Attended court with the former president , and he responded to Michael Cohens testimony yesterday. Watch. This is a guy thats a convicted felon. He lost his haw license. He went down the tubes because he was, you know, defrauding, apparently, financial executions based on taxi cab me call thing ons medallions. His whole intent of being personal attorney to the United States was to troy and monetize it for selfserving purposes, he testified that today. Reporter now, trump is limited on what he can say about the proceedings because he continues to be the under the judges gag order. But trump did speak to press yesterday before court. Watch here. We should be out campaigning now instead of sitting in a very cold courthouse all day long. This is a biden prosecution. Its election interference. At a level that nobody in this country has ever seen before. This is the third this is for third world countries, not for the usa. Reporter maria, you mentioned speaker or mike johnson whos expected to attend court today along with trump. Were also preponderating to see Vivek Ramaswamy here as well expecting to see, vivek telling our colleague, eric shawn at fox news, that this is a sham trial that is prettily motivated. Court reassumes at 9 30 this morning. Maria lydia, well be checking back with you. Lee carter, your reaction. So when you look at everything thats happening right now, i just, i cant reout rate enough how much people view this and cant believe this is the country that were living in. This is whats happening right now and where our focus is. When you look at polling, more than 70 of americans believe that the system is rigged. When you talk about how people feel about the country, they think that its out of control. 64 of democrats, 87 of republicans and 75 of independents say that the country is out of control. And 70 of americans believe that trump is the one thats going to bring major changes back, and thats what they want to see. Think the more this goes on, the more that we with see this, the more it benefits donald trump. But a lot of people arent seeing it because youre on the other side of the aisle. You see what you want to see, and you youre not seeing the rise in what people are seeing right now which is a huge amount of change. Maria wow. Cheryl, your thoughts. Glad that lee brought up the polling, but we mentioned this brand new New York Times sienna poll shows in crucial swing states that it is donald trump. And this is in the middle of this trial and, of course, in the wake of all of the Media Coverage that the americans have been watching of the other trials and charges against the former president. Its having the opposite effect of what im sure these prosecutors want to see happen. They want to bury the former president , and the opposite is happening. Hes winning except for in the swing states, or michigan. Also, too, that key voting bloc, you know, joe biden is losing those younger voters, hes losing hispanics, and hes losing those black voters. And so come november without the support of those key demographics, maria, joe biden is in a lot of trouble, and they know it. And i think thats why youre seeing the machinations behind the scenes now in particular, you know, joe bidens going to be coming out today in the rose garden of all places about 12 15 to talk about the economy and jobs. And were going to have to fact check him because hes made misrepresentations about his time in office. So all of this is the Political Landscape as were watching the legal landscape thats playing out in downtown manhattan. Maria yeah. Im wondering if they have a lead into what the inflation data will say today and tomorrow. Maybe so. Weve asked that question before, and it may be so because all we know from the white house guidance right now is economy and jobs and probably a hit to the chinese ev market. Maria yeah. What are you going to say . Maria mike, how do you see it . So, look, this is a part of the Biden Administrations total destruction of western civilization and our society when are it be, you know, 610 Million People that have come over the southern border to the botched afghanistan withdrawal we talked about earlier, and now its the haw pare against his number lawfare if against his number one political opponent. And every single one of these trials that that trump is under, the 91 indictments more than al capone, okay . You can trace directly back to the white house. The trial in florida, or the national archives, general counsel was meeting with the white House Counsel as early as a april of 2021. Nathan wade billed 16 hours, the Georgia Special prosecutor billed 16 hours for meetings with the white house. And then, of course, a mistrial at the Biden Justice department, Michael Coangelo leaves i one with of the most coveted positions for any attorney in the country to be a line prosecutor in the manhattan d. A. s office to work on a case that was passed up by the special counsel robert mueller, the federal elections committee, the state of new york and alvin braggs predecessor, cy vance, only to drum up these charges because donald trump not only i think he will be found guilty a pause this is not a fair place for him to have a trial. You have a judge whose daughter is raising all sorts of money off this trial, completely and totally conflicted. Just to keep him off the political trail and to give the talking point that donald trump is a convicted felon of fraud in new york. The problem is, is with all of these once you peel back the on onand you peel back the lay yours onion, you can see the emperor has no clothes, and its having a boomerang effect. Not even the most skeptical democrat could have predicted it. Maria yeah, its true. And thats why youre getting everyone to come out so adamant if about this. Were going to keep a spotlight on it and today well watch that crossexamination. Thank you, lee carter, for being here this morning. Thank you so much. Always incredibly valuable information from you. Thank you. We see you soon. We are all hands on deck for the rest of the show on the inflation data. We are just Getting Started this hour. Coming up, my next guest is introducing legislation to prevent illegals from voting in our elections. Kansas senator Roger Marshall is here with that. Dont miss it. Youre watching mornings with maria live on fox fox business. Whenever, wherever, were meant to be together. Ill be there and youll be near and thats the deal, my dear maria this week