larr larry: that's it for "kudlow." thanks for watching, folks. ♪

maria: good thursday morning, everyone. thanks very much for joining us this morning. i'm maria bartiromo. it is thursday, april 4, your top stories right now 6:00 a.m. on the east coast. today, no material change in the picture, this from federal reserve chairman jay powell who is signaling the base case remains, three rate cuts coming this year beginning in june. >> these recent data do not materially change the overall picture you which continues to be one of solid growth, a strong but rebalancing labor market and inflation moving down toward 2% on a sometimes bumpy path. maria: stocks are higher this morning. a mixed reaction to the fed chairman's comments yesterday, the dow right now up better than 100 points, the dow however down yesterday, for a third day in a row, mixed story after the fed comments yesterday as you can see, all of this ahead of the march jobs report out tomorrow

morning, 83:00 a.m. eastern and the next cpi reading next wednesday. oil prices are pulling back from recent highs, the biden administration is admitting it will not refill the depleted strategic petroleum reserve with prices now up almost 60% on joe biden's watch, up 5% over the last year. this morning we are also watching disney after ceo bob iger walks y away the victor in the shareholder proxy battle. european markets are in the green. take a look at the eurozone, with major averages higher across the board. in asia, the weak spot overnight as you can see here was hong kong and china, both down. treasury secretary janet yellen en route to china this morning, there to discuss a level playing field with beijing and apparently new risks about climate change. meanwhile, back at home, a major month for the trump campaign, the rnc and president trump fund raising more than $65 million for the month as the 45th

president leads president biden in six out of seven swing states. joining the conversation all morning long this morning, strategic wealth partners ceo, mark tepper, gop strategist, joe pinion and former new york state security advisor, michael ball l balboni. "mornings with maria" is live right now. ♪ maria: and it's time for the hot topic of the hour. a gallup poll finding 57% of americans think that president biden is likable, that's down 9% from 2020. the poll also finds the same percentage say former president trump is a strong and decisive leader. in 2024, that's up 1% since

2020. new readings this morning to a take a look at. joe pinion, your reaction. >> look, certainly those are encouraging numbers for president trump and i think it reflects what most americans realized, that joe biden has watched everything go wrong on his watch from the economy to the border to the issues that we're experiencing abroad and so i think you have to remember, you go back to 2020, as early as february when president trump gave his last state of the union, nancy pelosi was clapping side ways and eventually ripped up the speech because it looked like president trump was in the driver's seat. as we look towards a potential black swan event we have to remember that it's not what the numbers look like today, it's what the voters are thinking when they walk into the booth on election day. maria: it's an interesting backdrop. in an environment when you've got the chinese communist party on the march, russia on the march, you've got squatters trying to take over our homes, personal safety and national security safety is top of mind and people want to see a strong

leader, michael. >> when you go around the world and talk to people, they say a strong united states matters so much. i do a lot of work in the ball ticks. the baltics. they see strong security as key. we'll look at what does the world look like? how do we know where our military will be and unless you can project that worldwide, it really doesn't resonate at home either. maria: and that is one reason that the trump campaign is raising huge amounts of money. former president trump and the republican national committee raised more three times the amount raised in february. we heard the news first from the rnc chairman, michael whatly, breaking the $65 million number on this program yesterday. watch. >> we're very excited that we got $65 million in the door in march alone. we're going to raise over 40 million additional dollars for it. so we'll have the resources to take our message from one end of

the country to the other. maria: it's a big deal in terms of fund raising, now that there's new leadership a at the rnc. they ended the month with $93 million in cash on hand. your thoughts? >> one of the graphics just showed showed that the most important issue right now, believe it or not, given the national security issues, the border, is still the he economy. and we talked in the past about how biden is losing ground, trump is gaining ground with minority voters and young voters and the most recent poll i've seen from young voters is that for people age 18 to 34, biden won 61% of those votes in 2020. president trump is currently you a head 47-40. he's gaining substantial ground with younger voters as well. maria: that's interesting. >> the pain reason for that, according to the poll, is that bidenomics was a bust. the economy was the most important issue to these under 30 voters to the tune of 11% of

