with the right plan in place people of all ages are finding the home of their dreams all across america. because in america, from boomers to zoomers and everyone in between, dreams and dream homes still come true. [music] [birds chirping] maria: good wednesday morning, everyone. thank you so much for joining us. i'm maria bartiromo and it is wednesday april 6th, your top stories 6:00 a.m. on the east coast. today relief from the fed, investors are waiting on the federal reserve this morning ahead of the march meeting minutes to be released today at 2:00 p.m. eastern after fed governor lyle brainard said the central bank is preparing for a hefty reduction in 9 trillion-dollar portfolio. brainard who favors loose policy and low interest rates says the

fed needs to act quickly and aggressively. >> it's paramount importance to get inflation down accordingly, the community will continue tightening monetary policy through series of interest rate increases and by starting to reduce balance sheet as soon as our may meeting. maria: remarks sparking selloff at the close yesterday, futures are extending the losses this morning. the dow industrials at the close yesterday 280 points, the nasdaq down 328, two and a quarter percent and the s&p 500 lower by 57. this after stocks declined yesterday and the declines continue this morning. take a look at futures indicating a decline at the start of trading extending the selloff yesterday with dow down another 158 right now. s&p 500 down 25 and nasdaq lower by 124. oil prices this morning are picking up ahead of big oil

testimony before the house energy and commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations this morning. price of brent 108.13, up one and two-thirds percent right now. european stocks are also lower this morning, take a look at the euro zone, the ftse 100 is down 32, cac is down 82 and dax index in germany lower by 179. one and a quarter percent lower the paris and germany. in asia overnight the economic data also causing unrest, china service director tumbled in march at the fastest pace since the onset of the pandemic. the shanghai composite fractional move upwards. meanwhile fresh sanctions against russia expected today included a reporting ban on all new investment in russia can group of 7 european allies also planning to sanction import from

russian. ukrainian president zelenskyy told un security council it is difficult to find a war crime russia has not committed seeking its removal from the security council. this after zelenskyy said the un must be reformed so that the right of veto is not the right of death, the u.s. planning to announce new sanctions on russia this morning. in the senate a bipartisan push emerging to catch a provision reinstating title 42 to a deal on covid, aid ahead of the biden administration's decision to end the immigration measure. democrats finding themselves in a difficult reelection cycle joining with republicans in acknowledging the administration has no plan to deal with the surge of migrants expected when title 42 is formerly lifted. mornings with maria live right now. your morning mover this morning,

jetblue airways and spirit airlines are both down in premarket after yesterday's news that jetblue made an unsolicited offer to acquire spirit for 3.6 billion in cash, this combined estimated 1700 daily flights and serve more than 77 million customers a year delivering jetblue 6 to $7 million in annual savings. second time we are looking at this bid. the combination would make jetblue spirit the fifth largest airline in the u.s. by market share. some confused by the offer as the two airlines overlapped on 11% of roots last year and have different business models and determine the best course of action. stocks are lower. markets are also lower this morning, we are looking at a decline of 145 on dow industrials ahead of the release of the minutes of the federal reserve's march meeting. as you see the dow down 154 and nasdaq down 121 extending the losses yesterday after federal

reserve lyle brainard said the central bank would be aggressive in shrinking the central bank's balance sheet. yields are higher, ten-year treasury right now looking like this as investors digest brainard's comments, the yield is up 7 basis points at level of 2.67%. secretary janet yellen will also testify on a variety of topics. we will be watching that testimony as well for any comments on inflation and how the u.s. is financially punishing moscow over the invasion of ukraine. let's talk about investing in this environment with wealth consting group ceo jimmy lee and also joining the conversation all morning long the wall street journal assistant editorial page editor james freeman and the national taxpayer union executive vice president brandon arnold, great to see everybody this morning, thank you so much for being here. jimmy lee, kicking things off with you, your thoughts on where we are in terms of this selloff after brainard's comments, what do you expect from the fed

today? >> well, who knows what we will see in the fed minutes, maria, maybe what brainard was saying yesterday will show out in the fed minutes and the fed will be more aggressive, more aggressive than what investors were predicting. she sure did spook the market and investors into a spike and we had a selloff in equities and my thinking this gives the fed a lot of signaling to the marketplace that they can raise rates 50 basis points and be aggressive early but potentially giving themselves some room to be doveish later on as inflation hopefully gets better but the supply situation still not improving as quickly as i would have hoped. i was reading a report from a retail furniture company and talked about how difficult the supply situation is in all aspects and still concerned about the supply chain situation not improving as well as it could be so far.

maria: yeah, it's interesting to see that markets are selling off on comments of basically what we knew and has to cut the $9 trillion balance sheet but to hear lyle brainard causing spike in yield and selloff in stock prices, james yearman, jump in n here, hawkish commentary from somebody who was a dove. >> surprised, this is the miami that a lot of consumers have been waiting to hear to know that the fed is finally going to do its job and maintain the value of the dollar and stand up for sound money. so i hope she means it. we will sure. as you pointed out this is -- this is a new message for her not one of the

most hawkish members. do you think brainard means it? >> i do. i think that there is almost certainty this we get 50 basis point hike and as far as selling off the bonds, we will see how aggressive they are and i think it'll be month to month. i think we will be very dependent on data as we have been saying all along and as you know with interest rates spiking very quickly on mortgage rates the housing demand or at least the, you know, i think the sales and all the projections that with e will see going forward are going to be lower than before obviously and it's going to impact all of the people out there that want to buy homes and, of course, we have the supply shortage in that sector but it's a difficult situation but i certainly think that the fed will be aggressive early. like i said, i'm hopeful that

it'll give them room if inflation does come down and i think it will. as long as the supply situation gets better and, again, in certain areas of the industry, different industries if the supply situation is improving fast enough but if it can get better i see the fed backing off and reversing course. i really don't think the fed wants to cause a recession and i do pay attention to this year being a midterm election year. i think believe it or not that they are going to -- they are under a lot of pressure to keep the economy looking good towards the election. maria: we will see what all of this means for inflation. oil prices are slightly higher this morning, jimmy. the allays in the u.s. weighing more sanctions against russia, raising further supply concerns, several major oil executives will be testifying this morning on the price of oil.

we will probably hear a lot of commentary about a lot of the profits that the companies make and finger-pointing about who is to blame for inflation. what do you want to do in the portfolio and how are you allocating capital? >> we still have and we think that being in sectors and the economy opening sectors like materials, interest rates rising, financials is good to be on one side of the coin and on the other side we think that investors should still have a waiting towards technology but good-quality technology means they have great earnings. as you saw yesterday some of the high-valuation stocks took a but

-- maria: a lot of rosy expectations in terms of where the budget is expecting inflation and federal reserve interest rates. it's pretty extraordinary. we will talk about that coming up. jimmy lee, thank you very much for your insights. good to see you this morning, sir. thank you. coming up ukrainian president zelenskyy addressing the united nations as a fresh round of sanctions loom for russia. a live report coming up. then the proof of an out and out of lie, a new filing from special counsel john durham proves hillary clinton's campaign lawyer purposely hid who he was working for when he decided to peddle around lies about donald trump presenting the russia collusion hoax to the fbi. we are on this explosive story all morning long. stay with us, you're watching mornings with maria live on fox

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maria: welcome back, special council john durham released potentially damming evidence against former hillary clinton lawyer michael sussman. this week durham filed to release message from sussman to the fbi james baker. sussman is planning a meeting to discuss reported links between trump organization and russia months before the 2016 election. sussman writes to baker, i'm coming on my own, not on behalf of a client or my company. want to help the bureau. durham calling the text, quote, a lie in writing, sussman is set to go on trial over accusations he lied to the fbi. james freeman and i wrote about this in our book published last year called the cost, trump, china and american revival. frames freeman, your thoughts on now durham pushing the text

message into the conversation which has got michael sussman pretty much lying that he is not or apparently reportedly lying that he is not representing the clinton campaign when he brings that trump dossier to baker. james: by the way, thanks for writing that book with me, it looks better with me over time. but, yeah, michael sussmanm deserve it is presumption of innocence like everybody else. this is damming, this is direct written evidence of him making -- it's not a long message but it's the key fact or nonfact which he's asserting that he wasn't working for anyone so he's presenting himself as just a concern citizen who has come up on some information and wants to share it and as the -- as the

durham filings allege, in fact, he was overseeing a concerted effort to exploit nonpublic and/or proprietary traffic data to try to establish a claim, a misleading claim that there was this trump-russia tie and so i think, you know, i didn't go the law school but i think one of the standard tactics is teaching people how to defend themselves in various ways. i didn't borrow my neighbor's dish but if i did borrow it i didn't break it but if i broke it it didn't matter because it had lots of cracks in it. i think he's rapidly getting down to just the materiality issue. would this lie effect the case and it's hard to see how it wouldn't or the alleged lie. how is this not key to the case when someone says i'm just a concerned citizen versus admitting they are a rival campaign providing dirt on the

other campaign. maria: yeah. i mean, brandon, justice really takes a long time to play out. we've known for a long time that the whole trump collusion narrative was a made-up story at the clinton campaign. we've known this for years after seeing john brennan's handwritten notes that pretty much told the story that the russians are aware that hillary is coming up with a story to tie trump to russia and here we are in 2022 and we still have only seen slaps on the wrist for some of the perpetrators involved. your thoughts? >> this is a damming charge and what should worry us the court of public opinion here, even the new york times is reporting on this saying it's a damming charge and further inviting scrutiny. it's losing war in public

opinion, big trouble. maria: it's funny that you mention the new york times, james they got a pulitzer prize for reporting on russia. a whole character in the book about the media. do you think we will finally see the mia culpa from the new york times and the washington post or not so fast? james: i think they will admit so much of what was wrong. i don't think we will get a big mia culpa. it is nice to be vindicated and i think for the country it's also important to focus on hillary clinton. this is her campaign and really this should not have been surprising as we watch all of those clinton enrichment schemes all around the world. i think they were kind of the model for how the hunter biden

enrichment schemes work but on a much bigger scale and having witnessed that, i think we should have really expected the worst from her and we got it. maria: we sure did. we will take a short break, when we come back, severe storms and tornadoes ripping through the south. we've got a full forecast next. ♪ ♪ ♪

