maria: welcome back. good you friday morning, everybody. thanks very much for joining us this morning. i'm maria bartiromo. it is friday, may 3, just before 7:00 a.m. on the east coast. time for the hot topic of the hour. former president trump is due back in court today for day 11 of the so called hush money trial. the district attorney's computer forensics expert taking the stand after stormy daniels former president denied the payment was ever a hush money payment but, quote, consideration, he said. daniels' attorney noting that cohen dreamed of a white house job despite deni denying ambitis after his testimony. trump was delivered with cheers. he delivered pizzas to the fire department in midtown man hat b taken. -- manhattan. take a look. [ applause ] there's 45 dropping off the

pizzas. your reaction. >> he's obviously a bringing bt marketer. we have six more weeks of the trial. i think he'll do everything possible to make sure he draws attention to the craziness of the trial. he's raising a million dollars a day online because many people in the country you views he's the victim in the case. maria: they do. given the incredible stance that he finds himself in. he's unail to even campaign six months before the election. he's in court all day. trump's attorney says the gag order of bars him are from defending himself. here's here's the former presid. >> we this judge has been undn on c const constitutional gag o.

i'm not allowed as a presidential candidate, the leading candidate, the republican party nominee and the one who is leading biden by a lot. maria: cheryl, your reaction? everything does point to election interference with him locked up in they that courtroom all day long. >> there's so many issues with this trial. i mean, we've spoken about this before. nobody wanted this case to come forward and alvin bragg campaigned on the fact he was going to go after trump. this is what he's doing. other jurisdictions rejected the trial. financial crimes are difficult to prove in court. i think the other interesting thing that's come you out of ou, we see a buy bipartisan opinioe opinion is the same, no one seems to like michael cohen very much. he is if you think p bought it the star witness for alvin bragg. as far as the gag order, i have to say it seems like such a

reason to threaten the former president with jail seems like an overreach by the judge but they've made it very clear their position and their feelings about donald trump. maria: yeah. well, i mean, as the former president is facing this gag order, we had an opportunity to speak with of others in his world. yesterday, latlara trump joined. here's what she said. >> this is by design. no one is disillusioned by any of this. we know exactly what this is. the goal is to keep donald trump trapped in a courtroom in manhattan, unable to get out on the campaign trail. he made two campaign stops, wisconsin and michigan. that's how he's going to have to do idos this. he's going to have to stop at places like joe biden would never do, like the bodega of visit in harlem where the

democrats never assumed a guy like donald trump would go. many were cheering for him. we're raising a million dollars a day. we're capitalizing on the days he's out of court. we're looking at states that the democrats never thought we could dream of. maria: like new york and new jersey, she said, john lonski. >> alvin bragg is doing donald trump a great favor. my goodness, he's going up in the polls as gets more and more sympathy from the average american. they realize this is a political trial. this is unheard of in the united states to have a trial where you're searching for a crime that's being motivated by political factors. maria: it's true. a lot of independent voices out there, ashley, whether jonathan toturly or alan dershowitz who y

the way is a democrat are struggling to find the crime. what is the crime here? >> absolutely. when you look at the amount of money that the u.s. taxpayers are putting out on the trail, it's insane. i think this is why you see some of the african-american vote are starting to go towards the former president because they're looking and watching him be treated as unfair in the judicial system as many of them feel they have been as well. maria: that's absolutely right. and the fact that he is unable to go and campaign during a presipresidential election, youe joe biden going to swing states, attacking maga republicans, people see you through it. >> retail politics at the end of the day it's about shaking hands and making you appearance, he's still doing that, giving pizza to the fdny, going to the funeral services of a fallen new

york city police officer who was shot. that's a story about crime. he's honoring our heroes. in a way, the gag order -- i think john lonski made this point as well -- might actually be helping him more than it's hurting him right now. maria: we'll keep following that. we're just getting started this hour. the april jobs report is out this morning, it's jobs friday, 8:30 m a eastern, we've got all hands on deck to bring you the numbers as they cross. we've got a huge railly underway. dow industrials up 282 right now. we've got the word on wall street panel here with expectations when we come right back. don't miss that. you're watching "mornings with maria" live on fox business. stay with us. ♪ i have type 2 diabetes, but i manage it well ♪ ♪ jardiance! ♪ ♪ it's a little pill with a big story to tell ♪ ♪ i take once-daily jardiance ♪ ♪ at each day's start! ♪

