculously long permitting process and everybody and their brother can sue to stop it. remember the pipelines trying to build through nebraska and north dakota? >> yamana everybody sued and you know they came up with all sorts of stupid reasons and a bunch of lawyers got rich and it damaged middle income people trying to make a living in those states, particularly in that industry. ashley: right. >> permitting win is a huge one. it makes a infrastructure fix much more valuable. also the federal government will be a smaller percentage of these deals. the truly stupid things get built when feds come in paying

90% for something you wouldn't want yourself but we're paying for it we'll do it. that is where stupid comes in. feds are limited to 20% of a project. it still might be a mistake but not prima facia stupid. ashley: i have literally 20 seconds. billionaire bill gates, head of microsoft said, he paid bills, that the government should require him to pay higher taxes. response to mr. gates. >> there is website, pay.gov will gates, challenge you to put up or shut up. if you want to pay more taxes, $2 billion is opening bid. you think you're smarter than the government. you put your money to the foundation. you don't give it to the government. when you say taxes should be raised you mean on everybody else. you put your taxable income into a tax-free foundation. you think you're smarter than the government. you can spend your money but

rest of us. pay.gov, billion dollars right now. let us know, bill, that you did this. that you weren't just talking. ashley: grover, thank you very much. >> we could go for 20 minutes on this. ashley: we don't have the time unfortunately, grover, thank you very much. how about this joining us now live on the radio brian kilmeade. you know what? he has a show called the "brian kilmeade show," which is so appropriate. >> thank you. ashley: brian, stu who never get as flu shot by the way and laughs at people who does, guess what, he is sick today? so that is the jinx. >> right. ashley: let -- >> might not be the flu, ashley. you're not hoping he has the flu. ashley: not at all, no, no. get well, stu, honestly we're not laughing at you. okay, brian, this is story we kind of had some fun with, bernie sanders's stepdaughter, katrina driscoll is running for mayor for burlington, vermont. her candidacy has hit with controversy from payments once

received oh, yes, her college her mother used to run. interesting story, would you say. >> woodworking college to offer degrees and for students to get financial aid she would have to be associated with a college. so the college she chose just happened to be a chegg in which jane sanders was on the board. she brought this to the board at burlington college. they decided to give her $500,000 for that college. now, there was no proof that the woodworking school could pay that money back. we know this in 2016 there, is no more burlington college. jane sanders is looked at for the work she did and didn't do when it is related to that school. now her daughter, the stepdaughter of bernie sanders, is running for mayor of, mayor of burlington. they're saying wait a second. let's look at your past. she hooked up with johnson state college? so now she has affinity there with the woodworking school. ashley: okay. >> she will run for mayor.

but shouldn't that matter? sanders dynasty. this is the second coming of the kennedys where socialism is now cool and passed down from generation? you make $90 and you give 85 a way. thank you that is the american dream. ashley: bernie enjoys live in how many properties he owns. another one for you, brian, president trump, i love this, endorsing mitt romney in the utah senate race. here is what he tweeted. he will make a great senator and worthy successor to orrin hatch. has my full support and endorsement. he called romney other things in the past including a total joke. your thoughts? >> mitt romney says his endorsement is as worthless as degree from trump university. these two gone at it harder than i have seen two people go at it w donald trump, ashley, nothing is permanent. i go at you, i will go at you personally, but don't take it

personally. americans, rand paul, paul ryan, lindsey graham. they get over it. people get over it. trump gets over it if you show him respect. lately mitt romney hayes, they came to new york city when he was runner-up to be secretary of state. it wasn't a ruse. i heard that was a legitimate courtship. he almost got the job but too many people inside the trump camp rebelled or trump was willing to put it behind him. the thing scary for the trump-romney relationship which we all live and die with, as soon as president trump does something mitt romney doesn't like you know that mitt romney will say something and what trump going to do? say something back. and we're going to fall downstairs. i look at mitt romney will not be the jeff flake of 2018. i do think he will pick his spots, more like lindsey graham. ashley: very quickly, brian, i know you're a sports nuts. have you been enjoying the winter olympics. what is your sport? are you a luge kind of guy?

>> i do luge and soccer. very similar sports. if you're good at one, good at other. i do not luge. i have a flexible flyer that goes fast when i take old candle and wax the blades. that's it. ashley: that sounds very professional. >> i appreciate athletes that do anything, however i keep having to remind myself the olympics have started. i don't see any heat around it. ashley: i know. >> no one bid on the 2028 games, ashley. there is a sense that winter is going down. i want these athletes to get their moment in the sun but when the curling, when the russian curling athlete is caught on steroids, i don't know what to believe anymore of the especially because i was told the russians were banned. now i'm told they can compete, not as russians. who are they if they can't compete as russians? ashley: who needs to get bulged up for curling? i guess they use the brushes and need steroid for that. we're out of time.