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maria: welcome back, well, the biden administration is expected to hit russia can new sanctions today in coordination with the g7 and european union allies, griff jenkins is on the ground in lviv ukraine with more. griff, good morning to you. griff: maria, good morning, president zelenskyy had a very clear message to the un security council yesterday say if we don't take actions we will expect more of the horrors coming out of bucha, watch. >> the un security council exists and security in the world doesn't for anyone. this definitely means that the united nations is currently unable to carry out functions for which it was created. griff: and the sanctions are on the way, banning new investment in russia, new sanctions for russian government officials and their families and comes as

pentagon announces additional 100 million in security assistance which means more javlins on the way to the battlefield here. another gruesome discovery in bucha, 6 charred bodies piled together one could be a child, 3 words for vladimir putin, listen here. >> go to hell. griff: meanwhile an assessment from mark milley about how long this war could last. >> i do think this is a protracted conflict and i think it's at least measured in years, i don't know about decade but at least years for sure. griff: finally an uplifting video that you see here, maria,

coming out of the war zone, deputy minister tweeting the dog evacuated from bucha being returned to his owner, ukrainian military facilitating that moment, bitter-sweet moment in a very tragic and difficult war now in 42nd day, maria. maria: all right, griff, thank you very much. stay safe today in lviv joining me right now former national security adviser to vice president mike pence and fox news contributor he's the author of war by other means general keith kellogg is here. general, good to see you, thank you very much for being here this morning, your reaction to what we are hearing from griff jenkins this morning in ukraine and after that un testimony from president zelenskyy yesterday. >> thanks, maria, thanks for having me. look, it's almost reaching a point where the un seems

anicaristic and pass the hot dog and the mustard. it's amazing they're not able to get involved because the rules are the charter and, for example, the security council any party to a dispute is supposed to obtain from the vote and that means the russia and there's the dual veto, it's a procedural vote, you never get the substantive vote. he's right about the un. when you look at what is happening there in ukraine, i don't think -- i disagree with mark milley with general milley and i don't think it will last, give them the polish migs, make sure they get the air defense system that they can get. give them the tanks that are in

eslovaquia and keep up arming ukraine and paining it punishable for russia to continue to fight and keep the sanctions on but we have to keep the pressure a while and after a while people will forget that there's a war going on. we have to keep looking at it and keep pushing back to the russians and make sure they pay a horrible price for this and i would pick up the phone and said putin, you thought the soviet union had problems with in afghanistan, you will see what the russians will look like after ukraine. they will look not like a second-world country but a third-world country after this is over. maria: why is this administration says that poland is ready to send migs and jets, poland said that it would make mig combat jets available after days of talks on how the get the

planes in the hands of of ukraine, the journal is writing about this morning that the government of poland said the planes are ready to deploy and apparently got some of the people in the pentagon surprised that -- that poland is making the statement, the pentagon says it wasn't clear that there was a substantive rationale for having polish jets intended for ukraine. instead this administration is planning to roll out new russian sanctions today we are expecting the u.s. to target all new investments in russia including two of its biggest banks. the white house also planning reportedly to sanction vladimir putin's two daughters, general. so you have poland here saying that the migs are ready and the administration isn't moving again and instead choosing sanctions. >> yeah, maria. i think they are worried about escalation and i think they are very wrong about it.

give them the material they need to fight this fight and prosecute the fight. the material is there. i just can't believe it's taken us this long to get them the equipment that they need. the mig-29's are good airplanes and increase the number that the polish have that they want to pass to ukrainian and increase areas by one-third. the mig-29 is a good airplane, a fourth-generation fight e, fifth generation means stealth but matches up great with anything that the russians have got. that goes back to t-72's the other nations are willing to give. it's just almost they afraid to continue with this effort and i hate to say it, maria, they're almost afraid of the ukrainians winning the fight and i think the ukrainians can win and they are winning it today and they can bring this to a good conclusion if we just support them. maria: yeah, we keep hearing the same things from the generals out there including ourself as well as the combat congressman

sitting congressman that the ukraine has a path to win and it appears the administration is expecting russia to win and acting accordingly. general, we will keep watching it, of course, keep the spotlight on it, we appreciate your time. thank you, general kellogg. >> thank you, maria. maria: tongue-in-cheek moment from a former president. >> vice president biden -- vice president -- [laughter] >> that wasn't a joke, that was all set up. maria: oh, yes, barack obama becomes the center of attention at the white house yesterday. wait till you see this. we will get into it after we come back.

maria: welcome back, a massive storm system battering the south leaving at least two people dead in texas and georgia. cheryl casone with the details

right now. cheryl, good morning. cheryl: the south cannot catch a break. dozens of torpids in states leaving residents in shock. >> i'm in georgia, it's a clear tornado come through here. i just don't believe this. cheryl: south carolina storms so severe that state lawmakers were forced to seek shelter in the basement of the state capitol. this morning more than 45 million people are under a severe weather threat in georgia, alabama, tennessee and the carolinas as another powerful storm begins to take shape. more than 2 million in georgia and florida under flood watches. you can stay up to date on your weather by downloading fox weather app or go to foxweather.com. 24/7 coverage at fox weather. the first suspect facing charges for last weekend's deadly shooting in sacramento appearing in court.

deandre martin facing charges of assault and illegal possession of a firearm. one of possibly multiple shooters that opened fire in downtown area killing 6 and injuring 12 others. yesterday's martin's brother and one other suspect also arrested, was released on parole years early on aggravated assault charges despite prosecutors pleading he had, quote, little regard for human life and the law. well, intel the latest company to suspend business operations in russia after its invasion of ukraine. the chip maker says it has implemented business measures to minimize disruptions to global operations. last month intel suspended shipments to customers in russia and belarus. stock is down almost a 1% this morning. finally this, maria, interns are still flocking the golden sax despite of brutal work conditions that include 100-hour workweeks. the firm received 236,000

application for summer programs and they got 3500 slots, maria. interns will be required to show up to the office 5 days a week like the rest of the staff, a requirement that prompted some of the junior bankers there to threaten to quit. maria, it is now hard to get the internship at goldman than it is to harvard. [laughter] maria: all right, cheryl, thank you so much. here is a good one for you, cheryl. former president obama return to the white house yesterday appearing to try and stay positive despite recent polls showing democrats are under water and the poll ratings are plummeting heading into the midterms? here is obama. >> what do you say to democrats worried about midterms? maria: we have a story to tell so just tell it says the former president. joining right now the washington examiner political and

investigative reporter sarah westwood. sarah so much to say about the visit yesterday. you've got policy resulting in bad outcomes across the country from 4-year highs and inflation to spikes in crime, wide open border and foreign policy decisions that are being questioned. so obama returns, what was your assessment of the visit? >> well, i think, you know, the irony may be lost on democrats that obama was there to talk about affordable care act that ended up severely costing democrats in the midterms that followed its passage in 2010 and then in 2014 and yet here obama was promoting obviously the law is much more popular now than it was then. his advice to democrats is almost completely untrue, the fact that democrats have a story to tell and need to go out and tell it. democrats' problem is almost exactly the opposite, that they don't have a compelling story to tell on every issue that matters

to voters. you know, you mentioned on crime obviously they supported permissive bail laws and supported prosecutorial policies. when it comes to high prices, they openly bragged in the months before the crisis about crippling domestic energy production, on inflation they've only had scapegoats and excuses for inflation. they have no real plan to bring down the cost of living for average american. on education they've taken the teacher union over parents. when it comes to every issue, the voters are consistently telling pollsters they care about, democrats don't have a good story to tell and that's really the center of their problem heading into november. maria: they've got a story to tell and that story has been playing out throughout the last year. we've got the timeline to show it. the story to tell is the story of inflation and all the

sky-high spending that we've been seeing because if you look at where inflation was when joe biden walked into the white house it was at 1.4% by march of 2021 it was at 2% with the signing into law of $1.1 trillion covid relief package. by july 2021 inflation was at 5 and a half percent as democrats were pushing their 5 trillion-dollar build back better agenda by november 2021 inflation was up to 6.8% and then, of course, by the time russia invaded ukraine we were talking about inflation at close to 8% james freeman. jump in here. they have a story to tell, it's just not a good story for the american people. james: yeah, speaking of spending and obamacare and a lot of other entitlements it's the reason why sitting in debt. the white house framed this visit as to promote what they called the obamacare glitch

which doesn't suggest to most people that obamacare was -- was really well crafted if they are still needing to fix glitches. just as an observer, do you think there was a problem with how they were promoting this event? >> yeah, i think that's really good point and they benefit that the affordable care act has grown in popularity since it was first passed but you watch the footage of how that event played out and how the democrats coalesced around obama, sharp relief how unpopular biden is and little enthusiasm he generates among democrats. i thought that was a sort of interesting visual. maria: well, let's show that visual right now because at the event you have biden standing alone appearing to be unsure of really what to do or where to go as all the democrats flocked