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maria: welcome back. time for the word on wall street, top investors watching your money. joining me is mottly fool asset

management investment analyst, shelby mcfad den. also with us is john lonski this morning. thank you very much for joining the conversation. >> of course. maria: we've got a nice rally underway. dow industrials in triple digits, gain of almost 300 points, nasdaq up almost 100, on the heels of strong earnings from apple. it wasn't as strong as a lot of people wanted, revenue was down but apple reported earnings after the bell last night. iphone sales falling last quarter, revenue falling last quarter as competition out of china is spiking with huawei and its new phone. the stock nonetheless is up better than 6% on a stock buyback plan. the company announced it is going to buy back $110 billion of its stock. that is the largest buyback in u.s. history. what do you make of that, shelby? >> you know, i think the way to sort of lead off is apple is a great company. i think they've displayed that year over year, decade over

decade. that's one of the reasons it's a top holding in our etf. we see that in the fact they've sort of infiltrated if you will most consumer settings and so i think part of the reward that we're seeing is the simple fact that they're really at that maturity sort of status where we're seeing revenues come down in arrested wears and durable -- hardwares and durable goods across the landscape in different geographies. in many ways it's not a huge surprise. they've got excess capital to return to shareholders and ramp up in a.i. and deliver on hardwares, i think that's a positive signal to send to the market when a lot of companies might be flailing on how to service debt, deliver cash and deliver on commitments and projects they promised to investors previously. maria: the companies is saying it will see -- the company is saying it will see an increase and revenue will stop falling in the current quarter so you're saying that given what you know

about their a.i. development, their growth potential, you want to keep buying this stock or hold onto it? it's come down, way down are from the high as you know. we're looking at this chart here. and the pivot i think was when china said no more iphones in chinese government. >> well, that's one of the reasons why that sort of beat in the services department for apple was really important. because if you're going to have to take a hit in a key market when it comes to products and it's nots inly easy to go a-- not necessarily easy to go ahappened a pick up the share in u.s. and europe, you want to rely on services. when we look at it as a team we say it's a little bit rich. we'll see how the market treats it today. but it's certainly a hold. now, would we be excite todd go ahead and add from from a pure valuation perspective? we might wait longer but we're definitely happy to own what we own. maria: sure. warren buffet's berkshire

hathaway has a 5.9% stake in apple, worth $157 billion. the journal writes about this today. warren buffet has his big weekend of the berkshire hathaway annual meeting this weekend, so you'll see probably lots of conversation about that they're sitting on 120 of billion dollars in paper gains on apple alone, john. take a look at interest rates this morning, the 10 year treasury pulling back fractionally and it is sitting a 4.57%. we get the april jobs report out in an hour an 15 minutes, economists are expecting growth in jobs, 243,000 nonfarm payrolls exacted to have -- expected to have been added in the month of april with the unemployment rate steady at 3.8%. what's the most important thing at your standpoint m? >> i'll take a look at the jobs growth for april. in march we found that the

categories that come under the headings of leisure and hospitality, healthcare and government created 66% of the new jobs, though those three categories account for only 39% of all outstanding jobs. we've got low consumer confidence. biden has low ratings on the economy because people are unhappy with the performance of the u.s. economy, despite a historically low unemployment rate and of hours inflation rems a major issue you with the avere american and many small businesses. maria: how did you read jay powell this week, john? basically, he wants to cut interest rates, you know that. but he can't. you had three straight months of elevated inflation. p he tried to take the idea of an interest rate hike off the table but i don't know. just the fact that he brought into the conversation the potential of a hike got some people nervous.