them thought it was the number one issue you in 2020. it's now up to 47% today. you look at younger americans who are unable to get ahead. the jobs they're able to secure are not allowing them to buy a home and to move out of their parents' basement so it's a struggle for a lot of people right now. maria: and the cost of doing everything, going out, services, buying food, but i'll tell you, the first lady is not acknowledging it. she snapped at a reporter who brought up the president's trailing poll numbers in six of the seven swing states. watch this. >> i feel that joe will be reelected. >> when the polls like the wall street journal one land in the white house and e e he is losinn all battleground states. >> no, he's not. once people start to focus in and see their two choices, it's obvious that joe will win this election. maria: michael. >> what else is she going to

say? will she sit back and say -- >> my grandfather said have you to give a little to get a lot. he was talking about happy wife, happy home. i think it applies to politics as well. the refusal of the biden administration to acknowledge that anything has gone wrong, that in the press supporting president biden saying yes, mistakes have been made. that's why the like ability numbers are coming down. it's very difficult to like a man who continues to allow people to lie on his behalf. maria: the other thing is that the beginning of fixing a problem is acknowledging it. right? and they won't acknowledge that these policies have failed. >> well, you can't aca knowledge it while you're hiding -- acknowledge it while hiding in the basement. i was trying to watch the press conference yesterday. he didn't show up for at least an hour. i stopped watching at that point. i don't know if the showed up. maria: you keep saying watching as if he's not really dictating any of this, somebody else is pulling the strings. >> we called it the weekend at

bernie's presidency. perhaps those disrespecting bernie. we don't know what will happen with this president. maria: we've got a lot coming up. james comer told me yesterday president biden is had in a lot of trouble. his words, not mine. as the impeachment inquiry heats up. miranda devine is here to weigh in the 8:00 a.m. hour. first, jay powell maintains his baseline suggesting three rate cuts are coming this year beginning in june, investors are reacting this morning. don't miss it. you're watching "mornings with maria" live on fox business. we'll be right back. ♪

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maria: take a look at futureses this morning indicating a gain at the start of trading, the dow up 107, nasdaq up 83, s&p 500 up 16 and-a-half, beginning the second quarter down. the dow fell yesterday for a third straight session. s&p 500 and nasdaq were edging higher in the middle of all the conversation around federal reserve chairman jay powell's comments, 10 year yields this morning, take a look at interest rates, it's rising, now at 4.36%, up 1 and a third basis points. jay powell signaled the base case remains, three rate cuts are coming, beginning in june. watch this. >> these recent data do not, however, materially change the overall picture which continues to be one of solid growth, a

strong but rebalancing labor market and inflation moving down toward 2% on a sometimes bump hey path. it's too soon to say whether the recent readings represent more than just a bump. we do not expect it will be appropriate to lower our policy rate until we have greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably down toward 2%. my colleagues and i continue to believe that the policy rate is likely at its peak for this tightening cycle. if t the economy evolves broadl, most see it likely as appropriate to begin lower the policy rate some point this year. maria: joining me is chief investment officer chris zakarelli. what did you take away from powell's comments yesterday? >> i think powell's comments were really interesting. we've had some higher than expected inflation day data so r this year, to call into question whether or not we get the rate cuts. powell said we're not going to

change the rate cut forecast. we believe inflation is coming down although maybe we've seen bumps along the way. we're not so sure. we think three rate cuts could potentially be in jeopardy but only really at the margins. maybe they cut two times starting in july, as opposed to three times in june. the federal reserve raised rates to the high level, 5 and-a-half percent, and they're planning to keep them for a longer period of time and that's punting on what they've seen so far on the data and hoping the data over the next few months comes back down and are in their favor so that's where we stand right now. maria: mark. >> i agree with you. i've been having talks intern fallly with my team about -- internally with my team about what could cause a pullback in the stock market. as you know, in election years, that drawdown is typically somewhere like the 15, 16% range and we've seen nothing even close to that so far. and the one thing that we continue to harp on is the notion that if there is one more month over month cpi print, up