great stuff as always. >> can i say for the record, ashley i like you better so much than stuart. ashley: you're so lovely. if you're at home, stuart, don't listen to that see you in the hallway. look at the big board for you. gained more downward pressure, haven't we. down 200 points. down 196. hanging on just above 25,000, to 25,021 on the dow. the next hour, the daytona 500 champion, austin dillon, we'll talk to him about sunday's victory. we'll find out how he celebrated after sunday's big win. first the scandal that took down college basketball coach rick pittino could eventually take down more. fox sports 1 host jason whitlock is next. ♪

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♪ liz: last hour, congressman carlos carvalho says he is hearing from more republican lawmakers every day to make changes to the gun laws. roll tape. >> i do see a growing bipartisan consensus, i can say on the republican side of the aisle every day i'm getting more calls and more interests in doing things like raising the minimum age for all gun purchases across the board. we know there are some inconsist

if you're 18, 19 or 20, you can't purchase a handgun. you can not buy a beer but can buy powerful long guns. that is something certainly can change. something to allow the cdc to study gun violence as public health issue. right now the law bands that type of research. and, that doesn't seem to make sense either. this is your new house. and a perfectly inconspicuous suv. you must become invisible. [hero] i'll take my chances.

ashley: now this. remember the big college basketball corruption scandal that took down louisville coach rick pittino. a new report says more heads could roll after 10 people were arrested last year on charges of fraud and corruption. this story goes on and on. jason whitlock, fox sports "speak for yourself" joins us now. this investigation goes far and wide. >> i'm not a big fan of this though. ashley: why? >> listen, i think the ncaa and college basketball and football have a problem. the people, the coaches, the athletes, the administrators in college athletics, they don't believe in amateurism. amateur system outdated system. that is why the olympics went away from it. when you have a group of people that are within your system who don't believe in the system of amateurism, you're going to have corruption. i disagree with the fbi for

wasting money on this. because basically what this comes down to is, your criminalizing the behavior of giving kids or young people money for the work that they do in making, enriching these schools and all these coaches. i completely disagree with this type of investigation by the fbi. again, amateurism needs to go away. you can't build a system of integrity off a foundation that most people find morally bankrupt. ashley: that is interesting, jason so basically you're saying throw out all the rules on recruitment. that you can tempt a star high school player with promises of money and -- >> no, i'm not saying throw out all the rules. ashley: what are you saying? >> create new rules that compensate the athletes who bring immense value to your school or organization. ashley: okay. >> i'm saying build it on a,

people don't believe in amateurism. coaches are now making 3, 4, 5, $10 million a year, and they're recruiting kid that say, we're going to give you grant-in-aid, we'll give you a scholarship but we'll experience all this immense wealth. ashley: right. >> there has been so much money poured into college athletics it needs a new system, not unlike how the olympics decided you know what? amateur system a poor standard. it doesn't work anymore, when you consider how much money has been thrown into athletics. ashley: i gotcha. let's change gears in sports. major league baseball announcing rules designed to basically speed up the pace of the games including limits to a pitcher's mound and shaving time off between innings, what is your thoughts on that? >> i don't mind them tweaking the game and trying to quicken the pace. but at the end of the day, i think, baseball's demise or baseball's lack of ability to

attract young people is being greatly exaggerated. baseball is a great game. it's a great regional game. it's a great game to experience in person. look, again, i don't mind this rule change but i'm not sure how effective it is going to be. i'm not sure it will have some huge impact that we'll go from games that are three hours or games that are 2 hours 45 minutes or 2 hours, 30 minutes. i don't see that happening. i don't mind them tweaking the rules. ashley: as long as they don't mess with integrity of the game, changing the ball or the bat, something like that. turn it into whiffle ball, whatever. your points are well-made, jason whitlock as always. thanks so much for joining us. >> thank you, ashley. ashley: let's check the big board, we are down, we were getting down close to 200 points, coming back a bit. we're down 167 points on the dow. down .6 of 1%.

facebook taking heat for not doing enough to prevent russian meddling in u.s. politics. one facebook executive is adding fuel to the public's fire. we have got that story. stay around. ♪ with big dreams... we came with big appetites. with expedia one click gives you access to discounts on thousands of hotels, cars and things to do. like the garland hotel for 40% off. everything you need to go. expedia