around obama. you will see in a moment the video when the president is trying to get obama's attention. in fact, at one point you can read his lips, he says barack, barack and yet he's getting all the handshakes and suddenly president biden realizes he's not getting through so he walks away unsure of what to do alone as the democrats flock around obama, sarah. this is a sad sight. >> right, i think it underscores what the other sort of major problem for democrats other than the fact that they don't have any successes or anything resembling a coherent agenda to run on. they're not excited about him, he's not a compelling personality like obama and he doesn't really have, you know, a clear brand. he came into office promising to be this unifying figure and he

tried to push all of these progressive items through congress that failed and now i feel like his team is sort of trying to reframe him as something of a centrist, reasonable president trying to sort of reestablish him as if steady hand on the wheel that he was initially sold to the american people as but i think that ship has sort of sailed, people have assessed him as a relatively incompetent president ever since the afghanistan debacle and now it's really unclear what biden even stands for and you can see reflected that democrats aren't excited to line up and vote for candidates that are lining themselves with biden right now. maria: yeah, sarah, great point, good to see you, thanks very much, sarah westwood on all of that this morning, we will see you soon, sarah and check in again. coming up, we have a big testimony this morning happening on capitol hill. oil executives ready to testify on capitol hill pushing back on president biden's claim that

they are price gouging the american consumer. the ceo of the american petroleum institute is here, mike summers. you're watching mornings with maria live on fox business. five stocks in the s&p 500®. you can also unlock short videos, step-by-step guides, and other easy-to-use tools designed for people just getting started. plus, investment professionals are on standby 24/7 if you ever have a question. it's investing 101, reimagined. 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 this is the kind of card that has america talking. with it, people with medicare are getting all in one coverage for their matching your job description.

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on the biden administration's claims of these companies gouging fuel prices. joining me right now is american petroleum institute president and ceo mike sommers. mike, good to see you. i know that you're expecting the committee to focus on claims of price gouges and profit's tax, how would the oil executives react, do you think? >> this is a tactic by opponents of the oil and gas industry claiming price gouging when the truth of the matter they should be holding a mirror to themselves. a lot of the reason why we are dealing with a supply crisis and price crisis is bus of the policies that were put in place by this administration at the beginning of their term. so i think what you'll hear today from api member company ceo's is they are going the talk a lot of the constraints put by the biden administration but the industry is suffering from the same challenges that any other part of the economy is suffering

from, workforce challenges and, of course, supply challenges as well are hindering american oil and gas production right now during this terrible crisis that has come as a consequence of some of these policies that have been put into place but also the situation in ukraine and russia. maria: yeah, i mean, you know, california democrat congressman ro khan shifted away from oil price that is we are seeing. watch this. >> let's move to investing in renewable energy and most people will agree that that's a long-term solution and that's what the sec pricing does, let's take a long-term risk and what has happened wall street has independently made an assessment that this is not a good long-term bet because they see the way the energy markets are going and that -- that's why the

company, the oil companies are engaged in stock buybacks and not production. maria: mike, your reaction. >> let's rewind last october where i testified before the united states congress with the same oil and gas executives and ro khanna asked them to stop discontinuing production here in the united states. so the irony is a little bit thick that he would now be saying that the industry needs to produce more when he has gotten exactly what he has wanted which is high prices which in his mind will hasten the transition to alternative fuels. you and i both know that the truth of the matter is that the world is going to need more oil and gas for decades and decades to come. in fact, even if every country met its -- its paris climate

accord agreement we would still be using about 50% of our energy would be coming from oil and natural gas. so, again, this is politicians using a very tired tactic that we have seen before and we should expect that they are going to continue to browbeat american companies that are supplying 11 million americans with the way that they get their employment every single day. maria: well, they were also browbeating the banks, right, and disgorging the banks -- discouraging the banks and let's face it we know who joe biden wanted on the federal reserve to be the overseer of the banks the woman who wrote a long time ago in op-eds that the banks should not be banking oil and fossil fuel companies. i've reported that the blackstone group has official i will said we will no longer invest in oil explorations. tell us the consequences for not

renewing the 5-year offshore leasing program and where do you see most opportunity to get real production ramped up again in america to actually move the needle on the price of gasoline? >> maria, there's an old saying in washington that personnel is policy and at the beginning of this administration they focused on putting people in place that have really focused on making sure that we are not producing oil and gas here in the united states. so one of the first things they did was they banned leasing and permitting on public lands and in public waters. in fact, during this point in the obama presidency there had already been 44 lease sales both offshore and on shore. during this administration there have been exactly zero, so we need to get that production back up and running as soon as possible. you mentioned the 5-year leasing plan in the gulf of mexico, it is required that we have a 5-year plan in place for their to be any lease sales in the

gulf of mexico and at this point this administration is woefully behind in getting that done. they have to have it done by july 1st by law and it doesn't look like they are even going to be close. but what does that mean for american consumers? we recently did a study that suggest that about 500,000 barrels of oil every single day will be taken offline if that leasing plan, that 5-year plan is not put into place. that's about the equivalent of what we were importing from russia before we self-sanctioned and took that russian crude off the market. we need the crude on the market so we can lower prices for american consumers and that's what this hearing should be focused on. it should be focused how we encourage more production in the united states, not less. maria: yeah, well, you're saying what so many have. we will see if that comes up, mike. good to see you this morning. thanks very much, mike sommers, stay with us. we will be right back.

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late stage clinical trials for two novel therapeutic treatments targeting chronic progressive kidney disease and acute kidney injury, and advancing on the path to fda market approval in the u.s.. xortx therapeutics. maria: welcome back. time for the hot topic buzz. beating out jess bezos, elon musk takes the top spot for the richest person in the world now. according to the forbes billionaire list, the tesla's ceo's net worth hit $219 billion in 2022, while amazon executives fell from last year, coming in at $171 billion. james freeman, they're pretty

close. james: yeah, and if elon musk who now has a big stake in twitter wants to turn that into a free speech platform that he rejects big tech censorship, i think he's going to see a huge consumer response and he's going to get even richer and that will be well deserved. maria: you've always said, you would rather see change in terms of censorship through the market, the competitive nature of business, as opposed to regulation, right, james? james: yeah. i'm hoping this is the free market solution. instead of having a washington-imposed solution which we know is going to have horrible unintended and intended consequences. maria: james and brandon, stay right there. the next hour of "mornings with maria" begins right now. ♪ maria: good wednesday morning, everybody. thanks very much for joining us this morning. i'm maria bartiromo. it is wednesday, april 6th.

your top stories right now 7:00 a.m. on the east coast. today, the federal reserve's selloff continues, investors are focused on the fed ahead of the march meeting minutes to be released today at 2:00 p.m. eastern. after fed governor lael brainard says the central bank is preparing for a hefty reduction in the $9 trillion portfolio. brainerd who usually favors loose policy and low interest rates, said the fed needs to act quickly and aggressively. >> it's of paramount importance to get inflation down. accordingly, the committee will continue tightening monetary policy through a series of interest rate increases and by starting to reduce the balance sheet at a rapid pace, as soon as our may meeting. maria: and those comments sparking a tech-led selloff at the close yesterday, the dow, the nasdaq and the s&p 500 closed at session low was the dow down 280, nasdaq down 328, two and a quarter percent, and

the s&p lower by 57 at 4:00 on wall street. this morning markets are extending losses, take a look at futures indicating a decline at the start of trading this morning to the tune of 285 points lower on the dow, the s&p 500 down 32 and nasdaq right now down better than 1%, 167 points lower right now. european markets are also lower ahead of the fed minutes coming out in several hours. the european indices are down across the board. the cac is down 106, dax lower by 215. we have economic data overnight in asia and china's services sector tumbled in the month of march at the fastest pace since the onset of the pandemic. overnight in markets, the hang seng index was down almost 2%, nikkei average was down 1 and-a-half percent, the others fractionally higher. oil prices this morning are higher ahead of the big oil testimony this morning ahead of the house energy and commerce subcommittee on oversight and

investigations. the price of brent is at 108, 05, up 1 and a third percent, the price of crude oil is 103, 70, up 1 and three quarters percent. there are fresh sanctions against russia expected today. that includes a reported ban on all new investment in russia. with a group of seven european union allies also planning to sanction imports from russia, this as ukrainian president zelenskyy pushes the u.n. security council to remove russia in the council, seeking reform to that body. and in the senate a bipartisan push emerging to reinstate title 42 aztecs as governor -- as texas governor greg abbott prepares to announce a big announcement and unprecedented action to deter my grants coming to texas. democrats are joining with republicans in acknowledging the administration a has no plan to deal with the surge of migrants expected when title 42 is formally lifted next month.