around 0.4%, because we've watched that number accelerate, it's gone from 0.2 to 0.3 to 0.4 the last three consecutive months, i think if there's another 0.4% the fed is going to change their tone, will come across as more hawkish, the three rate cuts may be taken off the table and that spook the market. what do you say about that. >> >> i think that's a really great point as far as inflation starting to go higher. that's something they've been worried about all along. we share your concerns that the market could pull back. we don't know the if it will be as much of that magnitude. it would put a scare in people if it went down 15, 16% but maybe 5% pullback on initial data and something else could trigger a deeper pullback. we've been counseling our clients, listen, last year the market went up they a straight line. it typically doesn't do that. we expect the market to be higher than from here, as we speak maybe the s&p is up 9.3%. we expect it will be higher at the end of the year but we

expect it to be more volatile, bumps along the way and you're right, one of the main things that can spook the market is continued higher than expected inflation prints and that's why we think the risk of the down side of number of cuts and not the upside. we expect two or one cuts if they deviate from the path. maria: the catalyst is the upcoming wednesday, when we get the next reading on the consumer price index. that will be the big story for markets. i want to look at underlying components. commodities are on the rise. gold at another new record. it's pulling back this morning. but look where we are, 2 you 2,3 following powell's remarks. oil prices have been rising steadily and we're talking about crude at $85.40 a barrel. the biden administration a is now canceling its plans to refill the depleted strategic we dwroim reserve because -- petroleum reserve because it's too expensive. do you expect oil to keep going

up? >> yeah, i mean, that's been the big story for last year, really wasn't talked about but oil prices went down last year. that helped the economy not only continue to move higher, the stock market moved higher, while inflation was coming back down. we could be seeing a reversal of those dynamics. we're not necessarily expecting an oil spike but clearly oil's been moving higher. whether that's because we've got increased demand and consumers have been more resilient than we expected, or maybe that's due to the geopolitical uncertainty whether that's in russia or the middle east and clearly we've been talking about china which has been on the back burner but the world is heating up. we're seeing more conflicts, a lot more risks and ultimately we think oil could move higher. again, we're not pro indi indica -- predicting a big spike higher. last year oil came down for most of the year and that provided tail winds for the economy and the stock market. that could be a headwind this year. that's something to watch, absolutely. maria: how much of this selling

in the beginning of april do you think has to do with tax related selling? because there is -- could be some artificial tax related selling going up to you april 15th, right? this week and even into next week, i'm wondering if people need to sell stocks to pay capital gains. they had good performance last year. does any of that do you think you attribute -- do you attribute any of it to tax related selling and will we see a reverse after a april 15? >> i think that's possible. at the margins when looking at individual investors, taxable accounts, that's definitely a possibility and i'm sure you'll see that every year seasonally that could be a factor. in general, i would he say most of the money in the stock market is either going to be long-term money or money in enyou dowm enr pension plans where it's tax deferred or tax free. at the end of every quarter a lot of large institutions, pension plans, endowments, they

like to rebalance, try to get equityings and fixed income back into a target range. it could be for individuals a rebalancing effect at the end of the quarter. both of those could be transitory. we do think that initial selling we saw at the beginning of the quarter, that doesn't necessarily need to persist. within a week or two we'll be past the tax deadline in the united states. for f pullbacks we're looking at other things, and we think it would be a big r risk to the market. maria: good to see you. thanks so much. we'll take a break, when we come back, president biden's massive $7.3 trillion budget could cost u.s. workers their jobs. house budget and financial services committee member ralph norman is here to explain all that when we come back. stay with us. ♪