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ashley: back now to that russian probe and facebook's role in the investigation. facebook continues to get a lot of heat for not doing enough to prevent russian meddling in u.s. politics. facebook's ad executives spoke out on twitter. that caused an uproar. hillary vaughn has the details following it from l.a. hillary. what have you got? reporter: hey, ashley he did set the record straight on twitter what he thinks russia's game plan was in 2016 saying influencing the election was not russia's main goal pointing out most of ad buys on social network happened after president trump was elected. go ahead man pointing -- goldman saying disinformation is not effective against a

well-educated citizenry. sparking controversy on line and at facebook. facebook said goldman's tweets are his personal opinions and don't affect the company's position saying in a statement, quote, nothing we found contradicts the special counsel's indictments. any suggestion otherwise is wrong. now facebook was cited 41 times in mueller's indictment. it has already taken big steps to make sure what happened in 2016 doesn't happen in 2018 during the midterm elections. some of those changes, hiring 10,000 employees to combat hate speech. getting better rooting out fake accounts. verifying that political ad buyers actually live here in the u.s. ashley? ashley: the debate is going to rage on though. hillary vaughn, great stuff as always. hillary, thank you very much, appreciate it. let's take a quick look at the big board. we've been down since the open, down 190 points, just above 25,000 on the dow. 25,033. we got some, well, weaker-than-expected quarterly earnings results from walmart. that has been weighing on the

market. about a third of that loss is probably attributed to walmart on the dow but overall we begin a new week, shortened trading week because of a three-day holiday on a down note. all right, koch brothers putting money to work. backing marcia blackburn in the senate in tennessee. the head of the koch brothers political arm will tell us the strategy next. and gold markets. okay. i'm plugged into equities - trade confirmed - and i have global access 24/7. meaning i can do what i need to do, then i can focus on what i want to do. visit learnfuturestoday.com to see what adding futures can do for you.

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banking on growing support for the midterms. give this is a winning strategy. the koch brothers launching new attack ads against democrat senators from red states. the man behind that effort is here, we will talk about that strategy. the daytona 500 chair boston dylan joins us in studio. we will talk about sunday's victory and find out how he celebrated after his big win. the third hour of varney starts now. ♪ ashley: let's begin with your money, check the big board, dow 30 stocks, more red than green, selling more than we are buying, stocks down, morgan stanley says the recent stock

slide is due to the appetizer, not the main course. john layfield out in the caribbean enjoying life. morgan stanley says more pain to come. do we have a reason to worry? >> i don't think a reason to worry, but more volatility if you are in the market and to your 401(k) goes down, more heartfelt feelings when you see a retirement nest egg, not a reason to worry significantly. most of the volatility was due to technical fundamentals, economic fundamentals, had to do with shortselling fund that blue up than algorithmic trading and inflation number as an excuse, nothing has changed in the global economy. inflation is a concern but manifesting 6 to 18 months out. ashley: walmart a big loser dragging the dow down.

you don't normally see big drops like this with walmart. we saw growth disappointed in the holiday period. with this kind of drop it is down $10, add $94.43. is this a by? >> i have owned it since the 50s because of the e-commerce model and the acquisition, it is a buying opportunity. the biggest thing with walmart, 2%, a company that size growing according to gdp, down 23%. and 40%, the biggest thing in walmart is overseas, the online india e-commerce, and $20

billion, and a 40% stake of that, the growth strategy makes walmart a by. >> 5% back on whole foods purchases. albertson's announcing buying portions of drugstore chain right aid. those portions not being sold to walgreens. amazon is truly changing the landscape. >> the man amazon news came out, the right thing to do, it took a huge bump today, amazon getting into any business, don't want compete with amazon, harder to get the

pharmaceutical business and grocery business, cvs, and right aid going forward. ashley: crypto currency, regulations, you are not the biggest fan of bit coin, get some regulations and fly in the face of what crypto currency stands for. >> it is almost impossible to do. the only way to regulate crypto currency is but you can ban crypto currency exchanges like china did but the only way to regulate is to regulate the entry and exit point. the dark web, the drug ring, only got busted because a person who is a public computers login, once you get into the crypto currency world unless you exit through fiat currency or some acquisition you cannot be traced and cannot be regulated. the only problem i have with bit coin is it is a bubble and

it is overvalued, it is not this high. ashley: you like the block chain technology on this digital register. >> absolutely. the future of the world, every government, every fed will try to regulate this, some will ban it because you can do any once you get in that crypto currency world or your normal fiat currency because you can always re-numerate it, vpn to go into a foreign country. in the crypto currency world it is impossible to regulate governments absolutely hate that. people who like a bit coin love it. ashley: let's bring in david schweikert on this very same topic. he is in the tax-writing committee and the joint economic committee. congressman, should the federal government regulate it coin? >> your last guest nailed it, it is very hard to regulate the underlying crypto currency. you could do some regulation with the exchange mechanism

assuming the exchange mechanism stayed within the us government's purview. you could have standard that the exchange level but the underlying concept of crypto currency becomes very difficult to regulate. ashley: kind of out there so to speak but the next one, donald trump floating the idea of an increase in the gas tax and an online sales tax. these are consumption taxes. are you for that kind of idea? >> the underlying concept of a consumption tax is users pay. what is the classic problem we have in a modern economy as we do today? the gas tax. it raises much less than most people understand but if you have a plug-in car, a plug in hybrid you are not paying that tax. the reality is if we are going