"mornings with maria" is live right now. and it is time for the word on wall street, top investors watching your money right now. joining me is fs investments chief market strategist, troy gieski, paul shatz and the fitz-gerald group principal, keith fitzgerald. great to see you all. troy, with a look at interest rates ahead of the fed minutes coming out later today, the 10 year treasury yield up this morning as investors are digesting what federal governor brainerd said yesterday. she said inflation is much too high and is subject to upside risks. the committee is prepared to a take stronger action if indicators of inflation and inflation expectations indicate that such action is warranted. troy, we're at waiting the march minutes. what are you expecting to hear as the yield this morning is up 8 basis points? >> yeah, well you know when the hoover doves become hawks, 60/40

allocation models are in real trouble, right? when you think about this year, right, the bottom line is yields were definitely going to go higher, just a question of how fast and now you're seeing a much more rapid pace than even we expected six weeks ago and that in turn will continue to cause multiple compression and broader equity markets so it's a really challenging environment for 60/40 allocation after a trimen run in 2019 -- tremendous run in 2019, 20 and 21. all is not lost. there are many strategies like senior secured commercial real estate debt or bdcs trading at a discount that have exposure and also multi-strategy exposures wrapped in a daily liquid mutual fund that have little duration. there's still ways to make money in a challenging environment like this. for equities and fixed income it's going to be challenging as far as i can see. maria: so are you -- do you own stocks at all or are you short this market? >> no, we're not short. we're trying to focus on

exposures that benefit from the fed rate hikes, primarily floating rate exposures where your income stream can go up as the fed hikes because the loans or securities themselves are floating rate. we don't expect a disastrous bear market. we expect more like 2 to 3 and maybe 4 turns of multiple compression but given that we think economic or recession risk is still relatively low, we don't see earnings rolling over and going negative. we still see positive earnings. so the best framework for this year is really 2018 where you have a slop hey, choppy mess, not a disaster like 2002, just a challenging environment for vanilla assets where you need to embrace alternatives to hit return goals. one thing we say, it was interesting, is that there's a constant he refrain now that everything's priced in the markets, it's priced in, it's priced be in. p i don't know how you can see definitively that this pace of aggressive fed tightening plus

the phone sal for balance sheet reduction is completely priced in to fixed income or equity markets. maria: the nasdaq down 9% year-to-date, something is priced in. you're right, we wouldn't have had that reaction yesterday of 280 point selloff in the dow, 380 point selloff in the nasdaq if all of this was priced in. then there's the macro story slowing. i want to look at what happened in china overnight, the services sector plunging at the steepest rate since start of the talk, this coming as new lockdowns across the country have forced millions to stay home, squashing consumer spending. your take on how this impacts the rest of the world, if china's slows -- china's economy slows down, what do other industrialized nations feel. >> that's an interesting question, maria. good morning. there's three things we need to worry about. the real impact is not just the data today, it's three, six months from now. it will feed into the supply chain. it will be in countries like

philippines, vietnam where you have a trickle-off and a huge drop in spending self inflicted in china. the he key is that industrial theft is going to go up, china's got to compete, businesses will run from western partners but the chais niece government is going to use -- knee cheese-chit will use all of that to reinforce china's position on the world as it attempts to bend he global trade to its views. maria: okay. i mean, look, we're going to see an impact of the federal reserve raising rates and we've already seen that in housing. i want to get your take on what we're seeing in terms of mortgage rates. weekly mortgage rates just released a moment ago. take a look at the average 30-year mortgage rate, up to almost 5% for the weekending april 1st. it is at 4.9% it's the highest since december of 2018, paul a. we've seen the building stocks roll over. they are obviously telling a story of slowdown in housing. what's your take on the impact

of higher mortgage rates? does that send home prices down? >> good morning, maria. keith got the memo for the yellow tie today. so first, everyone knows that the cost to service your debt is going to impact prices. you've got two things going on. number one, because the pandemic you had everyone looking for houses getting out of cities. that caused a surge in demand. and we know builders haven't been building new homes like had they used to in a long time. and number two as you mentioned, now mortgage rates have gone up from -- the 30 year bottomed around 2 and-a-half, 2 and a three quarter percent, now it's approaching 5%. for sure, that additional home buyer is getting sticker shock on both the price of the house as well as the cost to service it. to me without a doubt, and that's one of the number one questions i get from clients is is the housing market going to crash because mortgage rates are surging. if you look at 2018 as troy

referenced, i like 1994 as the an analog to the market and the economy today. the housing market is not going to crash. it's going to slow down. it will slowly roll over. you'll get a speculative buyer out of the market, return more organic buyer, housing pricing will he slow down and normalize, not where they were two years ago, at a higher level but i don't see a crash in housing because of mortgage rates, no. maria: all right. we will leave it there. troy, paul, keith, great to see you all. thank you so much for the word on wall street. with the dow industrials now down at the low of the morning with a decline of almost 200 points. we will slip in a short break and then this. carrying out a favor, new you e-mails reveal joe biden once wrote a college recommendation for the son of one of hunter biden's chinese business partners tied to the ccp. we will tell you all about i joining the conversation all morning long this morning james freeman and brandon arnold.

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but the white house still maintains the president never engaged in his son's business. >> the presidents has said what that he never spoke to his son about his overseas business dealings. is that still the case? >> yes. maria: and of course senators chuck grassley and ron johnson have revealed new financial documents detailing business links between the biden family and corrupt actors. ron johnson joined me on sunday morning futures on sunday, documenting the money that the biden family has taken in and the favors. james freeman, your reaction to this influence peddling and the impact. james: yeah, this is significant. and it's another piece of what is now a mounting pile of evidence that joe and hunter biden work together on a lot of things. this is -- they are not separate as the white house, has joe biden have maintained. hunter's business collecting all

of this money, all of these opportunities in chinese finance or ukrainian natural gas or russian funded computer manufacturing or what have you are not separate from joe biden because we see here a business partner of hunter's getting a favor and what's interesting here is this communication begins when joe biden is still the sitting vice president. it's early january 2017. we don't know exactly what was done between then and when he left office but once again another big dent in this biden myth had that there is no connection between hunter's business dealings and joe biden. maria: yeah. and we've been saying this a long time, showing the e-mails, the big guy, 10% held by h for the big guy. brandon, i've said repeatedly this is not a hunter biden story, this is joe biden story. brandon: i think that's right.

what joe biden needs to be worried about right now is his polling numbers because if republicans do take the house and possibly the senate as they are expected to do, had get investigatory power and subpoena you power. this investigation gets ticked up to the next level when they start bringing in administration officials, when they start bringing in hunter biden and others to ask them questions under oath about these activities so that's what joe biden needs to be worried about right now. republicans are not just measuring the drapes in the speaker's office, they're also contemplating how to investigate this administration and make sure truth comes to light. maria: yep. for sure. we will the take a break. when we come back, we are getting back to the ukrainian president zelenskyy and what he is asking a fresh round of sanctions looming for russia, just days after the white house says sanctions alone will not solve any of the problems. a live report coming up.

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maria: welcome back. the biden administration reportedly rolling out a new package of russian sanctions in coordination with the g7 and eu today, this after national security advisor jake sullivan said sanctions alone will not solve the ukraine crisis. fox news' jacqui heinrich joins us live, she is at the white

house with more. jack ky, good morning to you. what can you tell us. >> reporter: good morning, maria. the white house will announce today what they're calling an additional package of sweeping sanctions that will further impose costs on russia and in their words send it further down the road of financial, economic and techno of logical isolation -- technological ice lace, happening in coordination with the g7 and european union, including a ban on all investments in russia, increased sanctions on russian financial p institutions including spur bank and sanctions on stayed state sf enterprises in russia including russian officials and family members. this comes days after jake sullivan told reporters sanctions alone will not solve any of these problems and critics are saying the sanctions are not hitting russia where it hurts the most. >> why don't we focus on what's going to hurt them, sanction the energy companies, bottom line, it's unthinkable that biden hasn't done that.

it's the one sucker punch they should give them. send the plane, send the equipment, sanction the energy companies and's help the ukrainians win this fight for freedom. >> reporter: president biden called for a war crimes trial for putin but he split within jan president on volodymyr zelenskyy with characterizing what's happening at genocide. they're supporting the war crimes unit under the office of the ukrainian prosecutor general. but nsc special advisor matt miller said holding russia accountable through trials is a, quote, down the road issue. .>> how much time do you think these innocent ukrainians have? >> i think what's important to note here is sanctions are one component of the tools we have at our disposal. what we are seeing happen is the financial system in russia is near the brink of collapse. >> reporter: so the head of the european commission said that

they're looking at sanctions on energy imports on top of what's already been unveiled. but ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy is really imploring people to be more decisive after the horrifying images of civilians killed in bucha emerged online. maria. maria: i wonder about the line you're talking about from the white house that they will ban all new investments in russia because there are still a host of russian companies sitting in the emerging market indexes, etfs, and that enables unwitting investors to buy these russian companies and in effect fund russia's war on ukraine. so i'm wondering about this wording, we're going to ban all, quote, unquote, new investments in russia. what about divestment of those companies that are in the current etfs and index funds? i don't know if you have anything on that, with new

investments. >> reporter: it's just new investments so far. the white house is trying to do everything they do in lock p step with their allies. that means they moved pretty slowly. the only thing they've been bullish on is these technological, these tech industries sanctions which they said they didn't expect to see working so soon. they think that they've been the most effective and that's where they focused their energy mostly. maria: all right. thanks very much. we'll be watching you in the white house press room. jacqui heinrich joining us as the white house. joining us now is john katko. thanks very much for being here. what do you make of these new sanctions? how has the war impacted u.s. home of land security and do you have any knowledge in terms of the investment in russian companies and why they're still sitting in investor portfolio as we speak? >> good morning, maria. thanks for having me on again. look, what's going on if in ukraine right now, seems like we're reacting instead of acting and these sanctions come on the

heels of what we thought was unspeakable tragedies and atrocities being committed in ukraine. you mentioned a loophole. there is indexes that they're trading on. we're not closing the loophole. it's going to affect us long-term. as far as the impact on the u.s., we are more vulnerable than ever to cyber attacks. russia is one of the primary and he premier cyber attackers in the world and we have to be ready for that as well. this is going to come to the homeland. floss question can about it. the more we can do to punch them in the nose now, the more we can maybe stop these atrocities from happening and dripping them out like we're doing and dripping out the weapons assistance and saying no instead of saying yes, that's not going to work. maria: yeah. well, that's what i'm saying. i mean, these sanctions seem to have no teeth to me.

because investors are still invested in these companies. so, you know, when are we actually going to start really focusing on arming ukraine, poland said it's got the jets, the mig 29s it's ready to send them to a u.s. facility but the pentagon was surprised by that. should ukrainians get those mig jets? >> listen, we should do everything except send u.s. troops there. if that means allowing poland to send jets to ukraine, why are we getting involved in that. let them do it. let them get there. let them he help these people. how much more will we watch of these people being slaughtered before we do what we should do. they tried to get lethal aid to ukraine in ad vans of the invasion, not after the fact. maria: you say this is going to hit the homeland of america.