>> listen, the only way you are going to get an interest rate cut in 2024 is by way of a notable deceleration by domestic spending. that may be unfolding right now. shelby made a very good point on apple's iphone and that is that consumer spending on tangible goods in the united states has slowed considerably. the only strength we really see in terms of consumer spending is related to services. like healthcare, aging he economy, you're going to spend more on healthcare so we could be having the economy enter a slowdown, a softening of the labor market, a rising unemployment rate that will open the way for an interest rate cut perhaps in the second half of this year. maria: well, that is exactly what nancy lazar is saying, shelby, as well. look, let's face it. third quarter of 2023 saw gdp growth of 4.9%. okay.

fast forward two quarters, first quarter of this year, 1.6%. we are in the be middle of a slowdown and nancy lazar at piper sandler is calling it a bifurcated economy and she says she's of the base case we will see a recession in the second half of the year where the unemployment rate will move from 3.8% currently to above 4%, shelby. >> yeah. it's difficult to watch, right? because we want to see that productivity. we want to see those gains that sort of waterfall down and have everyone benefit from the productivity in the u.s. economy but it's difficult and we start to enter that dreaded sort of stagflation space that i think a lot of investors -- we don't want to have to say it out loud but there's really just one way to sort of get out and it's either control inflation or sort of squeeze employment and both of those are really difficult for us to try and swallow because they don't seem to really benefit the consumer really up front in the short

term. so it is unfortunately still reasonable to say that we could get some sort of slowdown especially if we continue to see squeezes in employment in sort of more of the higher paying white collar space as opposed to some of the middle of the ladder service sort of environments. maria: yeah. great points all around. shelby, great to have you this morning. thank you. >> thank you. maria: john, you're with us all morning. we appreciate that. thank you so much. when we come back, gop senators are calling joe biden's grand plan a national security threat as the president is vowing to bring palestinians from gaza to the united states as refugee as. ohio congressman warren davidson is here with more on that. you're watching "mornings with maria" live on fox business. we'll be right back.

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>> i don't have any announcement to make on refugees. we're always looking at every option. i mentioned there were 1800 american citizens, palestinian americans that we try to certainly get home or come to the states after october 7 and

we tried to make sure we got that done. as relates to vetting and making sure that we are vetting folks who are coming to do that, that is something that we take very, very seriously. mather.maria: there you go, anr muddled and weak message from white house press secretary karine jean-pierre discussing a potential plan to bring palestinian refugees to america. a group demanded they end the plan to bring in gazan refugee, instead bring back the hostages held by hamas. they write we are not confident your administration can adequately vet the high risk population for vair terrorist ts and sympathizers before a admitting them to the united states. joining us now, congressman warren davidson. thank you for being here this morning.

>> always an honor. thank you, maria what do you think? is this a real plan? it feels like if he were to bring gazans, palestinians from gaza to america now, isn't that suggesting he's responding in a positive way to these anti-israel protesters? >> i think absolutely. look, you can feel empathy for the fact that surely there's some peace loving people in gaza that would love to be he free from hamas but it does the exact wrong thing. you want those people to be protected in gaza so that gaza has a future and you want to extract the evil hamas leadership that is crushing the people of gaza and frankly has massacred the people of israel. so that's exactly what israel is trying to do, is extract the lethal danger to the people of israel but also the people that are harmful to the peace loving people of gaza to the extent we can find those, i think the

senator's letter is exactly correct. how could you possibly vet these people in a time when you say surely we would love to have humanitarian y assistance and gt folks away, look at the folly of the port that the biden administration wants to put in gaza. hamas is shooting at americans, trying to draw america into the war, exposing people to more harm. maria: the president is getting slammed this morning for the weak message yesterday after going 10 days without an on camera statement on the anti-israel riots and anti-semitism raging. president biden finally addressed the chaos that had some jewish students afraid to show up for class. watch this. >> moments like this are always those who rush in to score political points. this isn't a moment for politics. there should be no place on if any campus, no place in america