to look at user fees as a replacement for a gas tax we have to do something fairly complex. in a society ready to calculate the weight of your vehicle in the number of miles you drive, that is what you are talking about. ashley: online sales tax. >> the online sales tech starts to become one, really tricky, congress many years ago sort of put a stall to collect the tax early on. the online group, we have a hodgepodge system where some states demand collection, some states track you. we have to have a conversation how to do it. the previous pieces of legislation if you are really smart and careful, ways to gain it and we also have a problem, does it also forced the country issuing the product you're buying it from out of the

country. so it is going to take some real thinking, how to set up an online sales tax system and not have it be manipulated. ashley: all good points. thank you for spending time talking to us, we appreciate it. individual stocks we are watching. home depot, strong sales for the holiday quarter fueled by big-ticket items, that stock up $3, at 190. domino's pizza shares are down, sales fell short and the market reacting to that, domino's pizza down $3.74, $216 for domino's. starbucks sewing coffee the changes colors, the color change comes from a t on the bottom layer that is made from the butterfly t flower. butterfly t flower. we were talking about this, the colors change as you stir or soup the drink. as of now it is only available

in asia so you have to go a long way to check it out. no way to touch it with a 10 foot pole. liz: a los mcdonald's coffee. ashley: 10 years after watching dale in our junior drive the iconic number 3 chevy to win the daytona 500, austin dillon used the same technique to pick up a daytona when, how he came from behind to pool off the victory. rnc spokesman kaylee mcinerney tells us selling the tax law will help the gop maintain the house and senate in the midterms. you are watching the third hour of "varney and company". ♪ i can make your hands clap ♪ every night ♪ am i the only one that can move around nah. not gonna happen.

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homeless service authority finds officials underestimated how much new housing would be needed, to approve that, reportedly $70 million annual shortfall for the homelessness program could more than triple. recent polls show the president's tax plan gaming support, gaining traction ahead of the midterm elections. he tweeted about that this one a republican leading the generic poll because of the popular tax cuts which democrats want to take away, they want to raise your taxes. kaylee mcinerney, great to have you here. we talked about when you have been on the show before, got to do a better job or get the message out that this economy is picking up, this tax reform

will make a difference to the average person's paycheck and their life, it seems, reflected on the polls. >> messaging of the party is working. the policies are working. we see across the nation, 90% of americans see their paychecks go up on they felt that, these have seen it, this is something we talk about going back to december, deceiving the american, not going to -- that with her deception and voters are recognizing at in the polls. >> that leaves democrats out on a limb a little bit because they have taken up strategy of resistance and offered anything in between so there was always a gamble do you not think that if the economy did pick up and people did feel better about things they had nothing, in the midterms. l>>et's ctrast, the

republicanarty that put foard tax cutsdereguted, put fire uer this econy and look at the democratic party it is resistant they are doubling down on that strategy. a democratic pack basically said double down on your hate against tax-cut and anti-trump messaging is what they do in -- ashley: what does the president's impact have on you and other times, oprah winfrey for instance, does that detract from the progress being made in the economy? would you rather he not get embroiled in things he doesn't need to? >> that adds to his authenticity. the american people one of the key reasons they elected donald trump's they believe he was saying what he held, speaking off-the-cuff in chappaqua' -- practicing for the debate like hillary clinton did, people

appreciate his authenticity and twitter feed is a big part of that. ashley: here's donald trump tweeting his newfound support for mitt romney in the utah senate race, quote, mitt romney will make a great senator and worthy successor to orrin hatch and has my full support and endorsement. these two gentlemen stumped back and forth over the years flinging insults at each other very liberally. your thoughts on that? >> we are a unified republican party. it took some time because donald trump ran against the establishment in our party but tax cuts brought us together and mitt romney is on the same page as the president and we are coalesced and unified and it is exciting and great to see the president endorse a great candidate, we don't take positions at the rnc as primaries but great to see republican unity. ashley: one of the top topics is gun-control in the wake of the florida shooting. the president, we understand, does support improving the

criminal background stuff for people who want to purchase weapons. does that alienate some of his base? >> i don't think so. regional -- reasonable gun owners, understand having thorough background checks, making sure weapons don't get into the hand of mentally ill individuals who have a proclivity for violence, not the tendency but the group within like this disturbed individual most people understand that is common sense. we don't think -- it is reasonable commonsense reform in the wake of the tragedy. ashley: want to talk about taxes. consumption taxes, the president floated the idea of a gas tax, $.25 a gallon and maybe collecting online sales tax. any tax raised especially directly to the consumer not really a popular thing especially among conservatives. >> president reagan raised the gas tax and ended up doing just