on mornings with maria, tomorrow the Biden Administrations latest Inflation Report card revealed with the brightest minds on television. Thursday, President Biden drawing a red line on u. S. Support for israel. Congressman james comer reacts. And friday hes looking to to poster woman for the farleft from congress, marty dolan will join me. Its all right here on mornings with maria. Mt. S good luck grace didnt believe in magic. But her daughter was happy to prove her wrong. You were made to dream about it for years. We were made to help you book it in minutes. I have type 2 diabetes, but i manage it well jardiance its a little pill with a big story to tell i take oncedaily jardiance at each days start as time went on it was easy to see im lowering my a1c jardiance works twentyfour seven in your body to flush out some sugar. And for adults with type 2 diabetes and known heart disease, jardiance can lower the risk of cardiovascular death, too. Serious side effects may include ketoacidosis that may be fatal, dehydration that can lead to sudden worsening of kidney function, and genital yeast or urinary tract infections. A rare, lifethreatening bacterial infection in the skin of the perineum could occur. Stop jardiance and call your doctor right away if you have symptoms of this infection ketoacidosis, or an allergic reaction. You may have an increased risk for lower limb loss. Call your doctor right away if you have symptoms of infection in your legs or feet. Taking jardiance with a sulfonylurea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Jardiance is really swell the little pill with a big story to tell the New York Times just came out with a poll and shows us leading everywhere by a lot. I think were probably leading in new jersey. We had a rally, over 1000,000 people this weekend 100,000. A lot of the Mainstream Media didnt want to say how many people, hay didnt want to cover it. Maria former e President Trump touting the new polls which put him ahead of biden in pennsylvania, michigan, ads, georgia and nevada, all five states biden won in 2020. The poll finds biden trump leading in 1829yearold voters, but Karine Jeanpierre claims President Biden is on the same page as younger e generations. Watch this. We believe that Young Americans support, support the president s agenda more broadly, right . In an overwhelming way. When it comes to climate change, thats manager that something that hes been very clear about and has been the most progressive president on that particular issue. We want to make sure we have an economy that works for young people, we want to make sure that we listen to young people and hear them out. We want to make sure that we continue to work on some of the issues that we talk about whether its student debt relie maria joining me now is kansas senator Roger Marshall, a minute of the senate budget, homeland security, agriculture and health committees. Whats your reaction to Karine Jeanpierre there . [laughter] well, maria, first of all, the young people i talk to are very frustrated. Theyre spending 1,000 more each month just to get by, just for their groceries, their event, that up type of thing. Theyve seen the cost of a new mortgage double under joe biden as well. The number one concern for young folks is their safe safety and security and the economy. The inflation is killing them. This is the worst economy of my professional lifetime the right now. Theyre feeling the pinch of it, theyre ready for a change. Maria its amazing to me, its all politics, and its quite exhausting to hear over and over again like whatever group it is, oh, the president s aligned with the black community, the president s aligned you know, he grew up in puerto rico. All this stuff, and we all know its just because its an election year. Now shes saying it about young people. Yeah. So hes doing things listen, again, dont listen to what he says, watch what he does. And his actions are killing the economy. Increased regulations, those are killing Small Businesses and hurting young people the most. So thats the number one issue. Talk what you want to about a different issues, but the number one concern for young folks and really for everybody, safety and security in the economy. Joe biden is on his way with out, november cant get here soon enough. Maria and you write about this in your new foxnews. Com oped this morning. You write bidens unvetted migrant parole plan put every community at risk. Quote, a crucial tool in bidens mass parole scheme is the customs and Border Patrol one app, cbp1 app. Migrants schedule parole appointments at american airports while theyre still in their home countries. Then the administration allows illegal aliens to use this mobile app as a valid form of id for boarding domestic flights. Senator, youre fighting against migrants using this cbp1 app at reagan airport in washington, d. C. Tell us whats going on. Right. So congress has the authority to determine who flies in and out of washington d. C. So what were saying is if these airlines are bowing to bidens plan here, which i think is illegal, hen they shouldnt be able to fly hen they shouldnt be able to fly into d. C. More specifically, under joe biden, he has paroled 400,000 people from cuba, from haiti, from anything rag what, from venezuela, that have already been flown into some 40 different cities across Cross America right now. Theres 1. 6 Million People on the waiting list, and i can guarantee you these people have not been vetted properly. So were trying to figure out some way to slow down joe biden and this plan. Were telling the airline ares, if youre using that cbp one app as a valid id, were saying you cant fly into d. C. I wish i could do m but i dont think that, you know, thats the same thing as a drivers license, a passport. Again, these people have not been vetted, 400,000 of them flowing into this country with your taxpayers dollars. Maria so, i mean, look, were talking about this a lot lately, youve got a lot of people, senators, representatives in the house, who are trying to come up with ideas to stop illegals from voting in the election. We just showed a flier that the texas congressman August Pfluger brought to us, theres a flier going around near the border or which illegals are picking up, and the flier talks about how, you know, illegals can vote in washington, d. C. For a number of positions like the mayor, like the attorney general. Do you have any evidence that illegals are actually voting