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president biden is proposing in his $7.3 trillion budget, well, those tax increases will cost the u.s. nearly 800,000 full-time jobs. reduce economic output by 2 and a quarter percent and cut wages by 1.6%. biden's budget increases the corporate minimum tax to 21%, it quadruples the stock buyback tax, raises corporate income tax and implementing a 25% billionaires tax, adding higher fuel prices for people with private jets. joining us now, congressman ralph norman. assess the president's tax plans. he's telling us what another four years will look like. what's the impact? >> it will be a tremendous impact in every sector of the economy. in south carolina, we're a growth state. we have businesses moving here. what he's doing is pretty much derailing the economy and he's done it the three and-a-half

years he's been in office and capital gains at 28%, the regulations he's putting on businesses, we can't take it anymore. and so this is a real -- mike johnson has a big decision to make in the next five, six months. is he going to let the democrats continue this or of are we going to stand up and fight and i hope we're going to fight. maria: that's definitely the issue at hand for the house right now. but look, when you're looking for money, and he needs money to he pay for all of this climate change agenda plans, you go where the money is. so how is he going to spend -- how is he going to pay for the spending he wants to do they. >> well, he's going to pay for it with higher taxes and he's going to pay for it by continued deficit spending. and i can't stress enough the importance of -- the harm that the regulations are doing to every sector of the business. i'm in the real estate business. i see it. and it's just going to further put this economy in decline and we cannot let him continue to have his agenda with what he's

doing and i don't know -- like i say, mike johnson has a big decision to make, we either fight or i guess surrender to him. maria: let's talk about the fight. i know what marjorie taylor greene is doing. she's outraged that there is conversation about more aid to ukraine right now when the border is still not secure. the speaker, johnson, says lawmakers will vote on ukraine funding once they return from recess. the bill's expected to provide money to kyiv in the r form of a long. the white house claims it will consider or reportedly considering ending biden's pause on liquefied natural gas exports in exchange for congress to agree to more ukraine aid. is that the way to go? >> that a was not the way to go. the fact is, for him to say that he wants more ukraine funding which chuck shy schumer, mitch mcconnell, that's been a key part of what they've been saying for a long time to have aid, if

there's no offsets, if there's not concessions made to pay for this, borrowing is not the answer. mike johnson has to step up, use the leverage he has as speaker to get concessions, let a standalone bill to come before the house and let the house republicans side, get unified on it but it's just not more spending on it. the $95 billion that was spread out with israel and a other othr countries in addition to ukraine, when is the train wreck going to stop? it's up to the house to do i we control the purse strings. maria: does the speaker have that much leverage? you're hanging on by a thread in terms of the majority. mike gallagher just left. now you'll have -- or is leaving and you don't have any opportunity to do a special election so you'll be having one vote in terms of the majority. so i think what i hear you saying is people are watching mike johnson right now. marjorie taylor greene said she's not going to push the issue as soon as you get

back but it's like a pink slip. he needs to start getting tougher with the democrats. is that where with you are here? do you actually see an opportunity to push for a new speaker as well? >> no, not right now. i mean, here's what we have to do. we have got to not accept as an example the 1,000 page document that we received that had 24 hours to review it. we cannot keep just borrowing and saying that this is okay, give the democrats all the pork barrel spending, both republicans and democrats took advantage of it. he's got to get the republicans in the room and get a consensus. the majority of republicans didn't vote for the last spending spree. mike's got more leverage. we have got a two seat majority. yes, it's close. but we still have control and either we're going to function as a house and put it back on the senate to try to get some sanity back in this, with our budget. mike can do that if he will and

i don't think it's time to vacate right now. maria: we'll be watching that. let me get your a take on how the people feel or the donors feel. president biden's campaign is going after nikki haley voters now in the swing states. they've got new ads talking to those voters. i know you endorsed nikki haley but now you're backing donald trump. do you think that haley supporters would be open to going toward president biden or do you think they'll endorse trump? >> look, donald trump is our best hope, it's between president trump and biden, look at the train wreck biden has put this country in. it's not even a choice. it's president trump now. i hope all the nikki haley supporters will come on board. i did it right after she conceded. i think nikki would agree, it's time for all of us to get behind trump. he's the nominee. look what he did the four years he was in office. there is no question now that donald trump's a leader and get behind him and forget the past.

politics is a blood sport. we've got to put the country above partisan politics. i think her supporters will come on board. maria: have you spoken with nick mick? nikki haley? is she going to endorse trump? >> i spoke -- texted with her yesterday. i hope public she will come out and say that. i urge her to do it. maria: we'll be watching that. congressman, good to see you this morning. thank you. >> my pleasure. maria: quick break and then arizona senate candidate mark lamb is here, we'll talk about the out-of-of control southern border, the impact of that national security and the white house's refusal to acknowledge the growing migrant crime problem. he's coming up. a mad dash for cash, find out why new york's transit system wants the new york city marathon organizers to pony up more money. next. stay with us.