we've already seen major hits to the homeland, given the southern border is wide open. now we see the senate republicans are pushing to include an amendment to reinstate title 42 in a $10 billion covid relief package, where are you on that? here's press secretary jen psaki on this yesterday. watch. >> decisions on title 42 should remain independent of the urgently needed funding for covid aid. this is a decision made by the cdc, it's a public health decision. it's not one that should be wrapped up of course in politics and the decisions made by the cdc is where it should belong as he relates to title 42. maria: well, it sounds like she doesn't know what she's talking about, about title 42. i know the house passed two republican homeland security bills yesterday, congressman. what do you want to say about title 42 going away? >> listen, title 42, what title 42 was used by trump president ,

it's been on the books for years, to prevent diseases spreading to the u.s. from outside the u.s. one of the viruses is covid. we have to wear masks on airplanes. they're asking for more aid for covid relief issues, they're still concerned about covid issues nationwide yet we're going to say there's no covid issue at the border. come on in. that's incredible. what will happen on the border once title 42 is revoked is we're going to lose complete operational control at the border. border patrol agents told us in the last few days, i met with mr. mccarthy, 5,000 is operational control. they expect as many at 18,000 people a day coming across the border once title 42 is lifted, which is crazy. maria: 18,000 people a day. >> a day. .maria: and border be patrol agents are supposed to apprehend 18,000 people a day. you're not talking about the got-aways, not talking bought

the illicit narcotics. do we have the number of people be in terms of border patrol agents to handle 18,000 people a day. >> no, like the head of the border patrol agent's association told us a couple days ago when i met with the leadership on the republican side and all of them, they told us 5,000 a day they can probably handle. after that they start losing operational control. when title 42 is revoked, they expect as many as 18,000 people a day, more than triple the maximum that they can handle. what will happen is the border communities will be inundated. they'll release the people into the community and we'll have chaos at the border and i think the democrats will have a lot of answering to do coming down the road. maria: all right. we will be watching. congressman, thanks very much. john cat -- john katko joining us this morning in d.c. we'll be right back. but a bigger nest egg.

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will you come to christ today? - [announcer] visit findingtruepeace.com to find out more. maria: welcome back. president biden is ready to extend the pause on student loan

repayment. cheryl casone with the details now. cheryl, this is more stimulus. cheryl: yeah. very expensive stimulus, maria. the president reportedly going to extend the student loan moratorium through august 31st of this year, that would allow 43 million borrowers to continue to not make payments on student loan debt. it was supposed to end may first. republicans say the nation cannot afford to allow nonpayment of 1.6 trillion in government debt, saying it's an unfair burden on taxpayers. also not happy, progressive congresswoman aoc, she tweeted i think some folks read extensions as politics, but i don't think those folks of understand the panic and disorder it causes people to get so close to these deadlines just to extend the uncertainty. doesn't have the effect people think it does. we should cancel them. yeah. yeah, just cancel 1.6 trillion in money owed. sure. all right. well, have you looked at air fare prices lately? get ready for a shock. a new report estimates the average price of tickets going to jump more than 10% this month

thanks to soaring jet fuel prices. that's driving up the cost of a he domestic flight by just over $100 since the beginning of the year. average particular t et prices have skyrocketed more than 40% since january. the report says costs should hit their peak sometime in may. we hope. and finally this. tiger woods making a major announcement regarding his participation in this year's master's tournament. >> as of right now i feel like i am going to play. as of right now. >> do you think you can win the masters. >> i do. cheryl: woods is set to practice today ahead of making a final decision. this would be his first major tournament since nearly losing his leg in a car accident, just over 14 months ago. golf analysts say the fact that he can even play is phenomenal. so we'll learn today what his decision is. maria: yeah. yeah. all right, cheryl, thank you so much. we are all waiting on the federal reserve today, investors are awaiting the fed's march

minutes to be released today at 2:00 p.m. eastern as the investment community digests what federal reserve governor lael brainard said yesterday, saying they're preparing for a hefty reduction if in the $9 trillion balance sheet, saying the fed needs to act quickly and aggressively. watch. >> it's paramount importance to get inflation down. accordingly, the committee will tightening monetary policy through a series of interest rate increases and starting to he reduce the balance sheet at a rapid pace, as soon as our may meeting. maria: joining me right now is the distinguished senior fellow tommies hoenig, the former president and ceo of the kansas city federal reserve and former fdic vice chairman. thomas, it's great to see you again this morning. thanks so much for being here. how do you pars lael brainard's

comments there. do you think that means we're in for bigger hikes, 5 basis points of -- 0 basis points for the next couple meetings. how do you think that translates into policy. >> i think that translates into a more aggressive policy. her speech was specific, talking about reduction of the balance sheet which is quantitative tightening, will certainly have i think important effects. also, you've seen other what i call very doveish members of the fomc or participants from san francisco, chicago and so forth who have suddenly turned very aggressive in their policy prescriptions in terms of tightening so i think there is a turning on a dime moment here because they just finished easing policy last month and now they're aware of inflation becoming so significant and it's

likely i think with the april announcement to go even higher. so yes, they're turning much more aggressive and will be tightening i think pretty significantly. i'd say there's a good chance for 50 basis point incross at the next meeting and maybe beyond that as they try and get ahead of -- i should say catch one the inflationary surge that i think is going to continue for a while. maria: yeah, i mean, citigroup is telling clients to expect 50 basis point hike not only in may but in may, june, july and september, actually. what kind of an impact is this going to have on the macro story? we are already seeing much higher prices for airline flights, much higher prices for goods and food and of course americans cannot escape the higher prices for gasoline and at the grocery store. the department of agriculture predict all food prices will increase up to 5 and-a-half percent this year. eating out is also going to see

the highest increase, up 6 and-a-half percent. grocery prices up 4% to 2022. but thomas, i guess what i'm looking for is the impact of all of this tightening on the economy. because we're already seeing cracks in the economic growth story. a lot of economists are looking at a recession in 2022, others talking about very slow growth. nancy lazar is there at 1% gdp for 2022. so what's your take on the federal reserve walking this balance of raising rates, making it more expensive to borrow, while also not impacting the growth story that we want to see in the macro economy. >> i think the line they're walking is very, very thin and they have almost an impossible challenge ahead of them. they're predicting that we'll have this reduction in inflation and we will do it without a real significant increase in

unemployment. i think that would be very pleasing if it were to occur but i think it's highly unlikely. when you tighten policy through the extent they're talking about or speculating on in terms of 50 basis points and reducing the balance sheet at the same time, that's a double whammy. that most likely is going to slow the economy. perhaps to the 1%, perhaps i think reasonably to a recession in next year and depending on how much they move those 50 basis points forward towards us, maybe sooner than next year in terms of the slowdown that would bring to the economy. i have not in my experience witnessed a very consistent sight -- tightening series without there being a major he slowdown in the economy and a risk of recession and i think the real challenge for the federal reserve is when that slowdown comes, whether they will be able to stick to the program of getting inflation

down -- through this tighter policy. the pattern has been once you see unemployment start to rise, you lose your nerve and they back off and inflation takes off again and you have the start/stop process that is very damaging. so i hope the they avoid that because they're going to have to face a slowdown. when they do, they have to stick through until inflation is brought down and then allow the economy to heal a. heal. but that's painful and will take a bit. that's where i think the real test of the fomc will come. maria: yeah, i mean, look, already so many increases in wages are being zapped up by the rate of inflation. we had a pretty good wage number the other day when we saw wages were up 5.6% year over year. but unfortunately inflation was up 7.9%. so even if you're making more money, it's getting zapped by what have you to pay for stuff

out there. deutsche bank becomes the first major bank to forecast a recession as a result of all of this, they're saying recession in 2023. thomas, you just mentioned 2023. are you saying you, thomas hoenig, is expecting a recession in 2023 then? >> yes, i do, if they stick to tightening policy as aggressively as it's outlined in these speeches and what governor brainerd said yesterday, i think there is a high risk of a recession which i think will cause them -- i fear will cause them to back off before inflation is brought down and i think inflation is going to be higher than 7.9% with this next reporting. so i really think if they tighten and they're going to have to, when you tighten this much you begin to see a slowdown in the economy and as people have noted, it has some leading indicator, history and that is the inversion of the yield serve. should that continue or worsen, then that's even more evidence that a he slowdown is ahead of

us. it is a risk. they were so far behind the curve when they entered this process he's that now the catch-up is going to be more difficult and more painful than i think anyone wants. maria: thomas, real quick, you said inflation likely to worsen. so we're at around an 8% inflation right now. consumer as well as by the way as well as industrial corporate. do you think that -- you how high can inflation go? if it's at 7.9% now. >> given they're just starting their tightening program, i think we'll see inflation above -- i don't know. i'm not an expert in terms of predicting the future, no one is, but i think you're going to see inflation above 8, 8 and-a-half percent over the next two, two to three months is my best estimate or guess, if you would like. because there's just so much -- there's so much inflationary momentum in the economy. you're talking energy, that's

only going to get worse. as you said, food. housing, rent, housing costs. this is very inflationary and those are big parts of the consumer's budget and this inflation is a very regressive tax on the american people. so it does have to be addressed and they have to stick to the program until they break inflation. otherwise, it will only get worse and be higher a year from now if they don't stick to the program. maria: all right. thomas, great to get your insights as always. we so appreciate your time this morning, sir. thank you very much. thomas hoenig joining us this morning. >> happy to be with you. thank you. maria: we'll see you soon, sir. thank you. we'll be right back. stay with us. if you think you have dupuytren's contracture, there's a simple test you can take—from anywhere. try to lay your hand flat against a surface.

