Time to lessen the economic pain, which we are clearly suffering. Meanwhile, fox news has blown the lid off the china virus story. Reliable sources suggest the virus began at a virology lab in wuhan, china. Patient zero, the first person to get it, was a lab worker who went out into the city and spread the virus from there. Now, the chinese authorities covered it up. They delayed action. They altered data and suppressed doctors and journalists who reported the truth. The story is an indictment of china and the communist authorities. It will dramatically change the u. S. china relationship. Heres how the markets reacting to all of this. We got bad news on manufacturing in the philadelphia and new york area. We got a sharp drop in Housing Starts. And weve got those dreadful jobless numbers. But the dow is going to open on the upside, maybe up 90 points. Thats almost a half percentage point. Same story for the nasdaq and also, look at the nasdaq, actually, thats going to be up more than 1 . Green after dreadful Economic News. Look at the price of oil. The saudis and opec have announced production cuts of 20 Million Barrels a day but thats not lifted the price of oil above 20 a barrel. Its now at 20. 30, barely above 20 bucks even. There is now a plan, by the way, to pay, to pay American Drillers to keep the oil in the ground. Gas continues to come down. Today the National Average comes in at 1. 83. Again, im looking at wisconsin for the cheapest gas in the nation. The average price there is all the way down to 1. 26. Amazing. This is going to be a landmark day. Within hours we will hear from the president about reopening parts of the economy. Varney company is about to begin. Were going to be announcing guidelines and well be talking about various states and its very exciting. Its been a horrible time to see such death and destruction and theyll be safe, theyll be strong but we want to get our country back. Well be the comeback kids, all of us. Stuart come in, Scott Shellady, joining us from afar. Scott, you heard what the president had to say there. We are going to be the comeback kids. Your thoughts on this, please . Well, yeah, we are going to be the comeback kids. Its just how quickly you think thats going to happen. Todays numbers show you we are still in a deep dive. This one size fits all of locking everybody up and locking every business down has proven not to have really worked out well, i think, so a rolling open is going to be a rolling recovery. I mean, thats what common sense would tell you. Unless you think idaho, south dakota and north dakota and iowa are this big economic engine that will really shoot us back. I think we have a little disconnect with the equities right now, off 15 , when weve got janet yellen calling for 30 contraction and jpmorgan calling for 30 contraction in the economy. We have a lot ahead of us. It will be a very bumpy road, not a rocket ship. We will have a rolling recovery with a rolling open. Stuart but i think, scott, that with all this bad news, that is terrible news that came out today, even so, the market is pointing up. Now, that implies to me the markets looking to the other side, looking for that recovery. Youre exactly right. We are all still arguing about how long a piece of string is. I absolutely see the market looking past this and actually getting a little bit buoyant, maybe ahead of themselves, because this is a psychological problem. We cant solve it with all this money. It does help, its a nice place holder but its still psychological. This thing is not going to be over, stuart, until a 75yearold couple goes out for their 50th wedding anniversary in a very crowded chinese restaurant. When that happens, its over and we are good to go. Stuart got you. Scott, stay there. Ive got more for you later. I want to get more into these jobless numbers. 5. 25 million, the latest number of people claiming benefits. Lauren, can you dig into this, please . Give me some nuggets within the report. Lauren yeah. If you look at the past four weeks, the number is 22 million. That means 22 million americans in a month are unemployed. If you divide that by the size of the labor force, 155 million, you know what the Unemployment Rate we are talking about is . 14. 2 . 14. 2 . There are two questions we should be asking ourselves right now. The biggest question, how many and when will these 22 million workers get rehired and the second question is with the enhanced benefits because of the government, the cares act, a lot of folks, we saw this in particular in the state of rhode island, they made sure that they signed up for Unemployment Benefits because they got more money. It was enhanced for them. Stuart okay. So youre looking at an Unemployment Rate of around 14 . Thats depression levels indeed. Okay. Thats the dreadful Economic News of the morning. Actually, theres more of that as well. Lets get to that china story. Sources tell fox news the virus originated in a chinese lab. Because they were trying to compete with the u. S. On the pharmaceutical front. Susan, come into this and give us some context on this. Susan sources are telling fox news and our Washington Bureau is reporting there is increasing confidence that covid19 actually originated from that wuhan virology lab, largest in the country, just a few miles outside the city center in wuhan. This is not part of chinas attempt to build a bioweapon. Instead, it was for china to prove that they can detain, contain and detect any sort of biochemical weapons in the future, but if this is true, this is not a good look for the chinese president and the Chinese Communist party. The fact they can basically bungle and let out a virus into the population, this also adds to the credibility deficit of president xi right now. They are also dealing with a collapsing economy. We know china is