in our elections . Well, they are absolutely going to be voting in the washington, d. C. Elections in those local elections. Theyre being recruited to vote. So its happening. Theres three or four states hard going to allow this to happen as well. I saw california, maryland, theyre going to allow illegal aliens to vote in their local elections. I just want to make sure your with listeners understand, washington, d. C. Has become a war zone. I fear for the safety and life of my workers on capitol hill walking to and fro work. Every day from work. Every day, every week we hear of vandalism, carjackings, violent threats, violent actions against people up here. Its no longer safe. Washington, d. C. Is not a state, its a federal district. The constitution clearly states that congress has the authority to oversee the local governance. Thats why we want we have legislation that would require people voting in these washington, d. C. Local elections to be citizens of the United States, for the sake and the safety of our government and our people visiting us. We need to make sure that washington, d. C. Is a safe place. Maria yeah. And were just look at this flier that is being given to illegals. Are youd ready for the 2024 election season, it writes. And it says reminder to vote for President Biden when youre in the United States. We need another four years of his tenure to stay open. Senator, youve introduced a new bill preventing Illegal Migrants from voting in d. C. Election by requiring proof of citizenship. In order to cast a ballot in a municipal election. A federal court recently dismissed a challenge to the 2022 law which allows noncitizens to vote in washington, as you to just said. Texas congressman August Pfluger, as i mentioned, was with me just a new minutes ago few minutes ago about Illegal Migrants participating in our elections. Watch. The administration of President Biden for the last three years have continually torn down the idea of being a citizen, that its no longer important. We dont want administrators or who are administering our elections to be illegal aliens. We want the Gold Standard to be citizenship. This fliers basically telling you this is specifically to the washington, d. C. Area that if youre a noncitizen, get ready to vote. You can vote in the local elections. It doesnt take a conspiracy if neary to look at this theorist to say how with you are preventing them from voting in the president ial election . Maria senator, this is incredible. Tell us more about your bill. Well, listen, i want to make sure your listeners understand, there is federal law right now that requires citizenship to be able to vote in a federal election. So whether its the president , the senate, your house members, they should have to be citizens. But right now whats happening is this is being circumvented. By allowing people to register to vote even though theyre not citizens, thats going to explode into the federal elections when people that person running the polling booth cant delineate the two. Is so our bill specific ifically targets washington, d. C. And says if youre not a citizen, you cannot vote in the d. C. Election, again, washington, d. C. Is a federal district. Its not a state. So, therefore, congress oversees those elections. We need a mayor, we need people electing a mayor whos going to keep washington, d. C. Safe, keep congress, the supreme court, those type of people safe as well and allow people to come from home and to petition their congress members. Maria do you think thats why joe biden has an open border . No doubt about it. He thinks that these 11 Million People that have crossed the border illegally are future voters for the democrat party. I think hes going to be surprised. Again, the folk, the number one issue of the focus, the number one issue of this election is law and order. Joe biden is on the way out. President trump will be the president of law and order. Hes going to secure our borders, have the back of our Law Enforcement officers. This is the number one defining issue going back to your first segment here. This is why the polls are rising for donald trump, because the people know that donald trump will be the president of law and order. Maria well, maybe, but first hes got to get through these indictments. Are you worried about this new york trial . So im watching it. What this trial is doing is actually emboldening President Trumps voters. They are going to get out and vote. No matter if its raining, if its snowing, people are going to get out and vote it to support President Trump, and i think as they see Michael Cohen on thered today, this is the star witness for the prosecution, mind you. Hes written, what, two books, one of thems disloyal and one of thems revenge. This guy is a known felon, hes been convicted, hes lied to congress, and this is the star witness, and we still havent seen what is the crime that President Trumps ever done . I think that americans are seeing this for what its worth, and theyll i hope that they have a good outcome here for the trial, but this is emboldening American Voters to get out and support President Trump or hes going to have a record turnout. What did he have in new jersey this weekend . Was it 40,000, 80,000 . Joe biden couldnt get 40 people to walk across the street to hear him talk. Maria senator, well be watching. Thanks very much for being here this morning. Thank you, maria. Maria senator Roger Marshall. Quick break and then the april price price index is about nine minutes away. Weve got all hands on deck to bring you the numbers. But first, macro mavens president Stephanie Pomboy is here with her expectations. Thats next. Youre watching mornings with maria live on fox business. Stay with us. We arent caught up in your love affair and well never be royals a slow network is no network for business. Thats why more choose comcast business. And now were introducing ultimate speed for business, our fastest plans yet. Were up to 12 times faster than verizon, at t, and tmobile. And existing customers could even get up to triple the speeds at no additional cost. From the company with 99. 9 Network Reliability and advanced cyber security, its ultimate speed for ultimate business. And its all from comcast business. Maria take a look at Interest Rates, the 10year is pulling back bay practice sitting at 4. 