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and you choose fiber solutions with speeds up to 10 gigs to the most small businesses. that's virtually everywhere we serve. the choice is clear: make your business future ready with the network from the most innovative company. comcast business. powering possibilities™. maria: welcome back. bitcoin down this week r currently around $45,000, take a look. it is down this morning. joining me right now to talk about where we are on crypto, head of global expansion a bruno desalsa. thanks very much for being here. i know you think the crypto market's going to remain volatile. do you think it's worth owning right here? is this a gooden tri point or -- good entry point or will we see better prices down the road? >> pleasure to be here. this is trending in a -- between the 43 and 48 bend in the past two months now, bitcoin finds

these bands and stays with them for a couple months. we saw bitcoin at around 60,000, 65,000. there's still space for the all-time highs. if you think about it, personally, yeah, i think this is -- this could be a good s entry point with the caveat that bitcoin is always volatile. you can go to 30 pretty fast. lots of attention, a take some time but we're in an a interesting band right now. maria: you have the biggest bitcoin event in the world happening right now in miami. that's putting some questions on the power of silicon valley, pitting miami against silicon valley as the fastest growing tech hub in the world. we had the mayor of miami with me earlier in the week, talking about venture capital growth. watch this. >> people realize that people are aggregating here in miami, they're colliding here in miami and we now have critical mass.

what we're seeing is a 200% increase in venture capital deals completed. if we were to continue to grow at that rate, 200% a year for two more years and it was a zero sum game which means our gain was san francisco's loss, we would overtake san francisco in two years as the venture capital capital of america. maria: isn't it interesting, bruno, that they chose miami for this big bitcoin crypto event? >> yeah, it goes into that trend that we're seeing of vcs and start-ups going to miami, leaving silicon valley. that's been happening for a couple years now. mayor suarez was very smart to see and read what was happening and create a an environment around vcs in general and especially around bitcoin and crypto. that made it look favorable which is in stark contrast with some things we were seeing in san francisco he's personly. it makes a lot of -- especially. it makes a lot of sense to be there and there's a growth of the community in miami. maria: what are you doing at

hash techs. >> we specialize in crypto products, funds and etfs. we have funds and etfs in different countries and our idea has always been to create a great bridge between traditional finance and crypto. there's lots of complications around crypto from custody to aces sees to how you're buying, how you're storing this and we think there's a way of doing that better through funds and etfs. we had great success in that and that appeals from he anyone from my father as an investor to pension funds. we give them the access that they want, goes beyond having acs sees to bitcoin and -- access to bitcoin and more sophisticated things like index products, smart beta and the products you see in traditional finance. we are in the middle of the space, trying to communicate with both sides and it's been an interesting ride. maria: i bet. bruno, great to have you this morning to walk us through it. we so appreciate it.

we'll be watching. bruno ramos desalsa. a quick break and then a billboard with a bold message, a group of mothers in san francisco warning people to stay away from the city. we'll tell you why, next.

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maria: welcome back. time for "hot topic buzz" concerns mothers in san francisco, putting up bordz do draw attention to fentanyl crisis they missed the world over for brain beauty now dirt cheap fentanyl open air drug market make it much header for aaaddicts to dwight we haven't heard joe biden mention fentanyl at all. of course, much fentanyl is coming into america, through the wide open borders. >> it is just tragic watching breakdown of society in san francisco lawlessness frustration, people we've seen before with the crime surge, people demanding the local government take some kind of action but this is interesting

a lot of mothers are saying please arrest my child so that i can force him into treatment. this is a city that is as progressive as they come, spends lots of money, has all kinds of programs allegedly to deal with this problem. and it is not working. so this is -- these are desperate people asking for a change here. to clean up the streets, and open air drug markets bring safety help to those who need it known of that is happening now. >> none brandon what administration thought was solution offering drug kits clean needles quiet places to shoot up that was the answer to this. >> it is tragic story when you look at mothers perspective, policies and procedures are really hurting peoples lives

causing huge, huge traffic across the city of stran one of the most beautifully coolest cities in the world, instead of a vibrant air economic activity seeing migration unprecedented people leaving because of horrible, horrible policyholders stay right there next hour "mornings with maria" begins right now. . maria: a good wednesday morning thanks very much for joining us this morning i am maria bartiromo, it is wednesday, april 6 top stories, fed sell-off continues investors focused on federal reserve, ahead of the march meeting minutes. they will be released today at 2 pm eastern. after federal reserve governor lael brainard said the central bank is preparing for a husky

reduction in nine trillion dollar balance sheet brainard says loose policy low interest rates if he had neithers to act quickly aggressively. >> to get a inflation down accordingly, the committee will continue tightening monetary policy to a series of interest rate increases starting to reduce balance sheet as soon as our may meeting. maria: with that, a sell-off on wall street remarks sparking tech web sell-off at close dow s&p 500 nasdaq near session lows dow down 2830 nasdaq down 328, and s&p lower by 57. selling continues this morning look at futures extending the losses right now, we are at the lows of the morning, right now, dow industrials down 24 the s&p 500 down 44 and 1/2 nasdaq right now down 236, one

and two-thirds percent lower european markets lower look at eurozone ft 100 in london down by 30, the cac quarante in paris down 140 in germany among weakest spots decline 290 points here too lows of the morning, in asia overnight, economic data, triggered selling in hong kong, china services sector he tumbling in you march fastest pace since onset of pandemic hanning hang seng down almost 2%, on top of -- the committee price brent at now 107.60 up almost 1%, the price of crude oil 103.16 air travel rising, prices grip consumers average price of flight up 40% from january costs expected to rise observer the coming months

fresh sairngs against russia expected today including a reported ban on all new investment in russia, group of seven european union planning to sanction imports from ruf the u.s. security council pressured to remove russia. >> to reinstate title 42 greg abbott prepares to announce unprecedented action to deter migrants coming to texas expecting 18,000 a day once title 42 goes away democrats in difficult reelection cycle joining with republicans acknowledging administration has no plans to deal with surge of migrants expected from when title 42 is lifted in may "mornings with maria" is live right now. >> mornings moves airlines to look at jetblue spirit airliners, frontier down

premarket by better than 3% after jetblue makes uni solicited offer to acquire spirit for 3.6 billion dollars in cash combined company would become fifth largest airline in the united states. market share and offer estimated 1700 daily flights serving more than 77 million commerce a year months after frontier spirit agreed to merge in 6.6 build deal spirit said board would evaluate jetblue's proposal determine the best course of action. declines across the board in airlines, elon musk now the richest man in the world, twitter announced yesterday he is now on the board of directors putting him onboard rather after musk took 9.2% stake in the company twitter says it is in fact, working on an edit feature musk brought up users have been pushing for this for years elon musk

tweeting do you want an edit button changes he would like to see at twitter, joining me, lou, all morning long james freeman brandon arnold great to see you lou thanks for joining the consideration i notify been a longtime the critic of elon musk and twitter tell me your thoughts musk on the board said he looks forward changes coming not just there to enjoy the games and be on the board, wants to see change. >> look the agitator in chief arrived it pains me to be positive about musk, bold brash, border line -- he pushed regulatory landscape but a net positive one thing if open critic of platform or someone another thing when you back up truck put tons of money behind that you force people to listen that is what he has done here taking a 9.2%

stake forcing the board, when they like it or not, and c-suite pay attention i think quick things he can do to reenergize growth simi valley is about network engagement on neck i would say probably controversial best thing he can do right now revoc the permanent suspension on president trump would boost will engagement immediately, like the yankees's red stocks ones with irrelevant without the here need hard-core conservatives arguinging with hard-core are liberals i don't know what is going to happen but one easy move to make as well as that edit button taking too long to institute that is years in the making, and requesting. maria: a but what about trump's truth social talking about free speech having conservatives liberals debate

issues, rather than getting o censored like twitter has done president trump tried to do with truth social how does that fit into equation. >> last time i upset you by suggesting trump social was dead on arrival i am sticking by that, i am still waiting for to come off wait list, i think trump social was aiming at right objects getting all voices heard avoiding o censorship happening on twitter i think you have to have some keep you moderation can't be one versus the other you have to have he open o dialogue, musk is not afraid to speak his mind has enough of a following that he has an impact, that he can really change here to have just an open discourse think what it could be i am noting advocating for hate speech terrible things on social media platform i'm advocating for franchisee maintains hearing things you don't like if truthful meaningful it needs to have a forum to do

that i think musk, is he is a supporter of that he said defacto public square. maria: a did that tweet does twitter process free speech so important to our do democracy 70% said they don't think you so what about how musk is going about this is he risking a new fight with securities and exchange commission waiting 21 days, in terms of his own disclosure. >> i think sort temperature neither' long term liability i could see 25 to 50% upside twitter stock look at evaluation snapchat 20 billion more will average revenue per user musk continues to thumb his nose at sec looks to be bully poke bear see if they do anything in this case i mentioned filed 10 days late,

21 days after he passed the 5% stake supposed to do that within 10 days filed 13g means a passive investor when he is clearly going to be active one i think you can all but guarantee if trump joins platform again going to anger a lot of people you can all built guarantee elon musk onboard is is going to anger sec some way, shape or form that is what he does not afraid to do it i think a net positive but for him being there for reenergizing growth, a longer term liability. maria: great to see you. thanks so much, weighing in on all of that as we watch twitter what ultimately happens with musk on the board thank you a quick break then much more ahead coming up captivating the democrats on capitol hill more obama leaving biden in the did you live the at the white house the former president took