for anti-semitism or threats of violence against jewish students whether it's anti-semitism, is islamphobia, destroying property is not a peaceful protest. maria: there has been no islam phobia let's be clear. the prthey say there's been zerm phobia at the protests. similar condemnation from the wall street journal. kim strassel writes biden fails the campus protest test, the fear of taking on the crazy left poses a threat to re-election chances. your reaction? >> i think it's important not to become a reactionary here.

this things aren't protected. republicans have been consistent on that. hopefully democrats become consistent and this doesn't turn into another summer of love with the mostly peaceful protests. the response at columbia in particular was terrible. ohio state we had protests, they were disrupted once they were violated campus policies. speech, protected but occupation, taking over buildings, violence, vandalism, not protected. it's important that the country really stay unified behind that. maria: my unofficial look at allall of this it felt like floa was the best. they will not take any of it and said you know the rules, you broke the rules, now you face the consequences. period. that's the kind of pushback we need to see for any of this anti- any group, anti-seemsemi, any group.

house republicans who backed that motion to oust former house speaker kevin mccarthy are now distancing themselves from georgia congresswoman marjorie taylor greene and her motion to oust speaker mike johnson. marjorie taylor greene says she's going to introduce the motion next week. she wants him out. congressman tim burchett and nancy mace and matt gaetz coming out against this motion. burchett is warning the motion could end up putting a democrat in control of the house of representatives. where are you on this? >> well, look, when they made the motion to vacate kevin mccarthy the first thing that happened was a motion to table. it is a privileged motion. it deserves an answer. i don't think the motion to table should be made in order. then as now, i will vote against tabling the resolution because whahakim jeffries said he will support a motion to table, i don't think we'll get an answer on the motion to vacate this time. last time we were able to vote both ways.

here's the thing. congressman mike johnson is a guy that everybody united behind and supported him to become the next speaker of the house but speaker mike johnson has made all kinds of bad decisions that frankly the majority of the party has not supported. so we're hoping to reclaim mike johnson, get him back in the role as speaker and get him back on track. no wonder democrats plan to cover for him. he's delivering a lot of their ajen. agenda. maria: marjorie taylor greene tweeted out this. mike johnson responded to fbi corruption by giving them a new headquarters, to border insanity by spending billions on migration aassistance and hamas' attack on israel by giving them a $9 billion earmark and college communism by enacting speech issues, speech he code codes, congressman. >> all of that is accurate. look at the refugee resettlement program, that was funded because of fully funding the government.

his comments leading up of the funding fights including supplemental funding was we're going to secure america's borer deer first and that was a broke -- border first and that was a broken promise. i think people are right to be upset. i watched citizen kane -- the cane mute any. mutiny. should we relieve him. maria: you want to help mike johnson get to the right solutions but you're not ready to take him out. >> well, he's resisted help so far. i hope we can help him get back on track. we certainly can't continue to deliver the democrats' agenda. maria: congressman, thank you. we'll be watching all of that. quick break and then president trump back on trial today in new york city after a bombshell testimony yesterday that maybe there was not a hush money

payment after all. former assistant fbi director chris swecker is here to weigh in on that. you're watching "mornings with maria" live on fox business. stay with us. moving forward with node-positive breast cancer.