48 ahead of the april Producer Price e index out in about a 5 minutes time, expectations calling for an increte of. If 3 month over month. The new york federal reserves latest survey e finding americans expect high inflation to tick the is stick around for longer. Joining me now is Stephanie Pomboy. Weve had three hot months of inflation, january, february and march. What are you expecting from the ppi today and the cpi tomorrow . Well, i guess with more of the same in terms of the ppi. Were clearly seeing a are reacceleration of commodity price pressures along with, you know, higher shipping costs related to a lot of the geopolitical unrest around the world. So i dont think thats going to abate with anytime soon. And the open question is how much of those input costs can be passed along to consumers. Weve gotten a whole slew of data just in the haas week that suggests consumers have really hit the wall at this point. You know, we had earnings announcements with commentary, downbeat with commentary on the consumers from mcdonalds, starbucks, tyson just to name a new high few high profile companies. And then last week we got the latest credit card borrowing numbers, and they were essentially zero in the latest month. So theres evidence that consumers have now hit their max in terms of how much theyre willing to run up their credit cards to sustain consumption in the face of rising costs of everything. Finish so this is really, as you know, maria, a topic e ive been focused on, how much of this increase in input costs will companies be able to pass along to consumers in the absence of the fiscal stimulus, all those cares checks that they were getting, you know, a couple of years ago thatten abled them to absorb a lot of those price if increases. Were now hearing from those aforementioned companies that consumers are saying its enough, i just cant continue to pay these higher prices, and theyre closing their wallets. So this will be a real problem on the earnings front. Maria yeah. And then, of course, well e get the cpi tomorrow, and the cpi tomorrow is going to tell us whether or not, in fact, these increases have been passed on. The expectations there call for an increte of. 4 month over month and 3. 4 yearoveryear. The wall street journal writing investors have, quote, renewed optimism for a soft landing from the federal reserve. Stephanie, in terms of the Consumer Price index, how much of an impact will this be for stocks if we see another hot reading . Well, obviously, itll be extremely negative for stocks. I mean, pushing out this fed pivot that was supposed to happen in the first quart, then the second quarter, now the Third Quarter and, you know, in diminishing total magnitude. So its a problem especially if the earnings side of the story starts to decelerate as well. And so thats really, i think, where im focused primarily, is what happens with the earnings picture here. Because in the absence of fedprovided liquidity, earnings are really the single support under this market. And, obviously, weve had a pretty robust earnings season. But when you cut through the details there, some of them are fairly foreboding like the aforementioned companies, you know, mcdonalds, starbucks, tyson, etc. But also within the Consumer Discretionary earnings numbers, so far this quarter with i think discretionary earnings are up 24 . But if you take9 out amazon, that number falls to 2 . And, you know, im not an equity analyst, im probably skating on thin ice saying this, but my understanding is that the bulk of amazons earnings now come from the aws, not from the stuff that im ordering and having delivered every day. [laughter] so do they even belong in the Consumer Discretionary bucket, you know in thats another argument. But, so the point is that we look at these averages as indicative of whats happening in the economy and whether its the Consumer Spending in aggregate or Consumer Discretionary earnings, its really misleading because theres a couple of company, a couple of consumers that are doing well and everyone else is struggle. Maria yeah. Markets are plummeting now, dow industrials down about 116. The april Producer Price index cross right now. Heres the number, cheryling. Theres a lot to analyze. Month over month number came in a little bit hotter hand expected, up. 5 . The estimate from the street we were looking for. 3 . Now, yearoveryear april ppi coming in line, 2. 2 , with estimates. But remember,. 1 stronger than we had a last month. So, you know, just to give you who some context there. Core, that came in hotter than expected,. 5 . Street was looking for core to come in month over month at. 2 . And core yearoveryear coming in line with expectations, 2. 4 . But thats the same read on that number that we got last month. So to be clear, this isnt really boding well for, oh, inflations unsticking. This is still looking pretty sticky. Let me get into the report really quickly and tell you what the government is saying. Basically, they are saying that it looks like overall it came down to once again services. And thats what we saw last month as well. Securities brokerages dealing investment advice, that also coming in showing up in this report as well. Also trade, transportation, warehousing, those numbers advancing as well. But again, i know this is not fun to talk about, but portfolio management, theyre mentioning this. That was a major factor in the april increase and prices for final demand services. Also they say we did see some pushups in machinery and equipment wholesale, Residential Real Estate services, auto retailing, guest room rental, truck transportation. So a lot of different moving parts in this report and a lot to go through which im going to keep going through. But with, again, this lines up with the story we saw for march pp if i and the numbers reflect that ppi. It was more of a Services Inflationary story than it necessarily was an overall goods story, maria. Maria sure. So sure you go. But this wasnt, you know, this i always say this is the appetizer, the entree is cpi for next month, and were e getting cpi tomorrow that the you were just talking about. So, you know, inflation hawks are going to have a lot to chew on with this one this morning. Maria joining me now is pennsylvania congressman and House Financial Services committee and Small BusinessCommittee Member dan meuser, former cbo director and American ActionForum President doug holtzeakin and still with us, of course, Stephanie Pomboy, michael lee and cheryl casone. Let me ask you, michael lee, your reaction to this number. And lets not forget