Stabilize and support the financial system, support and rescue. Its moving quickly. On the ground, it is grim. 22 states have deployed the national guard. The virus is now infected all 50 states and d. C. And this is a first, kansas closes all schools for the rest of the school year. Its beginning to sink in that many of us will be confined to our homes for weeks and millions will not be getting a paycheck. You are waking up to an anxious america. Theres an eerie feeling when you see empty cities, shuttered businesses and a country thats really grinding to a halt. Now the markets. Limit down before the opening bell. We might be 5 or 6 down in early trading. Remember, if the s p goes down 7 trading is halted for 15 minutes. We have already seen that twice. The dow, s p, nasdaq limit down, big red arrows right there. Look at this. The yield on the tenyear treasury is now 1. 12 . So money is coming out, repeat, out of treasuries. Why is that . In part because some investors have to cover their losses in stocks so theyre selling treasuries and having to cover their stocks. Ten days ago, the yield was 0. 3 . Now its 1. 1 . We have never seen anything like this before. We had better get to politics. Joe biden sweeps the three big primaries, florida, arizona, illinois. He won every county in florida, beating Bernie Sanders 61 to 22 . The results, though, heavily skewed by a low turnout. With the virus raging and the economy at a standstill, party politics, doesnt it seem almost irrelevant. We will deal with it all. We will start with your money. Art laffer, former reagan economist, with us now. I call this a support and rescue plan. I dont think its a stimulus plan because you cant stimulate this economy right now. Support and rescue. What do you make of it . I dont make much of it, frankly. I think its a silly plan to give families 1,000 each. Its what George Mcgovern wanted to do with his grant. It makes no sense whatsoever. It doesnt lead to good outcomes, believe me when i tell you this. The other thing is stuart im sorry, ive got to interrupt. There are literally tens of millions of people in this country who next week wont get a paycheck. They might not even get a paycheck at the end of this week. What are they going to do . A government surely cant just stand back and say wait a minute, wait a minute, youre on your own. Theyve got to offer some help. Let me just say its not compassionate giving away other peoples money. Thats not compassion, stuart. Stuart yes, it is. Let me say the payroll tax cut, for the next seven months, will provide jobs, not welfare, not pity. You got to bring employment back. Its a terrible situation what we have here. Stuart wait, wait. How can you possibly bring the economy back when its ordered to shut down . You cant. Thats why you do the payroll tax cut. Once this thing is over youve got to bring it back quickly or it will extend itself for a long period of time. It really will. If thats what we want, god bless them. You know i love this administration. You know i think theyre the best administration probably ever. But i think this plan of the 1,000 grant makes no sense and i think the payroll tax waiver is the only way to go to bring it back at all. Theres a lot of damage being done to the economy. People are going to suffer. Thats sad. The coronavirus is a horrible thing that hit us. But by giving away the money and bailing people out of trouble by putting other people into trouble is not the answer. We will recover but it will just be a lot slower. Stuart lets agree to disagree on this and look to when this is over. Thats fair. Stuart were all right, you and i. When its over, i you and i are great together, grandfather. Stuart youre a great grandfather. Seriously, when this thing is over and it will be over, are we in for a gigantic surge in the economy . Bringing it all back . Are we . Not if you do what youre talking about doing. No, you wont. Youll have a recovery like the obama recovery and that will be the problem there. If you go back and look at my articles and discussions on this show in 2008 and 2009, what we should have is a tax holiday. A period so people find it really attractive to work, so businesses find it really attractive to employ people, to bounce back as fast as possible. The damage has been done by the coronavirus. Im very sorry of that. But you cant make it up by giving people 1,000 checks. That just makes it worse. Stuart all right. Art, good stuff. Stay there for a second. Lets move on im sorry. Stuart dont worry. Just stay there. I dont mean to be grumpy. Stuart youre not, youre not. Youre all right. Were both smiling. Thats a good thing. On a day like this, thats a very good thing. Shah gilani is joining us. All right, shah, i think i have asked this question a thousand times. I will ask it again. Do you see as of right now any kind of bottom for this market . No, stuart, i dont. Looking at the numbers that im looking at and going a lot deeper than you see on the surface in terms of the benchmarks, im looking whats happening to the Financial Markets underneath in terms of the mechanics of the market. Im seeing some pretty serious implications for equities. If you look at the bond market in particular, what you brought up earlier, the fact the yield on the tenyear is moving around the way it is is in itself unprecedented. Thats creating tremendous tumult in the bond world. For investors, for traders, for big banks, this kind of movement, that kind of volatility on that kind of level in the bond market is unprecedented. Thats creating damage in and of its own. That partly is selling as you said earlier, when assets have to be sold and people are getting margin calls they need to sell everything, especially if they have profits in some of them, which they did. Thats creating larger problems. The larger picture is i believe the economy will take a good while to recover. I dont think we are near the bottom of where the market has to go. Frankly, i dont mean to frighten your viewers but i think we have at least another 15 to go from here. I think the market maybe takes a rest at 18,000 on the dow. That would be 39 off of the highs. Stuart our viewers are seeing on the screen now oil at 23. 