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maria: welcome back. one of the border agents falsely aaccused of whipping haitian migrants now awarded for his service. cheryl casone with details. thank heavens. >> exactly, maria. this agent's name was not released for protection but he's being given the, quote, border patrol you achievement award. this award is handed out to agent or of group of agents for heroism and life saving efforts while serving with the border patrol. the false accusation getting

this reaction from president biden at the time. let's go back in time. watch. >> it was horrible to see, to see people treated like they did, horses, running over people being strapped. it's outrageous. i promise you, those people will pay. >> the probe to determine if the agents used unnecessary force, they were removed from the border. the agent was reyou reassignedk intelligence on smuggling cases. the defense term for an idaho murder suspect is accusing prosecutors of manipulating evidence. this comes after prosecutors ripped ripped apart the alibi ay he was driving around in the first place. he said he was driving around to see the moon and stars. the judge said he might be open

to revealing information after a closed door hearing. he is facing charges over the 2022 stabbings that killed four idaho college students. fight is on to see who will buy paramount global, sony and apollo making a $26 billion all cash offer for the production power house. aapollo and sony submitted an offer letter. the letter is a starting point for discussions. it's nonbinding. sky dance and paramount p entered into exclusive negotiations over a deal last month. that exclusiveity deal ends today. there are the stocks in the premarket. and after days of chaos, we are now seeing a much different movement taking shape on college campuses. watch. >> usa!

usa! >> free, free palestine. >> usa! usa! >> ♪ the star spangled banner yet wave. ♪ for the land of the free. >> that was the rutgers campus. as you see, singing the national aanthem and saying usa. we're seeing pro america demonstrations sweeping across college campus as the gofundme to get fraternity brothers at unc chapel hill a great party to thank them for defending the american flag as they were threatened, the gofundme hit$516,000. even bill ackman giving the fraternity boys $10,000. maria: i love that story. that is great. cheryl. thank you so much. meanwhile, former president

trump returning to court this morning for an 11th the day of the so called hush money trial. bombshell testimony yesterday as stormy daniels' lawyer took the stand, denying the payment from ex trump lawyer michael cohen was a hush money payment. he said this, quote, it was not a payoff and it was not hush money. it was consideration. consideration is a legal term for when somebody gives in return for a promise to you abide by a contract. prosecutors allege trump committed fraud by labeling the payment legal fees. joining me is formerrer assistant fbi director, agent and attorney, chris swecker. thank you for being here this morning. how do you see this? >> yeah, i think a very liberal boston university law professor pretty well summed it you, he said this prosecutions is an embarrassment of prosecution ethics apparent selective prosecution, based on exaggerated legal theories, so

allegations. this makes alvin bragg basically the barney fife of prosecutors across the country. this was a patently improper, illegal prosecution to begin with and reeks of politics and caused many people in this country to really shatter their faith in the criminal justice system. this just isn't how the criminal justice system is supposed to work after 40 years, i've never seen anything like this. maria: that's what we're getting from all independent minded people that i speak with, chris, that they can't find the crime, they don't understand where this is going. this is a lot of taxpayer money. so do you think alvin bragg cares? do you think there will be any accountability for all of this? how do you think this plays out? >> yeah, i don't think he cares. i mean, he's one of these series of tin horn prosecutors who want a notch in their belt for their own political reputation within their circles. i don't think he cares.

at some point i think there's an ethical reckoning that has to take place with him. i know the defense is salivating for michael cohen to get on the stand because this whole case is pit on a house of cards but he's the linchpin and he's what we call in the prosecution -- in law enforcement a dirt bag witness, hates trump, proven liar, improper motivations, based on a prosecution that reeks of politics as i said earlier. so alvin bragg doesn't care but i think a lot of people in this country really do care. i think a mounting number of people in this country really do care. they want to see the criminal justice work the way it's supposed to and drain politics right out of it. maria: that's right. they want honesty and they want a fair judicial system. no doubt about it. that's one of the reasons that trump continues to do well and beating joe biden. daniels' lawyer also testified that despite denying his am a --