initially markets traded way down. We were down 116 on the dow industrials, were now down now 39 on the dow, but it is another hot number following three months of hot numbers. Yeah, look, this is not what you want to hear if youre hoping for rate cuts. Another, another beat to the upside, not you know, i was reading Deutsche Bank was expecting us to come in the at. 4 month over month. This is a really hot inflation number. Well see if it leaks over, well see how cpi comes in later this week, but you cant be feeling good about that number after this number right here. Equity markets taking it in stride, and just as an Equity Investor seeing these, seeing these numbers come in and seeing the fed is and rate cuts basically expectations fall off a cliff, so we went from six down to three, then maybe two, then maybe one, maybe zero, i still dont think rate hikes are on the table and were going to need to get a lot more worse data before that becomes a possibility. So to see stocks hang in theres, just to be a stones throw from absolute alltime highs, makes you feel good that a theres a lot of oomph behind the equity marketally were seeing right now. But in terms of where with rates are going, i dont think were going to see low rear rates anytime soon. Maria uhhuh. Well, it doesnt look like that in terms of the reaction if were talking about four months of hot inflation readings. Maria maria yeah. I might be able to answer this real quick. Im sorry to interrupt you, but i might be able to answer what the markets are looking at right now. We9 got a revision for march ppi. So the original headline read year over year was 2. 1, it got revised downward to 1. 8. So it could be the revision, and that could be what the markets are seeing, maria. Maria congressman muser, let me ask you your your thoughts on how to rein in inflation when youve got all of this spending continuing to happen. I mean, youre talking about the inflation reduction act, the fiscal responsibility act, the forgiveness of student act, chips act, Green Energy Tax credits. Is that not the reason that inflation has stayed elevated, because of all of the constant spending coming out of congress and being signed into law by President Biden . Well, by all a means. It was just an announcement two days ago that the Biden Administration was going to pumping nearly 17 billion into pennsylvania, you know, for transportation infrastructures which is fine. But, again, its an artificial additive to economy. And so it certainly is driving the inflation. Look, you know, these numbers arent even, dont tell tell the full story, right . If were not really talking about rental incomes, were not talking about local taxes, were not talking about the level of Interest Rates not worked into these numbers. So any business that the has regular lines of credit, which are most, their inflation rate or ppi is actually much higher. I dont think cpi tomorrow is going to be anything great. This administration, maria, you know this as well as anyone, everybody on this panel knows its doing everything it can, it seems, to weaken our economy. Our economys on thin ice. If youre on thin ice, you dont keep adding weight to it. And because that ice is going to break eventually. And elle just add this, you knou know, the fed, everything Jerome Powells doing, unemployment continues to go up as inflation if does as well. Were looking at stagflation. I think their mandate should simply be to fight against bidenomics, because its failing. Maria doug holtzeakin, how do you see it . This is not a good news number for the fed. You know, as stephanie mentioned, weve had a lot of really weak data recent hi. The jobs report was soft, Consumer Sentiment was down, the credit card cut in half over one month. So weve had a whole series of weak reports. The ism services was a really bad number. And now you get this hot inflation. So youve got an economy that looks to be cracking underneath a real inflation problem. Theyre going to earn their money this month. This is a tough position to be in. Maria and you havent even mentioned the debt and deficits that are there [laughter] in the middle of, and markets havent really responded to all that debt and deficits, have they . Not as much as i would have expected, but remember, theyre just waiting for the reality to hit because come january 1, 2025, the debt ceiling suspension goes away, and everyone has to come to terms with the fact that we have so much debt relative to gdp and on a rah correctly to get worse. The administrations done nothing to days this. Its making the problem worse ever day, and markets are going to wake up to this reality. Maria were still getting new information, and i want to come back to you, cheryl, to get the analysis on that. Stephanie, first give us your analysis of this this, if pi number. Weve been talking a lot about rent, expectationses are that rent is going to come down. It hasnt yet. Yeah. Well, youre talking about as Going Forward for the cpi number tomorrow . Maria yeah. But first, give us your assessment of this ppi. Yeah, yeah, okay. So on the ppi, you know, this is overly simplistic, but if we annualize this number, were at 6 annual rate for input price inflation. The cpi is running at a 4. 8 annual rate so, again, this highlights this brewing margin squeeze that ive been talking about where input costs are now rising faster than the current ability to pass them on. One thing i would note within that university of Michigan Sentiment survey that we got, one thing that hit a record was the share of consumers who who now believe that inflation will outpace their incomes over the next five years. That hit the highest e level in the history of the survey. That is not a sign of confidence whatsoever. [laughter] and it probably explains why the assessment of the Current Situation dropped 10 full points in one month. Weve only seen that ever during recessions. We saw it in 1990, we saw it during the great financial crisis and again during covid. So these are ominous harbinger, all, and they suggest to me strongly that companies are going to have quite a challenging time as these input costs continue to go up thanks largely to the energy story in this woke agenda that the administration is pushing. And Companies Find that consumers just find, look, i cant do this nymph. Anymore. Maria cheryls talking specifically about services, and i guess thats because over covid we were buying lots of stuff, right . On amazon or whatever. And after covid people wanted to go out and do things. Services. The demand went up, and that pushed up prices. And thats what the government talked about as the main focus, but im so glad that stephanie just mentioned energy. Because when i dug further down into this report this morning, ppi, it is the energy story. And the biggest component of the goods inflation side in the ppi report this morning was the energy story, and it was gasoline price. And the jump was 5. 