96 a barrel, down nearly three bucks. Shah, is that also a destabilizing thing, even though it looks like good news for gas prices, is it destabilizing in an economic sense . Yes, it is. Its destabilizing for the simple reason multiple reasons, but the simple reason in the United States is this is, in my opinion, this is an attack by russia and saudi arabia on american energy. Whats going to happen is these Leveraged Energy companies in the United States that have done very well are now under pressure, lot of them arent going to make it. They will need probably a federal rescue because the oil patch is so important now to Americans Energy independence, it is now under tremendous stress because of the leverage those companies have taken out, the debt they have, they are not going to be able to service it with oil at this price. I think this is a concerted effort by saudis and russia to actually level the u. S. Playing field in terms of energy. Stuart at the moment, its working. Shah, stay there, please. Art laffer, stay there. I want to get to this news which is a first that i can see, and that is kansas city schools closing for the rest of the school im sorry, kansas state, im sorry. Ashley the entire state. Stuart closed for the rest of the school year. Ashley rest of the school year. The decision made by the kansas governor. In a statement she said look, the reality of this pandemic is that it cannot be controlled statewide if the School Buildings return to normal operations. Its just not feasible, says the governor. There has only been 17 cases so far in the entire state of kansas, one death, but it is in fact the very first state to declare schools closed for the remainder of the academic year, k through 12, through may or june depending on the school district. Stuart then they go on school vacation. Ashley summer break. Stuart you are really talking in kansas, the state, you are talking about kids being at home probably until september. Labor day. Ashley correct. Stuart just after, maybe. Ashley absolutely. Stuart trying to do the math. Thats six months. Ashley yes. Stuart am i right that california is also considering ashley the governor of california, gavin newsom, saying this looks like, this is a very sobering thing to say in his statement, but he says we may very likely have to do exactly the same as kansas is doing, meaning schools will be closed may through june. There are already six Million Students in california already at home. 99 of state schools in california are closed. Thats just you know, i also just this headline came down, the u. N. Estimates globally 849 million children are now out of school around the world. Stuart the crunch is obvious. Ashley oh, yes. Stuart when you are forced to stay home with your children. We are doing this on a mass basis. Never seen anything like it. That forces a halt to the economy. Ashley of course it does. Stuart youve got to stay home, somebodys got to stay home with the kids, you dont work and the economy doesnt function. Thats a key figure. Ashley exactly. Just another element of the whole thing grinding to a halt, if you want, you know, the cog starting to slow down. Stuart what do you do about graduation, kids graduating . Ashley you cant have it, can you . Stuart s. A. T. Exams. Ashley you cant have it. Cant have anyone gathering together. Stuart i dont have a solution to that but i can see the consequences a mile off. Lets bring in susan. This is strange. Apple releasing new products . Tell me. Susan without an event and through press release. Its a very rare occurrence for apple. Just about an hour ago they say look, we have two new ipads for you to buy. Ipad pros. It starts with two sizes, 11 inches and 12. 9, starting price 799 and the camera system is high tech because you can scan 3d objects with this new camera system in the ipad. Also, they launch a new mac book air as well, starting at 999. They are giving you a lot of storage on the base model. You are starting at 256 gigab e gigabyt gigabytes. What about the cheap iphone . Not part of this announcement. There are concerns maybe they will just scrap it. We were expecting some event in march or april for its launch. This was supposed to be the cheaper iphone for the masses in i guess developing economies like china and india who cant afford these four digit iphones but not the case, apparently. You cant buy it in stores, because apple stores are closed everywhere outside of china until at least they said march 27th, now they are saying until further notice. Stuart it just seems odd, doesnt it, to be talking about the most valuable company in america in the middle of a virus crisis putting out new products. Susan i agree. Stuart it just seems odd. Susan it does seem odd. As i said to you, they usually have a very splashy unveil for these type of Product Launches but not this time around. Especially in the midst of this crisis. I guess they had these devices lined up and had to get it out there. They do take orders starting on wednesday. Stuart as we have been speaking, the stock has dropped to 239 a share. Susan 100 off the highs. Stuart exactly. A hundred bucks off its highs for a company with 200 billion cash in the bank. How about that. Back to you in a second. I want to go down to the exchange. Kristina partsinevelos there watching what is it, imv. What do they do . Why are they up 42 . Kristina its the hunt for the cure, race for the cure, i should say. Heres another company that has come out and said they are successfully developing a covid19 vaccine, they are doing most of their research in canada. This stock is very thinly traded. We have seen several of these over the past two weeks. This one is below 3 a share. You can see it jumping 42 on the news they are developing this vaccine, hence the reason we have a little bright spot amongst a sea of red today on the market. Stuart thanks very much indeed. I was just listening to ash, whos got a development about new york city. Ashley yeah. Theres been speculation is there going to be a shelter in place by mayor bill de blasio, essentially a lockdown like in the bay area. This headline says the mayor will only do that in consultation with the state of new york. Theres been a bit of conflict between Governor Cuomo and bill