ambition, michael cohen was so depressed he didn't p land a job in trump's white house he thought he might be a danger to himself, he detailing a call cohen made about trump. what might this mean about cohen's motivations to testify? >> this is going to be exposed on cross examination which is a great tool, it's going to be great theater. they're going to destroy him on the witness stand. his improper motivations, hads his antagonistic resentiment towards trump fueling this motivation to turn on him in this manner. he's lied and lied again. he's been prosecuted already. i can't believe that a prosecutor is going to put this guy on the stand. he will destroy their case. maria: they're trying really hard to come up with other things that trump is doing wrong. what about this gag order? chris, i've got to get your take here. president trump is slamming the judge's gag order again

yesterday as he faces four more accusations of violating this gag order. watch this. >> we're going to be appealing the gag order. i'd love to answer that question. it's a very easy question. i'm not allowed to testify. this judge is totally conflicted, has me under an unconstitutional gag order. nobody's ever that before. everybody is allowed to do whatever they want to us. i'm not allowed as a presidential candidate, the leading candidate, the republican party nominee and the one who is leading biden by a lot. maria: you know, it's amazinge that he has a gag order to begin with because he's a presidential candidate in a campaign. joe biden is all over the place attacking trump in the swing states, saying whatever he wants and trump has to watch every word. >> yeah, clearly a political judge. i mean, he's in the abyss of the politics of new york. he should have stayed out of

this, there never should have been a gag order. trump is pugilistic. he will fight every time, counselor tear punch every time and -- counter punch every time and the judge is there with him, fighting it out. he's needs to be above all of this. this adds to the aperns that the justice -- appearance that the justice system in new york is slanted, that you can't get fair justice in new york if your politics don't fall in line. maria: this is expected to go several more weeks. how are you expecting this to play out they do you think president trump could face a jury and get convicted before the election? >> well, he could. but i think they will get at least one juror -- i just can't imagine after cohen testifies, after all the testimony, the judge ought to -- there ought to be a motion for a directed verdict after -- as soon as cohen -- right after he testifies.

the judge can do that. and the defense will make that motion. and a fair minded judge would do just that. it should never go to a jury. but if it does, i think there's at least one or two jurors that will be fair minded, that they will drain -- they will leave their politics at the door and they with will vote the way a reasonable juror would vote. this is a selected prosecution but outs got no evidence. maria: so you're expecting a hung jury then here. >> at least a hung jury. maria: chris, i don't know, in terms of the next group of attacks and potential trials that the president has to face, how would you rate this one, the alvin bragg case, versus the others? >> yeah, this one's -- this one's the least credible prosecution. the one in atlanta is pretty bad, misuse of civil rico. that's become a circus. this is a circus as welch i

well.i think alvin bragg will fe reckoning after a it's over. it's an unethical prosecution to begin with. the liberal la law professor i cited says it's an unethical prosecution. maria: we're waiting for the immunity decision from the supreme court which we'll probably get in june. >> maria: chris, good to see you this morning. thank you. we've got breaking news, arrests are being made at the new school in downtown manhattan. we're being told that the nypd is processing each arrested anti-israel protester one by one in front of a police van, they're taking the masks off and they are making arrests at the new school in new york city right now. we're going to monitor this an bring you back here as news develops. but we'll slip in a short break now. small business owners and entrepreneurs are facing

challenges thanks to bidenomics. kelly o'grady with those he he s next. >> reporter: i attended the small business expo in new york, talked to small business owners, heard about soaring costs and rising interest rates and a also optimism as well. i'll have that for you next. maria: next week on "mornings with maria," monday, he's protecting your second amendment rights from president biden's you ascreen da, senator bill haggerty is here. tuesday, i'm coming to you from the 27th annual milken global conference, greg brown and mike worth will join me. wednesday, motor sports legend mario andretti on how artificial intelligence is reshaping the racing world. thursday, joni ernst lays out efforts to get the biden

campaign off of tiktok. friday, jason chaffetz and kellyanne conway go head to head on the day's key issues. it's all right here on "mornings with maria." ♪ ♪ ♪♪ ♪ you were made to find inner peace. we were made to track flight prices to paradise.