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watching everybody surrounded president obama president biden he seeming to not know what to do where to go everybody crowding around obama was sad your reaction. >> it was just a strange event all the way around you mentioned former president obama making a joke at president biden's expense wondering if mr. obama wasn't irked they innovate him for a anniversary to pro moept a fix for what they call affordable care act family glitch the biden white house saying there is a problem with obamacare it didn't allegedly provide subsidies, now we're going to talk about fixing it so this is this is kind of weird invite some won back talk about why it needs to be amended. maria: sort of second obama administration brandon there

are a lot of you know, leadership conditions in the biden administration where those people were in the obama administration. then talk yesterday that obama would start regular meetings with president biden, we did not get confirmation on that don't know if president president obama is meeting with joe biden weekly to discuss, policy. what are your thoughts on what this tells us about what is to come in terms of obama's input on president biden's policies? >> yeah, i think biden needs to stay away from obama for the most part not only does obama up sustainable him char ismatic, he is giving lousy political advice told biden members of congress they should run on their record run on successes they had in this congress, and, of course, when they did that was disastrous

for if a democrats same true in november if they run on record policies contributed to inflation run away deficits going to get clobbered again bad advice coupled with really sad pr disaster, where obama looks way more energetic char ismatic. >> one of the reasons the democrats are watching poll numbers fall. >> we should not lose sight of the fact he onlinecare has been a disaster on merits not just because mr. obama broke signature promise you could keep your doctor health plan if you wanted to what we've seen rising costs healthcare taking larger share of gdp than before the law, and lower life expectancy on measures is

america healthier at lower cost? no, higher costs -- >> we slip in a break when we come back look looking to federal reserve march minutes report, it will be out 2 pm eastern how many rate hikes can the economy handle for 2022? will we see a recession this year or next, market strategist weighs in on allocating economical along with that, next. . . if you invest in the s&p 500 your portfolio may be too concentrated in big companies. this can leave it imbalanced and exposed when performance varies. invesco's s&p 500 equal weight etf, rsp, is spread equally across the s&p 500, which reduces potential concentration risk and helps keep your portfolio in balance. stay in balance with invesco's rsp.

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>> . maria: markets selling off this morning once again, ahead of the release of the federal reserve minutes from the fed you march meeting those minutes will be released 2 pem eastern today stocks extending sell-off yesterday expectation detail how central bank plans to cut balance sheet from 9 trillion dollars after fed governor brainard in as manied would be aggressive on balance precaution raising interest rates, joining me scott wren great to see you as investor how do you deal with what is coming. >> well maria for what you say we tried to do, we used this recent rally off lows to reduce risk we have been leaning towards stocks away from bonds pretty hard for the last 20 months or so.

so right now we are moving into a more risky, portion of the market cycling things slowing down, inflation is clearly high. the fed has done everything they can do to tell us they are going to be day pretty aggressive i don't think minutes are going to reveal a whole lot but you can tell clearly from lael brainard's comments yesterday the market is expecting a lot of rate hikes here but is still a little jittery over just how aggressive the fed is going to be. maria: yeah, what will we hear from treasury second janet yellen also going to be testifying day in front of house financial services committee expected is to speak on variety of topics including outlook for global supply chain inflation financial tools u.s. is using, to punish russia over invasion of ukraine, scott, this is the first -- person told us along with jay powell inflation was quote/unquote transitory what might janet yellen say today. >> janet yellen has got to be

tough on administration book we are not going to hear anything different or revealing or anything like that, you know you are more likely to hear something more revealing in fed minutes i don't think janet yellen is going to detract far from "the talk"ing points, so i don't think the markets going to be paying a lot of attention to that. it will certainly be paying attention to the fomc mints like i said i don't think a lot of surprises there, you know this rolloff, this restriction balance sheet i mean it is how aggressive is that going to be? we know getting a ton of rate hikes here. maria: yeah, a lot of people are thinking more 50 basis points than 25 basis points. >> it will be --. >> using -- >> yeah, i i mean, drop possibly can we are going to hear o more, may is a 50-basis point hike almost for sure june probably too we know behind and like i said i mean

we like tech, we like healthcare we've gotten more defensive we've got less cycleel not leaning as hard think market 6, 7% higher than it is now the end of the year if leaning hard toward risk a good idea to back off a little bit. >> what about first-quarter earnings, at hand that will happen, next week, with major banks reporting their first quarter numbers what are you expecting? i know you currently favor quality u.s. larger a couple mid a couple over small cap merging markets what are you going to about see out of first quarter period of earnings that will begin to flow next week? are you expecting guidance from companies in terms of what 2022 looks like. >> i think guidance is still conservative i mean, even if you think things are going to be great most of these cfo's he easternmost going to else in say that, i think, are you

know what you need to do, to figure this out you need to project ahead, what the economic environment is going to look like that is going to allow companies, to make money to produce earnings that is what you need to figure out. guidance, you know, sometimes helps sometimes it doesn't. but these first-quarter results will be -- they will be okay but gdp and first quarter, i know, 2% maybe somethinglying that not going to be a great gdp quarter, i don't think you are going to see a lot of surprises in the earnings season i think guidance is going to be probably not that helpful and there is going to be a lot of uncertainty expressed by these companies so you need to put pencil to paper figure out for yourself what this economic environment is going to look like being what that means for earnings. maria: you still want to buy large cap quality? >> oh, yeah, i tell you quality is kind of a ferm a lot of people use out there but for us, you know is that

large cap better balance sheets more results easy access to credit -- ail those kinds of things small caps companies typically can't do, small kapdz early cycle outperformer cycle moves on you need a larger cap companies to own their niche have a lot of products can survive the slowdown. maria: all right, thanks for sharing playbook good to see you so appreciate it thank you, sir. . >> thanks. maria: joining us, we will see you soon quick break then weighing in on president biden's policy, and the oil companies getting ready to testify on capitol hill. don't miss it. right after the break. . ♪ limu emu ♪ and doug. we gotta tell people that liberty mutual customizes car insurance so you only pay for what you need, and we gotta do it fast.

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emx, the royalty generator - building shareholder value only pay for what you need. through royalty creation and acquisition. get global exposure from rising gold, silver, copper and battery metals prices with significantly less risk. emx royalty charismatic maria: welcome back, good wednesday morning thanks very much for joining us this morning, i am maria bartiromo.

it is wednesday, april 6 top oil executives testifying on capitol hill today as president biden blames oil companies for high price of gasoline not his own failed policies, hillary vaughn in washington with more, good morning to you. >> good morning, maria. well democrats on capitol hill have made big oil the villain the past several weeks as gas prices continue to rise saying they are ripping americans off at the pump, keeping profit for themselves house democrats get a chance to face off with top executives from companies like shell exxon bp shell others after democrats yesterday claimed oil companies are letting leases get stagnant and not drilling. >> that is hundreds of millions of barrels of oil they are not drilling for right now. even as we see their crocodile

tears being shed how they need more leases. >> they haven't finished what is on their plate they haven't begun to use that is on their plate right now. . >> today big oil is not tip-toeing around the issue, in their opening statements all skufdz at inout denied price gauges the ceo chevron will tell house lawmakers today, in their opening statement quote i want to be absolutely clear. we do not control the market price of crude oil or natural gas nor of refined products like gasoline and diesel fuel we have no for price gorging several make the point they don't own or operate most gas stations in the country a lot are mom and positiveing will tell shell does not set or control prices consumers pay would be illegal for shell to do so nearly all shell branded retail stations in the united states are owned by independent operators who set

their own prices in this marketplace, now aaa, estimates that gas stations are only make 2:15 to 4 cents of profit off every gallon of gas they sell spokesperson telling fox business that we are probably making more in a cup of coffee they sell at the convenience store than they do off the gallon of gasoline, maria. maria: interesting thanks very much we will be watching, this morning, joining me right now to react is louisiana congressman house minority whip congressman steve scalise member of energy and commerce committee, congressman, you will be questioning, these executives today, at the hearing, what can we expect,ss where do you want to focus. >> good morning, maria. good technique with you seems democrats have amnesia as "the wall street journal" pointed out today in their opinion piece because joe biden nancy pelosi her counterpart who have limited supply by

shutting down oil production, not allowing any new leases frankly leases they talk about oil companies have, they put every roadblock from every federal agency in the way so they can't produce on those leases you've got every federal agency from department interior to energy now sec every agency putting out rules to make it harder to drill let's not forget joe biden, as candidate for president of the united states said going to shut down production make it harder for companies to drill in america, just a few months ago the same democrats here in congress were berating oil executives telling them stopproducing oil in america. because of regulations, they can't produce as much oil in america it made is more reliant thuged lying putin other to limit supplies to raise price open merge merge road blobs out of way to produce oil in america lower the cost at the pump. maria: don't forget iran president right now wanting to

get u.s. back into this jcpoa nuclear detail with iranians so iranian oil can be on market congressman we all know that the price of oil and gasoline is achieved in the global market all based on supply and demand, for the global market but if president can't blame oil companies who is he going to blame? >> this look, even a knows it is joe biden who caused thefz high gas prices look joe biden right now in iran deal you talked to about is negotiating with putin why would anybody in america be negotiating with vladimir putin yet that is what joe biden is doing, to try to help iran get a nuclear weapon, why not make energy here? because by limiting supply in america when joe biden bragged about as candidate nancy pelosi and her liberal lieutenants bragging about allow cattels monopolies like opec, dictators from russia venezuela iran, they don't