fine. he cut taxes on individual income but raised the gas tax and that is the user decision whether you pay that tax or default to another transportation but if you raise revenue that is the place to do it. ashley: thank you so much for joining us. now this, donald trump junior is in india meeting with developers who are creating luxury apartment complexes in four cities, these deals were in place before the election, the trump tower apartments cost $775,000, and $1.5 million. another look at the big board down since "the opening bell" down triple digits close to 153 points, 25,066, the dow holding a the 25,000 level, a lot of this due to walmart who had disappointing earnings, individual stocks we are following, 73% snap chat favorable reviews are one star

rating thanks to what some say is a confusing update redesign they don't like and stock down 3%. let's look at ge, general electric's sale of gas engine business, the of that could be worth as much as to billion dollars, stock down slightly, $.26, $14.79 for ge. videogame chips, just at an all-time high despite markets today continuing to soar, up another $7, $250. krispy kreme creates a new donut in honor of the winter olympics. partnering with hershey's for the limited-edition snack featuring krispy kreme's iconic glazed not topped with pieces of hershey's golden candy bar sprinkled on a salted caramel icing, makes you go down the

luge faster. donald from claims vindication but could president obama have done more to start russia from meddling in the election? the judge weighs in on that next.

ashley: let's check out some of the other headlines for you, look out below. a drone crash landing into a solar panel at the new apple park in california. drones are falling into them. a separate drone operator had to be called in to locate the exact point of impact, but that's not all. apple employees also smacking their heads into the glass walls that make up the headquarters. it's kind of snake bitten, isn't it? oh, well, there you go. a runaway toddler is rescued after falling in a busy milan subway. the teenager notices the baby on the tracks, heroically jumps in after him. by the way, no one hurt. this all happening just one minute before a train pulled into the station. everyone was fine. human bones recovered from a calm cod shipwreck -- from a

cape cod shep wreck, researchers are trying to match dna from the bones to one of bellamy's living rell lives. -- relatives. very cool. and say hello to tomb raider barbie. mattel introducing this new doll model after the popular video character lara croft, alicia vie cannedder plays her in the new time raider flick in march. barbie will be on display in today's toy fair right here in new york. austin, i know you're going to be running down there. [laughter] lucky charms is adding a new magical unicorn marshmallow. the white horse will join the sweet cast in march. this is the nurse time the cereal has added a new magical shape in a decade. >> so exciting. ashley: you better believe, we should have gone with that at the top of the show.

[laughter] the koch brothers spending millions ahead of the midterms targeting two democrat senators in states that went strongly for president trump. the man behind the brothers' effort is here. we'll talk to him. more "varney" after this. ♪ ♪ liberty mutual stood with me when i was too busy with the kids to get a repair estimate. i just snapped a photo and got an estimate in 24 hours. my insurance company definitely doesn't have that... you can leave worry behind when liberty stands with you™ liberty mutual insurance. touch is how we communicate with those we love, but when your psoriasis is bad, does it ever get in the way?

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ashley: all right, let's take a look ate big board for you. more red than green, more selling than buying, and as a result dow's come back a little bit. we were down some 200 points, we're down now 74 points, still above of the 25,000 level, 25,144. walmart, as we've been saying all morning, a big drag on the dow with disappointing earnings, and they have been dragging the dow down. amazon making a lot of news today as they do every day. it is announcing a new perk for prime members, 5% cash back at whole foods. we're also seeing the amazon effect with the news that albertson's is buying portions of rite aid, be walmart's online sales disappointed which you could say is the amazon effect over the holiday season. joining us now, university of maryland business professor

peter morici. this is an issue we get into more and more now. is amazon getting so big that the dreaded antitrust issue comes to the surface? >> if -- antitrust is applied as has been tradition, that is according to market shares and market size, no. amazon is into a lot of different things, but in no place is it the dominant player. walmart is certainly as big as amazon or at least in the retail space amazon's market share is not large. what amazon is doing is scaring the hell out of people because it has mastered supply chain management on hard goods x there's a lot of inefficiencies in the economy in that regard. for example, the people that retail drugs. ashley: that's true. but, you know, i guess to prove -- to have an antitrust issue, i can't see the harm to the consumer. it's not like they monopolize everything and prices are higher. they're in competition, they do have the volume advantage, but they are offering cheaper prices. so i don't see the problem for the consumer. >> absolutely not.

if they are in the drug space soon and really in the retail drug space in a big way and they lower costs, it's because operations like cvs are so inefficient. and, frankly, in my community it's like the third world. i mean, it takes so long to get anything done. it's a terrible place. ashley: yeah. no, i hear that from other people too. another one for you, peter, goldman sachs raising a red flag over too much government spending. it says our current debt path is just not sustainable. look, we know just by putting that clock on there which is very sobering, we're spending way too much. how worried are you about the debt? >> i'm actually quite worried. not so much about the volume of the debt, but because so much of it is owned overseas. on -- the net investmenting position of the united states is above 45% of gdp. within a decade we're going to be exceeding the kinds of levels that cause meltdowns in places like spain and so forth. now, we print the reserve