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small business and e entreprenes facing inflation and staffing issues under president biden. kelly o'grady spoke to business owners at the small business expo. >> i attended the small business expo in new york, i spoke to small business owners about their challenges. i heard about rising labor costs, navigating higher for longer interest rates. take a listen. >> with our labor costs, it certainly goes up. our material ends up going up. we have to charge more for materials. >> if you're taking out loans as a startup the rates tend to be very, very high and short-term and then you wind up in a shock situation where he have to do repayments in six months or less. >> growth is hard. but we're going to keep doing it and we're going to keep pushing because staying one size is not enough. >> i think the most surprising thing for me is that i heard a lot of that last sentiment, they're going to keep pushing

despite all of these challenges. some of these owners were hopeful, they were motivated to create something of value. we heard a lot of passion. that's not surprising. small business owners make less than 10,000 more than the national average. it's not about making the most money you can but doing something you love. one other thing i want to highlight as we go to jobs day, small businesses are the backbone of the economy, account for 45.9% of the roles out there. the smaller size companies we talked to said we're actually not having as much of a staffing problem as others because these are family businesses. they want to work there. because they're creating a legacy. back to you. maria: all great points, kelly. thanks very much. kelly o'grady. a new gallup poll he reveals 41% of americans think inflation is the biggest financial problem impacting families, this is up slightly from 35% last year. john, i mean, you've got inflation, everything costs much more. you've got a slowing demand story with the gdp falling pretty considerably in the last couple of quarters.

but i think one of the even bigger issues here is something that kelly just hit on, and that is regulation. i moo -- i mean, we had joe germanotta on the other day, in studio, he's a restaurant owner. he said he had to get his grill registered. there's a ton of new regulations coming out of this administration costing small business huge because they have to follow and pay for all new rules around the climate change agenda. >> that's exactly right. the last thing in the world small businesses need is to have regulatory costs added to rising cost for materials, rising cost for labor. this can only further diminish economic activity going forward and it's making life miserable for small businesses. maria: ashley, how do you see it? >> i completely agree with john. i also think that i still don't understand why president biden is continuing to wrap the

economy around him because it's not good. and this is not what people are feeling when they go to the grocery store and prices are up, rent's up, insurance is up. and i'm actually surprised, if that poll was asked differently, is living life too exhibit numbers i've right now instead of the word inflation because maybe people don't understand what that encompasses, i beth that number is higher. maria: what do you think, cheryl? >> i'm glad you mentioned joe germanotta's interview yesterday. look at what's happening with small businesses and restaurants under the food inflation story you're seeing on your screen. what we're seeing in restaurants is smaller portions and higher prices and consumers are really beginning to notice that and i think they have been for a long time and we are now seeing you according to the data restaurant visits are down because americans are staying and eating at home more and we talk about that with the cpi report, there's the food away, food at home data we break down in that

particular report and that stoy is playing out from what we're hearing and seeing. maria: the price of oil is one of the major issues. that's the underlying issue. and ashley, when you look at what's gone on with this climate change agenda and how the biden administration wants to kill off fossil fuels, you can understand why oil is at elevated levels. >> yeah. actually stop the flow of us exporting gas rights now which is obviously completely a political issue. hopefully in the next segment with senator caputo i'm sure she'll hit on the epa regulations that have gone crazy under the administration. it's something we lost sight of because of what's happening with thethe border and the economy, e over regulations is unprecedented, almost worse than the obama years. maria: i remember when president trump came out with a

stack of papers and scissors and said cutting red tape is a beautiful thing. we have all hands on deck for the jobs numbers. stay with us. quick break. you're watching "mornings with maria" live on fox business. stay with us. if your business needs a new application then developers will have to write code. a lot of code. if an application needs to be modernized then you'll need time, resources... and caffeine. if this sounds daunting then use watsonx code assistant ai designed to multiply developer productivity so you can generate code quickly. let's create a more modern foundation for business, with watsonx code assistant. ibm. let's create.