de blasio, the new york city mayor, because the mayor has been perhaps a little more severe, i guess you want to say, more stringent with his restrictions. The governor said recently he does not want to quarantine any city, actually quarantine, whereas mayor de blasio said a complete shutdown, shelter in place, could be on the table, could be a possibility. Stuart reading between the lines, if cuomo doesnt want it, cuomo decides, its not going to happen. Ashley correct. Stuart ive got to say im intrigued by that. The idea of locking down a couple million manhattanites, new york city people, doesnt exactly thrill me. Susan, back to you. Lego. Susan store closures. Lego says they are keeping their stores open in china because it looks like coronavirus there, given that we only had two new cases that were domestically originated, might be opening their stores in china. They are in fact opening their stores in china but the rest of the world, closed until march 27th, they say. Stuart wow. One in a long list of major brands that are closing down. Target, theyve got an update on how they are supporting customers, employees. Tell me. Susan the vulnerable, that is the elderly. The first hour of opening stores, they will allow that first hour only for the elderly to shop for the goods that they need which a lot of people say this is a good thing because thats what elderlies need right now which is a quarantine and safe environment. They are also limiting hours as well. All stores will close by 9 00 p. M. No 24hour openings for target. This joins a long list of retailers, macys yesterday said they are closing all north American Stores at least for now, the next few weeks, and adidas joining nike also in shutting up shop as well. Stuart thanks, susan. Let me get back to shah gilani for a second. Shah, you just saw the stock price there of apple. 239 a share. Thats a company with i dont know how much cash its got, im told its about 200 billion. Surely theres value in apple at 239, 240 . Yes. Theres plenty of value in apple. The question is at what level. Maybe at this level but i dont see it because the demand destruction across the globe has been so dramatic and i think its really just picking up in terms of the destruction. Yes, they came out with new products, maybe trying to put forward a good face that we are going to try to continue with our Business Practices and develop and bring out on par with the cycles we had planned in the past, et cetera, business as usual, except consumers are not in the mood to purchase telephones or iphones or ipads at this point. Consumers are in a state of shock, not knowing what the future is going to be. You have been talking about it on your show consistently. The demand destruction in terms of restaurants is phenomenal. All of these Service People and hotel Service People, unbelievable. They are all going to be out of jobs. How are they they are not going to be thinking about buying an iphone or ipad, unfortunately for apple, but this is true for the rest of the economy. Demand destruction cross the economy is just starting to pick up. Its going to be devastating. Stuart hold on, shah. Back to art laffer. Lets get some numbers on this. Weve got the economy at a dead stop. The whole country really is slowing down and some parts of it are closing down. Goldman sachs says in the Second Quarter we will contract, shrink 5 . Whats your number for the Second Quarter, april, may, june . Well, its going to be a large down but let me say this is not demand destruction. This is supply destruction that has happened. Kids going back to out of school, all of the production facilities shut down. Its not a demand problem we are facing. It really is a supply problem. Let me go back to the one, if i can, if 1,000 per family is good, why not make it 10,000 or 20,000 . Then we would have 2. 5 trillion, 5 trillion going to families to stimulate demand for which there is no supply. We need to bring production back in. We need to get control of this disease right away and bring people back. Thats what you got to do. Stuart im sorry i have been in these crises now since 1950s, in the very inner circles. This isnt going to work. Stuart look, may i just say the opposite. Its not a supply problem. Theres plenty of supply if you open the stores and people can go and buy jeans and sweatshirts and shoes. Theyre not. Theyre closing the stores, closing schools, closing restaurants, closing cruise ships, closing airlines. All of those are being closed and not supplying the services. No matter how much you want to fly, there are no planes flying. Stuart you cant demand because you cant go to the store and demand it. We see things opposite and thats a fact. You cant go to the store because they are shutting it down. If you cant go there, you can want to get groceries as much as you want but theyre not there for you. Stuart one quick one. April, may, june, goldman says contraction of 5 . Whats your number . It may be that, even a little more on an annualized basis. Stuart got it. Dont go anywhere. This conversation is not over, young man. Thats a fact. Im captured in the seat. Stuart my producer is saying why cant we be friends. We can and we are. Now then, politics. Cassie smedley is with us, rnc Communications Director. We have had the primaries, joe biden sweeps the three big ones. Irrelevant. To me, politics and the election are on hiatus. What say you . Yeah, thats absolutely right. Youve heard that from the president and his entire team saying this is the time to focus on the American People. This is the time to ensure that weve got great leadership and people can feel confident in the steps that are being taken to get us through this. The president says were at war with the coronavirus. We should all unite behind that common enemy so that when we do come out on the other side of this we can bounce back as an economy. We will bounce back as a country because we are resilient and we are in good shape. Stuart so this election is essentially a referendum on the president S Performance fighting the virus. Well, certainly they will try and make it that and say well, we welcome that, because the president has shown tremendous leadership and calm in the face of everchanging