want to increase supply they want the price to be high the price is high because they won't allow america to produce we are a free market economy we believe in increasing supply, in demand is high price is my so we can lower price joe biden won't let that happen to all regulations, let's get the regulations out of the way, to actually allow american to produce cleaner, by the way, than all other countries, we have better standards we will have reduced emissions if we make more in america. we are looking at inflation, that is stinging the last reading was 7.9%. average inflation right now we just spoke with former president of the kansas city federal reserve, thomas hoenig he said inflation is going to run up to 8, 8 1/2% if coming months. we are feeling all ways the cost of traveling taking a flight up big time as fuel

prices grip consumers average price for a flight right now up 40%, from january. to travel costs expected to go up 10% next month driving up the cost of a in domestic flight by about 100 dollars since the beginning of the year congressman. that is just one area of inflation, we've also got food prices higher, gasoline prices higher, even services higher, so it is really coming at us in all ways as a result of the price of gasoline and fuel you will. >> yeah, you know who pays the most from joe biden's inflation? it is lower and middle income families getting curbed by higher prices, the grocers everything 20 to 30% higher fertilizer 300% hire or more talking to farmers ultimately, to even higher prices joe biden, by the way, proposed 45 billion dollars in new taxes, on oil and gas. so if you are angry about price you are paying are a too high at the pump joe biden

wants you to pay more, and oh, he o broke his promise said if you make less than 400,000 you won't pay anything in taxes usual probably paying 3 or 4 dollars more a gallon every time you fill up because of joe biden failed policies tax increases on lower and middle income families very people he promised he wouldn't go after. maria: i am glad you mentioned the budget what he is doing at budget, because i've got this report from larry lindsey looking at rosy projections in the budget as well, for example, the budget is expecting that the 91 day treasury bill rate is going to be up 2/10 of a percent for 2022, we are already looking at yields skyrocketing right now that is way off, they are looking at growth 4% for the economy, that is way off. we've already got expectations of a recession, if not a one percent growth number for the economy. for 2022. so we are talking about

massive -- pie-in-the-sky expectations with this budget. why no increase in spending for homeland security and decrease in spending in defense congressman? walk us through that is he g going on with this budget, because u.s. southern border is about to get much worse democrats even acknowledging that the administration has no plan, to deal with a surge of migrants expected once title 42 goes away, senate republicans want to reinstate title 42 in covid relief package what are your thoughts on what is going on at the border and compare that to the money that joe biden is proposing for, for example, the irs spending up 20%, homeland security defense down when compared to inflation. >> these are devastating numbers you look at joe biden's budget shows you where his priorities are he wants to double size of the irs and, yet, reduce spending on things like protecting our country, and our homeland. i mean look. again,this is same party that supported defunding the

police. they are still pushing those kind of defunding policies trying to defund border patrol agents ice getting rids of title 42 a tool he homeland security forces the border patrol agents owing use to try to secure america's border, what their estimating biden is doing just in last two weeks, will actually lead to probably 500,000 or more people coming across our border illegal every month, maria over 500,000, day might be 30,000 a month way too highway too high they want to go over 500,000 people crossing illegally every month think of all fentanyl drugs that are coming into our country we had 100,000 americans, killed last year from fentanyl, coming across our southern border joe biden has done nothing in fact making it worse because opening up the border he is turning operational control of southern border over to drying cartels he who will bring more

fentanyl human trafficking across the border a national crisis it is a national disgrace that joe biden created he can reverse this today we on floor today, by the way, are going feedback bringing up congresswoman -- harrell's bill that reinstates title 4 bringing and force a vote on that day let's see where that goes. want. maria: i think it is a really important vote, and important subject. you talk about fentanyl, joe biden hasn't discussed fentanyl at all, why not just tell xi jinping to stop producing fentanyl in china, and sending into america the way president trump did during his time? this illicit the market is made in china, trafficked through mexico into the united states. congressman also you mentioned 500,000 potentially coming in we've already seen two million people, come into this country on jake sullivan's watch what is another half a million going to mean? who are they? because, i am hearing that

there are -- handful of people being being he apprehend who are on terror watch list. >> yeah maria, what i said 500,000 that is 500,000 every month. you are talking about 6 million more just in the next year if joe biden gets his way, as you said, we identified from what they told us at least four people on if terrorist watch list that they apprehended. they won't give us real numbers won't tell us how many people have come across or whereev they've gone which states have they gone into? governors, they are trying to find this out they don't know when in majority, by the way, we are going to get answers we will find this out but meantime, what he is doing is causing much more than catastrophe a national crisis every city a borden town sending them throughout the country no governor no mayor knows how many are showing up at bus station. >> we heard that yesterday

president obama visited president biden to celebrate affordable care act no less congressman, quick on the way out your thoughts when you saw obama at the white house again yesterday. >> yeah interesting when joe biden poll numbers go down he tries to blame everybody else for the crises when that doesn't work tries to bring back obama hoping obama can help increase poll numbers everybody knows what a debacle this has been working class family everybody paying higher cost hits lower income families hardest joe biden making it worse instead of fixing upons with us we've got solutions going to keep pushing for them a shame the president is the main opposition. >> we will be watching all of that thanks very much for being hear congressman steve scalise we will break when we come back more sanctions against russia later today. >> how much further will countries have to go for russia to stop he deadly attacks on ukraine?

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vladimir putin two daughters other government firms joining me right now heritage foundation senior fellow former deputy assistant secretary of defense, peter, good to see you how are sanctions working what do you think about sanctions talked about today? >> well, look, they don't work fast enough, they may be having some effect but we need more brefrt faster democratic economic military or information space i think russia that their first strategy to take kyiv in a few days, has failed, strategic, russia wobbly looking athwar 2.0 southern eastern strategy if able to get things in there whether like i say economic, especially militarily i think we can push russia further on

feet perhaps sooner conclusion than expecting right now. >> i want to ask about investors being prohibited from holding the securities of russian companies worldwide i mean i think really interesting that today, biden administration, is talking about banning new investment in russia, what about all the russian companies that are still on u.s. exchanges that are still in emerging market portfolios, unwiltingly funding russia's war on ukraine that is too much for globists treasury to do away with some investments to avoid the avoid the forced divestment of companies you have to go after banks do what you have to do to stop

instability instability in ukraine affecting global market we have to do something why i say more better, faster sanctions do take time critical thing right now i think is military element we need to give them right equipment to ukrainians so they can win this war on the ground the challenge here sanctions are great, if we need more we need more targeted, go after greater areas of investment, but we also need to win this war on ukrainians need to win this war on the ground they need the tools to do that. maria: what i am saying sanctions are calling for a ban on new investments, but they are not calling for divestment of russian stocks present there is no movement on that, like you said, don't go far enough ukrainian president zelenskyy calling for u.n. security council to push russia after war games in

bucha laid out options yesterday here is zelenskyy got your reaction. >> we need decisions from security council for peace in ukraine, if you do not know how to -- um -- to make this decision, you can do two things, either remove russia an aggressor and start the war or other option show how we can -- reform or change, and work for peace. or, if there is no alternative and no option, then option would-be. >> russia a permanent member of u.n. security council has real power your thoughts. >> makes a good point u.n. accomplished to fight international he aggression remember the korean war that was international police action against guise of u.n.,

unfortunately today doesn't do security very well does some things well hands out food well putting shots? arms of kids integral public health security not one of the strong suits unfortunately, it is not that effective in so solving this cries in ukraine, policy is important once again economics military also countering russian disinformation the information space is critically important very good point built i think other avenues we are going to have to pursue if we want to resolve this crisis in ukraine. maria: so foreign policy achieve of the european union described a summit with china as quote death dialogue casting doubt how many beijing will cooperate to help end this war, then you know quoted saying china wanted to set aside difference in ukraine they don't want to talk about ukraine didn't want to talk about human rights other

issues, peter. we know china has been supportive of russia, and, you know, it is what it is, but what about migrant jets poland said we are prepared to send mig jets the back went up is worry if poll sentdz jets poland is on hooks for russia and russia could strike back at poland? why can't we give ukraine air cover it needs. >> there is no reason if nato doesn't want to do it i pols can transfer a that to ukraine should have been done long time ago czechs, sending artillery others javelins not necessarily to nato if nato has objections to transfer of jets no reason pols can't transfer those as sovereign

country to another sovereign country for use i see no reason this should not be done they need other things, things as simply as ammo, body armor vehicles to increase the mobility of ukrainian army besides air defenses artillery armor i see no reason migs cannot be transferred. >> great your insights as always thank you, sir. joining us this morning, on this debacle, the big buzz right after the break. .

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♪ maria: welcome back. time for the big buzz of the morning. only in washington, check this out. a wild red fox terrorizedded a bunch of lawmakers outside capitol hill yesterday. it actually california congressman berra. he's fine, we are told, but is getting a rabies shot just in case. d.c.'s animal control was able to safely capture and relocate the fox -- [laughter] who we see running away. wow, that's scary, james. >> yeah, i've never run into a fox on capitol hill. you normally expect to see the usual political reptiles when you visit the swamp, but this one would be a new one for me. i'm just glad dr. berra got those shots out of an abundance of caution. good call. maria: yeah. brandon.

>> yeah, this fox is going to be an international celebritiment it already has a twitter account, thousands of followers. i think it's the next big thing in washington, without question. [laughter] maria: that's funny. a pleasure to be with you both this morning. brandon, come back soon. brandon arnold, james freeman, great to see you both. have a great wednesday, and we'll see you all again tomorrow. thanks for being here, everybody or. "varney & company" begins right now. stuart: good morning, maria and everyone. here's what we have for you, the hunter biden scandal is back, interest rates are rising. we're now at 5%30-year fixed rate mortgages, stocks are falling, and tiger woods thinks he can win the masters. so why don't we start with elon? musk makes the headline of the day. here's the headline today: he's changed from being a pass i investor to an active investor in twitter. he's up to something, we just don't know quite what. does he really hav