4 at the wholesale level. So you cant tell me that those input costs, as stephanie keeps rightly mentioning here, that the input costs going into gas stations across this country is going to be 5. 4 then add on the margins heir going to add on at the retail level, that is not good news for the more than consumer. Were going were straight into the summer driving season, maria. Were already in the middle of may. Maria right. So gas prices, thats going to take over the headlines, i bet you anything, this summer if we keep seeing these numbers heading higher. And americans are not going to be happy. Maria of course, of course. And, dan meuser, youre from an energyrich state, pennsylvania. Is this resonating on constituents . Its the bad with, maria. Its bad, maria. Our landowners, for instance, their royalties are way down. The socalled pause on lng is not helpful. The added regular elations surrounding pipeline regulations surrounding pipeline development, i mean, its all a huge drag. Its just, theres nothing progrowth look, i even asked janet yellen in a hearing, does this administration have any progrowth initiatives besides spending, and her answer was we need to continue investments, making investments in the United States of america. [laughter] maria, we have a tax bill that was passed in the house, miraculously even with the democrats that weve had, its languishing in the senate. I have people every day, Small Businesses, saying pass the bonus depreciation. Its critical. Maria yeah. Pass the r d tax credit, its critical. This administration wants to tax, overregulate, now theyre throwing these wild tariffs into it as well. And consumers are in debt. You know as well that the consumers have more debt today than perhaps ever before since its been recorded, and their savings are at an alltile low. Maria yeah. So the socalled soft landings looking less likely. Maria were going to talk about that when we preview the c pick, coming up. Michael, what do you see in this ppi report that strikes you most . Dow industrials just turned positive, up 5 points, so this market is still digesting the report. Its got to to be that revision number because you had a huge spike in the 10year, and now weve come back to basically unchanged. The market is taking this somewhat in stride. The fed fund futures, were still at 5050 odds for a rate cut in september which, to me, is pretty shocking. But then again if you look at it through a political lens, were most likely going to get a cut before the election. Whether its warranted or not. So that has held firm. But, you know, very surprised were not seeing a much larger selloff particularly in fixed income based on the number we just got right now. Maria uhhuh. Doug holtzeakin, how do you see things in terms of the consumer . Tomorrow well get the Consumer Price index out and and, of course, walmart earnings coming up. Thats coming up soon, on thursday. Right. Maria and we get the retail sales tomorrow as well. Well, im in the Stephanie Pomboy camp. Im concerned about the consume [laughter] particularly the sort of outside of the luxury categories. You know, people really are stretched, and the data is have shown that for a little while now. This is likely going to lead to another hot cpi number, four in a row, and that puts the fed in a tough position. And it does remind everyone, i hope, that last year everything broke in the way of disinflation if. We got huge easing in energy prices, we had a big productivity boom. That doesnt happen every year. And as it goes away with, things are going to get tougher, and youre seeing that in this report. The margins are going to get squeezed, earnings are going to get hurt. Maria well, well see, because the earnings were pretty good, right, tiffany . Are we seeing that mar stephanie . Are we seeing that margin squeeze with for corporates . No. The handful of companies that i mentioned cheerily are seeing it cheerily are seeing it clearly are seeing it, but weve seen just in the last week or two a huge turn in the quality of the data. Yep. I mean, a very snapshot into this is the citigroup economic surprise index which basically spares us all the task of looking at every single index and figuring out which surprised on the upside or downside. Its a composite that looks at everything. It has declined 60 points, 60 points, in three weeks. Of it was up 41, its now down 18. That is in three weeks time. So it just underscores what douglas and i have been saying about this on the shift in the data. And ill give you two crucial examples since we talked about Services Inflation and this whole that postcovid consumers switched from prioritizing goods consumption to services consumption. If since the beginning of the year, restaurant performance as tracked by the National Restaurant association has plunged. It hit the lowest level since covid in january, posted the tiniest little bounce in february and then slumped right back over in march. And then last week we got the latest hotel numbers, rev par in the latest month declined for the First Time Since february of 2021 is which was when people were reluctant to stay in hotels because of covid. Maria right. So these are really, again, sort of ground indicators that we might have reached a point where the consumer s just saying, look, i cant do this anymore. Ive run up my credit card, ive done buy now, pay later, i have depleatedded my savings, and thd the cost isnt coming down, so were going to have to cut back on things maria so youre saying, cheryls talking about the Services Inflation, youre saying its not actual volume that were seeing people go out and spend money in hotels, spend money at restaurants, but its actually the inflation thats actually taking these numbers up . Is that what youre suggest suggesting . Hallelujah. Thank you, maria, exactly. [laughter] and i was going to point out tomorrow, tomorrows expectations for retail sales, for example, is a gain of. 4 . That is exactly equal to the expected gain