currency, which is an advantage. but, you know, already the premium that u.s. treasuries used to get vis-a-vis other sovereign debt has gone away. bond markets no longer view it as too big to fail, so to speak. i think it's getting to the point where while we can print dollars, the interest rates that we have to pay on the debt would force a curtailment in government activities. ashley: yeah. the debt bomb is ticking, as they like to say. peter morici, thank you very much, as always. appreciate it. >> take care. ashley: the koch brothers investing millions on an ad campaign targeting claire mccaskill in missouri and joe donnelly in indiana. roll tape. >> tax reform is sweeping across missouri. small businesses are growing. paychecks are going up. families are saving more for what matters. missouri pride is back. senate claire mccaskill said she'd support tax cuts for hard working missourians, but when she had the chance, she said no, voting against tax cuts for you. standing with chuck schumer and

nancy pelosi instead of us. tell senator mccaskill to put missouri jobs first. ashley: all right. pretty plain and simple. come on in, tim phillips, americans more prosperity president. tim, your group behind that ad and very clearly says, look, if you're for the tax reform, thank you very much. but if you were against it, as the democrats were, this is going to hurt you because come the midterms, it's going to be very hard for democrats to explain why they voted against them. >> absolutely. senator mccaskill, senator donnelly in indiana, really every democrat, they said no to cutting taxes for the vast majority of americans including americans struggling on the lower income ladder, middle class folks, and they chose partisan politics. they picked nancy pelosi, chuck schumer instead of giving the families and small businesses in their states like missouri and indiana a tax cut. and i think it's going to be a very difficult vote for them to explain. they're trying. i don't think it's going to work though.

it was a terrible decision. ashley: it was, because they went all in, didn't they? they rolled the dice, so to speak, to say we're going to oppose this, we'll take up the strategy of resistance, and that will be enough. >> right. ashley: and it could very well backfire given what we've seen in the economy and the amount of money given back to the people of america. >> i think it's already backfiring. you saw "the new york times" poll out today, over 50 % of americans now view that tax cut and tax reform law favorably. they've seen the bonuses and the jobs being created and the new economic activity, more money, folks are getting their february paychecks, actually, and there's more in there. this thing is absolutely going to back tour on these democrats -- backfire on these democrats. they shouldn't choose partisan politics over good policies. ashley: tim, the koch brothers also backing tennessee congresswoman marsha blackburn as she runs for the senate seat. can she beat bob corker if he, in fact, decides to run again? >> marsha blackburn is a

champion on economic freedom issues, and we absolutely believe she's going to be the next senator from the state of tennessee. when some folks waffled on repealing obamacare like senator corker, marsha blackburn was a champion to do it. she was gutsy in that. when other folks were saying, well, maybe these tax cuts aren't a good idea, she championed the biggest possible tax cut. she is the right person at this time for that job. ashley: all right. we'll have to leave it there. tim phillips, thanks so much for joining us, we appreciate it. >> you bet. ashley: president trump says president obama should shoulder most of the blame for russian meddling in our election. all rise, judge andrew napolitano is here to discuss. we're hearing a lot more about this, that the russian meddling went back 2014, two years before the presidential election. >> yes, yes. ashley: before donald trump probably thought running for president. >> well, he indicated as far back as 2011 that he was going to run -- ashley: we didn't believe him. [laughter] >> the pattern that bob muler

and the grand jury have set out -- bob mueller and the grand jury have set out shows -- [inaudible] "the new york times" quotes some of the russian people involved are saying there were a thousand of us. now, a project of that magnitude could only have come from the kremlin itself. so why didn't the obama administration find it? we have known since the revelations of edward snowden that the nsa's 60,000 spies in the united states without warrant can and have been capturing every key stroke on every mobile and desktop device. all fiber optic cable transmitted and all phone calls. why didn't the government find this? why didn't the fbi or nsa find it? answer, information overload. spy on everybody, you get too much information to sift there. but this is an assault by foreign spies in a manner against the best interests of the obama administration -- ashley: right. >> -- which surely wanted

hillary to replace him, not donald trump. one would think they would have found this and done something about it. bob mueller wasn't appointed until after donald trump was president. he comes by after this has been done. ashley: to the president's point, no direct proof of any collusion. >> okay. so bob mueller has indicted 13 people whom he will never try. ashley: right. >> because they've never going to come to the u.s. why to you indict somebody you're never going to try? to smoke out somebody that you can try. to smoke out any american collaborators. it is almost inconceivable that an effort of this magnitude and this level of sophistication had no american collaborators. and if they're there -- whether they're in the trump campaign or not -- ashley: right. >> -- bob mueller will find them. ashley: interesting. "the new york times" suggesting that justice anthony kennedy could retire. any insight on that, judge? >> you know, the story that i hear is that justice kennedy told justice scalia that he,