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and round the clock partnership from comcast business. powering more businesses than anyone. powering possibilities. maria: welcome back. a bit of a blow to president trump and his new york hush money case. cheryl casone with details now. cheryl. >> that is right, maria. the judge in former president trump's hush money trial set to begin on april 15 denying defense lawyers' request to delay the trial while the supreme court hears arguments over the issue of presidential immunity, the judge writing that the defendant had myriad opportunities to raise the claim of presidential immunity. the court declines to consider

whether the doctrine of presidential immunity precludes the etched. evidence.the issue was brought e d.c. case. trump is charged with 34 counts of fa falsifying business recor. a major victory for disney and bob ager after an activist investor lost a bid to take two seats on the disney board, share.the vote a substantial man disney's favor. taking a look at the stock this morning, slightly down in the premarket. finally, this. the new york metropolitan transit authority wants the new york road runners, organizers of the marathon to pay $750,000 to use both levels of the bridge for the iconic marathon start

each year. the mts president saying new yorkers love marathon sunday but taxpayers can't be expected to subsize a wealthy nongovernment oorganization like the new york roaroad runners. themta has mad fe concessionses in the negligence owinegotiations. 2.3 million metro cars were used the last marathon sunday, 36 a thousand more than a normal sunday. the mta pulling in 1.1 million in revenue. if the mta gets their way, the marathon would need to be, guys, cut in half. sad news conc considering the et brings 1 million spectators to the new york city which go to the hotels and restaurants and

travel tours. also sad for charities that benefit from the race. i've got to poke a big hole in the story from the mta. the new york road runners have a little over $100 million in annual revenue, they the 96 million in expenses every year. i can't say it better than the iconic new york post, i don't know if we can show this, if i'm a allowed to show it. if we can, guys, you can see what they have to say about it. maria: blank hits the fan. >> you you've got it. >> this is such a bad look for the mta. they came out with a report, they overspent on overtime to over a billion dollars and then this is what they go and they do. it's a bad look them. maria: they need money to pay for the migrants. >> congestion pricing which by the way is going to push all the healthcare workers that commute in from new jersey and long island but i will tell you the new york runners have gone to the governor and they've said you've got to be kidding me.

they've agreed to the pay 200 grand to shut down both levels of the vair. verazano.maria: will you be run the marathon? >> i'll be running for the navy seal pongs an -- foundation ande running behind them. maria: the department of homeland security rearresting three of eight illegal venezuelan migrant squatters in new york city, they were arrested on drug and gun charges. they returned to the squatter home in the bronx after they were released without bail. one of the migrants had been charged with attempted murder last august. fox news white house correspondent peter doocy grilled the administration on why such dangerous offenders are released back into the community. >> there's a person in new york, they were found with guns and drugs, six are out on bail. does president biden think policies like that are keeping

the country safe. >> anyone found guilty of a crime should be held accountable. we've been very clear about that. >> do you think some big cities in the country have liberal das that are too soft on crime? >> we welcome law enforcement support and croon presentation cooperation.maria: talking poie people are getting murdered and stolen. immigration authorities lodged a detaining request for four migrant squatters held the in local custody. one is on the loose. joining me now, u.s. senate candidate, mark lamb. thank you for being here. your reaction to all of this as kjp is giving peter doocy talking points. >> there's such garbage answers and they're exactly that, maria. they're talking points of. thanks for having me on today. we deal with this every day. we go out, we do our job, find these people breaking the law and people are coming into the country illegally breaking the