in the cpi. Maria yeah. So you will have zero growth in real retail sales, unit sales, and that will be in keeping with the trend weve seen since april of 2021. Real retail sales are are down. They peaked in april of 2021. Thats three years ago, folks. Maria yeah. Real unit sales have gone nowhere. Maria yeah, so, cheryl the consumer is not strong. Maria yeah. You have to wonder then, cheryl, how President Biden is going to spin this all today. Yes. Maria hes speaking today on the economy. Is he just going to give us the headlines like you gave us earlier, oh, yeah, services is up, or are we its not actual volume, its actually just inflation like stephanies saying, or is he going to say, oh, by the way, people are using their credit card, using pay later schemes. Well, hes not going to say any of that. [laughter] all we know so far from the white house is this is going to be a speech from the rose garden where hes going to talk about how great the economy is, hes going to talk about jobs and also likely mention this move on china and the tariffs which also happened this morning. So thats all a official now, the chinese are reacting to that news. So thatll be a piece of it, you know, on defending this country. But the problem is hes going to do this again, hes going to say, oh, well, you know, inflation is down and spending is down and deficits are down since i took office a. S but every time we fact check him on, maria, he till comes out and gives the psalm talking points. It is an same talking points. It is an election year, and the economys in trouble. They still have not figured out how to spin a bad economy, and it continues to show in the polls that he is falling and falling and falling especially as we talked about earlier with those goinger voters who are paying d im so sorry, kids 8 for your starbucks drink. But thats the reality that were in right now. Maria congressman, what about these tariffs . If are you expecting this to actually materialize . The white house threatening its going to put tariffs on electric vehicles, on certain components coming from china. He hasnt done anything about all the dumping in china in three and a half years but, of course, were six months away from an election. Do you believe these tariffs will, in fact, material ease on chinese goods . Listen, or maria, this is the administration that gave 100 billion or so for the development of chip factories, and yet they want to increase their taxes by 7 . The big difference between what President Trump when President Trump was in office and the type of tariffs he talked about was to make American Goods more competitive overseas versus, versus our overseas opponents. What bidens trying to do is as hes making american businesses less competitive, these tariffs are meant to protect america from the weakening that the Biden Administration has caused. So its completely different outlooks. Trump was looking for rest processty, if not 0 tariffs reciprocity. Bidens trying to protect gwen the weakened economy that we have. Solar panels, again, everything they do has a inverted plan to it, right . If. Maria political can, politics. Increase the costs on em. Maria right, okay. Well, look, well see about that. Michael lee, as an investor weve got a market that is digesting these numbers and going back and forth. What do you want to do in what does this report tell you as far as whats most important as an investor in. Yeah, look, that the ratesensitive areas are going to be difficult to informs in invest in right now. Like, i continue to favor things that are going to happen regardless of the macroeconomic story because it is uncertain. I do not see us falling off a cliff, but to say that this is a gangbusters economy or this is a really healthy economy or somehow the atlanta fed gdp has us tracking at 4. 2 growth this quarter [laughter] you know, thats not a, thats an objective number. Its just reading data as it comes in. But i dont see that Trend Holding for the rest of this quarter. Back to stephanies comment earlier, amazons making all of its money from cloud computing, right . Its not from their consumer business. And so you look at these big tech names, and i think what we saw last year in the magnificent seven was a validation of a very weak, very poor economy with the concentration of the leadership. I continue to favor these big names that have Balance Sheets that are healthier than most sovereign nations in the world, okay . They have easy access to capital. Theyre not sitting on boatloads are of cash. They have businesses that are growing dramatically, doubledigit year in, year out and then this a. A. I. Trend where youre going to see an upgrade of data centers, youll see the largest Corporate Investment in technology in the history of the world. Id be looking to buy these names on weakness because if the fed does nothing and the economy gets weaker from here, this corporate spending is going to in technology will, might tail off somewhat, but the market share to the cloud, to cybersecurity, to Artificial Intelligence is going to become an ever increasing portion of that pie. So while its gaining share in the technology world, these large companies, i dont know that theyll be completely insulated, but almost completely insulated from kind of any economic uncertainty. So that, to me as an investor, presents the best riskreward. Maria theres still a feeling out there that perhaps we have not felt the true impact of 11 rate hikes. Stephanie, youve been predicting we would see bankruptcies increase, that we would see midcapp companies have a harder time with the highest Interest Rates after11 rate hikes. Have we felt the true full impact of the feds tightening . Well, we definitely have seen a surge in bankruptcies. I mean, corporate bankruptcy filings are the highest since the tail end of the Global Financial crisis, so thats happened, it just hasnt happened at the top level of the pyramid that wall street myopically focuses on which is, you know, the top companies. But when you broaden the lens out, those smaller and Midsized Companies are really struggling. Even within the s p 500 though, interest expense has doubled in the last 12 months, and the reason why it hasnt been a problem for those companies is that Earnings Growth has been robust. So again, i come back to earnings and whats the outlook there. But i think wall street has seriously overestimated the capacity of the average corporation, including in the s p 