kennedy, would retire as soon as a republican was in the white house. when donald trump got elect are ared he -- elected, he said let me wait and see who he appoints to replace justice scalia. the president appointed not only a former clerk of justice kennedy -- >> forgive me for the other clerks -- but his favorite former clerk, justice gorsuch. justice kennedy now loves working with his former clerk, now his equal on the court. so i don't think the kennedy decision to retire is going to happen. ashley: is his health good? >> his health is good, and he's that pivotal person. sandra day o'connor once held this position. he swings with the conservatives or swungs with the liberals, and whichever way he goes, 5-4, he gets to make the call. ashley: he's the key person. >> why would you want to give that up? ashley: wow. a new lease on life. judge, appreciate it. daytona 500 champion austin dillon celebrating with a new

tattoo. you know stu would not approve of that, but stu's not here, so we're talking about it. [laughter] plus, the trump administration proposing new health care rules that would expand the availability of short-term health insurance. beating obamacare author betsy mccoy tells us if these changes could, indeed, lower costs for you, the consumer. we'll be right back. ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ >> i'm jerry willis from the floor of the new york stock exchange with your fox business brief. the union representing 35,000 walt disney world resort workers filing a federal complaint accusing disney of holding employees' $1,000 bonus hostage during contract negotiations. last month disney announced it was giving $1,000 bow misses to 125,000 employees, that's similar to other companies who are dishing out bonuses in response to the federal tax cut. the services trade council representing these disney employees says that, quote: if the unionized employees do not accept disney's off by august 31st, the bonus will expire. disney offering a 50 cent an hour raise or a 3% increase, whichever is higher, the union rejected that. ♪ ♪

but i'm not standing still... and with godaddy, i've made my ideas real. ♪ ♪ i made my own way, now it's time to make yours. ♪ ♪ everything is working, working, just like it should ♪ ashley: okay, now this, the state of ido is reportedly taking on obamacare by offering its own insurance plans that don't comply with the law. interesting. let's bring in former new york lieutenant governor and "beating obamacare" author betsy mccaughey who i know is fascinated by this story. of. >> i'm enthusiastic. ashley: so idaho is doing, what? creating their -- >> they are meeting the needs of

middle class insurance buyers in that state who have been priced out of insurance because of obamacare plans. the program yums have been soaring. -- premiums have been soaring. the governor of idaho has said let's allow insurance companies to offer more choice. consumers can buy obamacare if they want to, but if they can't afford it -- ashley: this breaks federal law, right? >> it does. title i of obamacare requires all the states to limit insurance to the one-size-fits-all, government-designed plan. but it also gives the secretary of health and human services enormous discretion to offer waivers to states just like idaho. and look to the trump administration to offer a retrospective waiver -- ashley: so you don't expect the administration to compel idaho to poll, you know, obama -- >> no. blue cross blue shield would not be playing these cards if they thought the federal government was going to whack them with a lawsuit. that's not going to happen. in fact, the trump

administration today announced regulations, subject to review as usual -- ashley: yes. >> -- that will enable people all across the country to buy what they call short-term health plans, up to 365 days, that are very similar to -- >> wait, idaho's going to charge sicker people more, right? >> they're going to give healthy people a break. >> you wonder if washington tate and oregon are going to pick up on what idaho's doing, right? the environment -- >> out won't be just idaho. many, many states across the country will want to see these plans that do two things. they give you a broad or choice of benefits so you're not paying for pediatric dental care if you have no kids, and secondly, they put a cap on the a payout per year. so if you're a healthy person, you've got maybe a million dollars worth of coverage a year rather than unlimited. and most importantly, they let the insurance companies underwrite so they give healthy people a break. ashley: but the critics will say, well, look, the protections

go out the window. you don't cover pre-existing conditions, you don't put a limit on treatment for older and sick individuals. in other words, the protections that were in there in obamacare -- >> you call them protections. the one price for everybody health insurance, charging sick and healthy people the same, it was deemed a protection by the obama administration. ashley: right. >> but it's responsible for 50% of the premium hikes because sick people use ten times as much health care as healthy people. you could say it's a real ripoff to force healthy people to pay the same as sick people. ashley: right. so the bottom line is, is this the first tangible sign that perhaps there is a solution out there? this thing is still sloughing around in congress. they started to repeal obamacare, the first thing they did when they came in, the new administration -- >> that's right. ashley: ended up kind of falling on their face. >> you could argue that federalism is the answer, that, in fact, states will innovate, they will work with the insurance companies to offer consumers more choice, and that will be the way out of this

one-size-fits-all system that has made insurance unaffordable for so many healthy people. ashley: so you believe that assuming the administration gives the green light to idaho, which you believe is probably going to happen -- >> yes. ashley: -- you do believe other states are going to follow suitsome. >> oh, very fast. and the insurance companies, of course, will be right there ready to offer their products. ashley: that's interesting. truly the beginning of the end for obamacare then. if you have all these states offering their own programs. >> well, what else are you going to do? ashley: right. >> more and more people are being priced out of obamacare. who are the new uninsured in america? the middle class. ashley: healthy middle class. i spoke to a young man, my car broke down and he came out to tow it, he was saying he couldn't afford it. i don't have any coverage. >> and i hear the democrats complaining, idaho's breaking the law. but it's okay when a state offers sanctuary to illegal immigrants or reimporting drugs for canada. oh, but don't offer the middle class a way out of unaffordable