law. we put them in custody, only to have the judges and the government release them back into our communities. places like new york are dealing with this every day. boston, the liberal cities, and peter doocy's question is exactly right. why are we continuing to let these people go and these soft on crime areas? because it's putting americans at risk while we're doing it. maria: the democrats want to say that there's not any additional crime from migrants. it's not migrant crime. you're on the ground there in penal county in arizona. are you seeing migrant crime? >> you see it every day. for them to say this is not happening, that's not true. there are good people that come into the country, albeit they're not doing it the right way bute are also bad people and the liberals refuse to accept and acknowledge the fact there's bad people coming into the country. our job in law enforcement if i've got to stop nine good people to stop the one bad person, that's my job. i'm exacted to do that by the american people and so is the federal government.

we expect i.c.e. a, dhs and all these people to hold them accountable. the good men and women do a great job. the judges are failing us, the federal government is failing us. maria: michael, jump in here. we're seeing a serious impact from the migrants with regard to the pressure on big cities but also crime. what do you see? >> right here in new york city, what you're seeing is the impact of gangs, venezuelan gangs in particular. and a they come with all sorts of different crime elements. one of the things we don't really talk about enough is the fentanyl crisis. well, what's happening now is that the venezuelan gangs and other gangs are using drugs and money through the network of the immigrants. to the sheriff's point, there are a lot of good people trying to find a better life. that's true. but there are in this population a real serious criminal element that we're not able to really go after because we don't know where they are. where they're coming in. what their relationships are.

that's a huge problem with going forward. the sheriff is right. there are people that you need to go after but you have to stop everybody to be able to get those people. maria: sheriff, that's what we want to really zero in on, the fact that we don't know who is coming in. for example, these chinese nationals, let's talk about this for a second. u.s. border patrol agents arrested 182 chinese nationals who crossed the border illegal in the san diego sector on tuesday. you've got more than 22,000 chai chi22,000 chainationals -- chins apprehend's this year. in 2021, you had 342 chinese nationals apprehended. fiscal year 2022, 1,987. fiscal year 2023, 24,125. and then you've got this most recent fiscal year, 22,233, why are so many chinese nationals

coming into america through the southern border? ?i think it's a fair question to ask, given the way that communist china has undermined america over and a over again. michael just mentioned the fentanyl. are they coming to continue furthering fentanyl businesses here? are they coming to continue doing human trafficking? are they doing surveillance? what are they doing. >> some are coming on direct flights to south america, direct flights to mexico. the notion you're getting out of china and the chinese communist party doesn't know exactly who you are and why you're going, defies logic. so look at the bread crumbs. the bread crumbs are all the money that the chinese communist party is giving to all of these various factions that are trying to either infiltrate what's going on in you gaza, trying to fund putin, to figure out how they can top h t cantopple ukras the chinese communist party with

a checkbook trying to s ow chao. maria: joe biden will not call them an adversary, will only call china a competitor. your thoughts on these chinese nationals coming into america right now in a real stepped up basis. >> look, i'm very concerned about it, maria. and so should all the americans. we had 37 you 37,000 chinese ns come in last year. we'll probably double what we did last year. that should be concerning. you don't just get to leave china and i heard michael talk about it. the fentanyl crisis should not be ignored. it has become the new terrorist threat. they're killing more than 100,000 americans every year with fentanyl poisonings which is coming from china, putting in the hands of the cartels and coming across the border. we try to stop all the fentanyl that we can. it gets as low as 10-cents a pill in arizona. this is china putting it the in the hands of americans and it's killing americans. maria: you're right to call it

poisoning. that's exactly what it is. they're poisoning american citizen. don't come here and say it's an overdose like somebody was taking fentanyl and they took too much and they overdose. no, this is a direct poisoning coming from communist china and the mexican cartels. a texas national guardsman arrested after smuggling in a migrant across the border in a government vehicle greg abbott's office a out with a statement saying if it's true he's a traitor and a criminal. wsheriff, your reaction, real quick? >> look, we get a lot of people, lot of regular americans, this is shameful and i believe it is he treasonous as well. he was getting 5 to $6,000 to traffic this one person in the country which makes me really concerned about who that one person was. i am afraid to tell you that this is probably not an isolated incident. there are a lot of -- the money moves people to do a lot of dumb things and this military guy did

a really dumb thing and should pay a price for. maria: that's disappointing. we appreciate your time this morning. thank you, sir. >> thank you, maria. maria: all right. sheriff mark lamb. we'll be right back. your shipping manager left to “find themself.” leaving you lost. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire

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maria: welcome back. well, let's take a look at crypto this morning and prices are higher, pretty much across

the board here. but off of the highs of the last year. bitcoin above $66,000 this morning, the crypto down 10% since hitting the record high of $73,000 last quarter. joining me is chief investment officer ben mcmillan. your reaction? >> yeah, i mean, i think it's not surprising after you hit all time highs, profit taking lies likethis is somewhat common, especially with people that were happy to get out of the profit. you had t the u.s. government selling coins, remember that, from years ago. that's contributed to selling pressure. the macro data has been coming in strong and for the same reasons we've seen the wind come out of tech stocks, we've seen bitcoin take a pause as well. i think longer term the outlook is still very strong but in the intermediate term if you think about where bitcoin was the beginning of this year, coming in expecting six rate cuts, all of a sudden at the last fomc

meeting powell is talking about three rate cuts and walked it back and now we're down to one or two and so i think risk assets of which bitcoin is the poster child are taking a breather as a result. maria: joe, jump in here. you and mark were talking about the idea of a central bank currency digital. >> yeah. ben, just looking at the broader picture here, you see that there's so many countries signing up to basically have their own cbdc and you put that in context of the exorbitant debt that countries are racking up in the aftermath of covid, sovereign debt out of control. how do you look at the reorganization of the sovereign debt and the rise of some of these other crypto technologies? >> well, i think you hit the nail on the head. so the debt issue, particularly in the u.s., is at this point basically a detractable solution. part of this is bitcoin's

spectacular rise this year, the markets he are saying inflation is going to be higher for basic live permanently. there's real concerns about inflation above 2% going forward and the investors are starting to take note. you also start to think about the cbdc rates in other countries, i think that's also what we're seeing is countries are recognizing that the next currencies, as the dollar starts to wane they want a horse in the race so-to-speak so you're seeing a rush for cbd cs. maria: mark, jump in here. >> there's a lot of reasons investors are interested in business coin. one of them is the fear of governments, not just ours, but other governments like venezuela potentially confiscating assets from citizens. obviously use case of it being a legitimate currency. but bitcoin is also a liquidity play and coming into this year, there was an expectation of about six rate cuts this year.

that's down below three now. and i mean, i don't even know if there's going to be more than one. there might be zero this year. so does the fact that rate cuts are being taken off the table as you're seeing this acceleration in inflation, does that potentially hurt bitcoin for a short period of time? >> yeah, absolutely. i think that is the big pressure that we're seeing in the near term. like you said, atlanta fed president came out this week or last said he expects one rate cut. that's just economics 101. as that sucks liquidity out of the market, that will affect bitcoin. temagnificent seven is now the b four. that's where there's caution in the near term. i think 62,000 is the level to keep an eye on. below that, i think you could start seeing more selling pressure. but as as we move into the back half of the year and the market

starts to come to grips with higher for longer, i think the large u.s. debt level, the deficit level is going to be what propels bitcoin higher in the coming years. maria: ben, we'll be watching. thanks very much. good to see you. we're going to take a break. when we come back, the results of soft on crime policies, illegal my migrant squatters fd in new york city, they returned to the squatter home after being arrested and released. it's the hot topic of the hour. you're matching "mornings with maria" liv hare on fox -- you're watching "mornings with maria" live on fox business.lf *8 , pilates exist in harlem? so i started my own studio. getting a brick—and—mortar in new york is not easy. chase ink has supported us from studio 1 to studio 3. when you start small you need some big help. and chase ink was that for me. earn up to 5% cash back on business essentials ..