500, to service this higher cost debt in the face of slower Earnings Growth. I mean, you and i have talked about these before, maria with, but ill go through them again because theyre just stunning. The top 10 companies in the s p 500 hold twice as much cash as the bottom 400 combined. I mean, this is a tale of haves and have nots in the corporate space thats just as profound as it is in the consumer space. Maria yeah. And as relates to earnings and michaels point, you know, the top 10 companies contributed 33 of Earnings Growth for the s p 500. So, again, even as el ares to earnings relates to earnings were talking about just a handful of company and looking at these averages and thinking everyones a fine. Maria yeah, yeah. So i very much continue to expect problems in the Corporate Credit space around is servicing this higher or cost debt especially since a lot of them just extended and pretended in the hope that we would now have rate cuts by now. Maria yeah. And now that theyre getting pushed out, their ability to sustain this is really very limited. Maria well, were getting some wild swings in the stock market. We were down 116 on the dow industrials, now the dow is up 40 points. The nasdaq, s p 500 flat. Lets look at tomorrow, cheryl. Whats most important as far as youre concerned . We got the cpi, weve got retail sales and later in the month weve got the walmart quarter. Walmart on thursday, and thats going to be very interesting because they Just Announced a lot of layoffs at their corporate headquarters. That is not a good sign for the Worlds Largest retailer. As far as cpi, that month over month expectations of a gain of. 4 and a yearoveryear head headline of 3. 4 , im wondering if that might come in a little bit stronger. I dont think i would have said that 20 minutes ago, but im saying it now because of the energy component. I think that energy story in tomorrows cpis going to be important. I think we will see a falloff in shelter as you have been told, of course, by your sources as well. And retail sales, that gain of. 4 , im not going to be so much focused on are retail sales as i am for ppi or c or pi, excuse me. And real quick, were going to get Housing Starts and Building Permits on friday. And because of these higher Interest Rates, weve gone over 7 again for the 30year fixed mortgage, i have a feeling those are going to be some rougher numbers as well. So, you know, this whole inflation story is spreading out into all of the pieces of the data that we watch. The only thing we havent seen really fall has been the jobs numbers. And that data still has been kind of in line, were still seeing around that 200,000 initial claims numbers each week, and thats kind of average. Maria yeah. So thats the only question mark. Maria and thats what the president s going to talk about today, jobs and the fact that the jobs numbers have held up. Doug, whats most important to you . Well, i think you come back to the shelter inflation. Thats been the piece that has held up the cpi for a year now. It peaked a year after the cpi as a whole. The last three months have been a bumpy yearoveryear average, so its going the wrong direction. Everyone expects it to slow down. It just hasnt. And if it doesnt tomorrow, then you should be very afraid of that number. Maria yeah. I mean, look, congressman, the president has told us what the next potential four years would look like. He he came out with a 7. 3 trillion budget for 2025, and in it he included a 5. 5 trillion in new taxes. President trump the other day said he wants to double down on tax cuts. Obviously, this is going to be a major issue, financial policy. In the next four years. Maria, so true. The most important thing to me is whats going to happen moving forward. This administration is not interested in course correction. I am going to be very interested to see what the president has to say in the rose garden today, just pretend that everything is fine. Will they, will i think say were going to look to improve, but as of right now his plan is to increase spending by 23 , increase taxes by nearly a trillion dollars, continue the assault on Domestic Energy and and harass the living daylights out of business through more regulations. Outside of that, its a wonderful plan. [laughter] maria . Maria yeah, go ahead. I just want to emphasize what the congressman just said. Last week the administration imposed 180 billion in regulatory costs. Maria yeah. The Obama Administration averages 100 billion a year. They did it in a week. The Regulatory Burden is out of control. Maria yeah. And remember when trump came out with all those stacks of papers with the red tape. Cutting red tape is a beautiful thing. That was one with of the tools that he used to actually get growth spiking yep. Maria in the u. S. Stephanie, your reaction. Enter no, i totally agree. Im going to be watching biden to see if he checks his watch [laughter] thats the main thing today. Maria oh, man. Dont believe your lying eyes with. [laughter] dont believe your lying eyes. Theres no inflation maria all right. Lets talk about the impact on the fed. What does the fed do this year, stephanie . I think that theyre on hold until a wheel falls off, and i anticipate the wheel is going to fall off sometime reasonably soon, and then they will, as it is their standard operating period your, hysterically. Panic and rush in and cut rates and expand the Balance Sheet again. I do think we will see rate cuts, but they will come after the crisis, not before. Maria so youre saying perhaps we go into a recession, perhaps the economy weakens further. That will be, that will be the trigger for the fed to actually cut rates. With if you look at what weve seen in terms of the move in the unemployment rate, we may be in recession already. That. 5 increase may not sound like much, or but historically once you move. 5, you go up a Straight Line to up 3 percentage points. So we may have started the recession more. Were just waiting for the nb everything r to announce it. Maria all right. We will leave it there. Great conversation, everybody. Congressman dan meuser, doug holtzeakin, Stephanie Pomboy, mike lee, cheryl casone, thank you so much. 30 minutes away from the opening bell, the Dow Jones Industrial average right now is up better than 30 points. The nasdaq and the s p are flat. Lets hand it over to stuart. Varney company picks it up. Stu, take it away. Stuart good morning, everyone. This is inflation data week