health insurance. ashley: are you more hopeful that perhaps we're finally getting somewhere with idaho taking a stand and saying we're going to do this? >> i know eventually this is going to the paper shredder. [laughter] ashley: great work over the years. betsy mccaughey, thanks so much. appreciate it. let's take a look at the big board, we were down around 200 points, we're now off 106 points. the dow still above that 25,000 level at 25,113. we're only down four-tenths of 1% on the dow today. toymaker hasbro is teaming for on a line of toys, both stocks -- netflix is up, hasbro just down a little bit. after winning the biggest event in nascar, austin til loan has made his -- austin dillon has made his way to new york city, and he's in studio with us to tell us what it's like to win the daytona 500. it's fun, i'm sure.

we'll be back. ♪ pleasure. ♪ pleasure. ♪ ♪ ♪

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ashley: an iconic year for the daytona 0

that came down to a thrilling overtime lap. nascar driver austin dillon crossing the finish line in the same number 3 car that brought dale earnhardt sr. his lone win there. austin's here in studio to discuss his victory. a big thrill for us. i was just saying what's it like, if you could put it into words, to be in contention at the daytona 500, a fewapso go, do you just go into autopilot and gun it? >> it'sike the top gun ference,p unning to the kill switch. -- flipping to the kill switch. having that opportunity was just very cool. our partners put so much work into these cars and the effort from all of our team guys. i love giving back. i ebb mean, i won the race, but it's all about my team. ash you only led in the final lap. so you spent the entire 500 -- >> it's a chess match, man. what i talked about before, we had a game plan going in.

we had to start at the back of the field. crazy race. a lot of wrecks, but you can't win it if you're not in the race -- ashley: and wrecks, you know, sometimes there can be, obviously, no fault of your own, you're just in the wrong place at the wrong time. thankfully, you didn't have to deal with any of that. >> yeah. we had to dodge a couple bullets -- ashley: how frighten is that when you're going at such speed? >> well, you know, you just try and put yourself in good position. my grandfather always said start on the bottom and have mace to go. if you start on the top, if they crash up, you're against the fence. ashley: very good advice. you're the number 3, which you could argue is number one again at daytona. seventeen years to the day of dale earnhardt's death at daytona. so the same number car, does this affect you at all? do you realize the legacy and the history behind daytona? >> it's very special for a lot of reasons. the family ties with dale earnhardt sr. and 20 years ago

he won in '98 the daytona 500. and to bring the 3 car back to victory lane for all those fans, especially my grandfather, rcr, it felt amazing. i was in victory lane when he won in '98, so it's a full circle to go back 20 years later. it was a dream that came true. ashley: it certainly is. so is this the race that everyone wants to win? >> this is our super bowl. ashley: this is it. >> if you've never experienced a daytona 500, you have to come. it's an epic feeling when all the people are standing up for the national anthem and the thunderbirds fly over your and we go three wide. ashley: you've got a super bowl-like ring there. that's part of spoils of the winning it, right? >> yeah. we got a ring, big leather jacket, coat, also the trophy, it's our most coveted -- ashley: i've seen that, it's huge. >> it's a big one. ashley: we understand you and your crew each got matching

tattoos. was in the plan or did this happen in the euphoria? >> i think the euphoria. ashley: the tattoo is actually what's on your ring, right? >> every year they come up with a new emblem, and it says champion underneath. ashley: now, we joked earlier we'd love to see the tattoo, but we can't. >> i'm sitting on it currently. [laughter] ashley: good stuff. austin, lovely to meet you. an amazing achievement. one can only dream of winning the daytona 500. congrats. we'll have more "or varney" right after this. ♪ ♪

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ashley: look at the big board. we're trying to come back. were down as much as 200 points. now we're 68. we also want to mention, austin dillon, what a nice young man. won the daytona 500.

so glad stu wasn't here. he hates tattoos. >> right out out of the movie "hangover" had the word champ put on his back side. ashley: glad he didn't share it with us. we'll leave it at that. neil cavuto, take it away. neil: that is for another day. dow off 65 points. well off the worst levels. a lot of crosscurrents we get to later next couple hours, this battle over higher interest rates, whether they are good or bad, stronger dollar. both are perplexing traders today, as well as disappointing earnings out of likes of walmart. which accounted for a big chunk of the losses we're seeing in the dow earlier on. again those losses have come down. far more important matters to be considering in florida where busloads of students from that region are expected to head up to tallahassee to make it known to state