expected to shrink about 10 in the first three months of this year, which would be the worst by the way for china since after tiananmen square, and when i explained the motivation of the chinese president , the Chinese Communist party, all they want to do is stay in power which has been hard to do for more than a few decades in communist regimes, and in order to do that, they have two motivations which is to keep the people of china healthy and rich, and two problems they are grappling with right now. Stu, i would say this is pretty much a sharp deterioration between the two largest economies in the world. Stuart i think you are absolutely right. It would change the relationship forever, i would say. Certainly in the immediate future. Susan, i want to go back to you because youve got news from apple. Lets move on to the corporate front for a second. Whats your news . Susan well, apples reopening stores outside of china for the very first time. They expected to do that with the first in south korea. We know south korea has been testing, its been getting a handle on coronavirus and stores around the world outside of china have been shut for the last few weeks. So china is open and Stores Across the rest of the world are going to slowly phase in according to apple. This is a big deal. They Just Launched that cheaper iphone yesterday and other devices. Stuart okay. Apple is off on that news this morning. Got it. Now, lets get back to the other im going to call this the high anxiety number. That is the price of oil. Okay, its at 20. 27 a barrel right now. Thats extraordinary, because its extraordinarily low, even though the saudis and the rest of opec have cut production by 20 Million Barrels a day. What youre looking at, 19 a barrel, is the lowest level since february 2002. The price of gas, this is important stuff, even though were not driving very much, we are down to 1. 83. We like to keep you in touch with oil, gas as well as stocks. Now lets turn to housing. I was saying earlier we had some grim Economic News this morning and weve got grim Economic News on housing. Lauren, spell it out for us. Lauren we do. Three things to tell you. Fannie mae says home sales will fall about 15 this year with both supply and demand being down. We did just get a report on new Home BuildingHousing Starts in march, they fell more than 22 . But i wanted to give you some information about permits, future Home Building. We saw the multifamily category rise. What does that say to you . It says when we come out of this, we might not have as much money, we might be looking to rent rather than buy. So multifamily construction would be more popular in that event. Thats what came up in the data we just crunched. Stuart that is absolutely fascinating, isnt it. All right. Thanks very much, lauren. Now, one of the other blockbusters from the president s News Conference yesterday afternoon, the virus update, was his threat to adjourn both chambers of congress. Thats something thats never been done by any president. Listen to this. Watch the tape. The senate should either fulfill its duty and vote on my nominees or it should formally adjourn so that i can make recess appointments. If the house will not agree to that adjournment, i will exercise my Constitutional Authority to adjourn both chambers of congress. The Current Practice of leaving town while conducting phony pro forma sessions is a dereliction of duty that the American People cannot afford during this crisis. Stuart senator mike rounds, south dakota republican, with us now. Mr. Senator, is the president saying basically lets not waste a good crisis . Well, what hes saying is his nominations have been slowwalked by our democrat colleagues from the beginning of his administration. Some of these are noncontroversial. The noncontroversial nominations should have been approved by unanimous consent. It should not have taken individual votes. We are still doing individual votes one at a time for the vast majority of his nominations. Thats what hes frustrated with. I dont blame him at all for being angry about it. Noncontroversial nominations should be included as part of a package on a daily basis to be set forth. Stuart mr. Senator, would you stay there for a second. I want to bring you back after the commercial and talk to you about the closing of that smithfield plant because thats very important to the food chain. Meanwhile, check futures. Again, despite all that dreadful Economic News, the dow will open with a 100 point gain. You are at 23,500. In our 11 00 hour, actor John Ratzenberger, the cheers guy is helping blew collar workers and america get back to work. Hes on the show. Relief funding running out for Small Businesses. I want to know what congress is going to do about that. Plus we will tell you the number of hours the average american is streaming every day. You will be astonished at the number. Well be right back. You wouldnt accept an incomplete job from anyone else. Why accept it from your allergy pills . Flonase sensimist. Nothing stronger. Nothing gentler. Nothing lasts longer. Flonase sensimist. 24 hour nondrowsy allergy relief heres the thing about managing for your business. S when youve got public clouds, and private clouds, and hybrid clouds things can get a bit cloudy for you. But now, theres the Dell Technologies cloud, powered by vmware. A single hub for a consistent operating experience across all your clouds. That should clear things up. Yeah. This moving thing never gets any easier. Well, xfinity makes moving super easy. I can transfer my internet and tv service in about a minute. Wow, that is easy. Almost as easy as having those guys help you move. We are those guys. Thats you . The truck adds 10 pounds. In the arms. Okay. Transfer your Service Online in a few easy steps. Now thats simple, easy, awesome. Transfer your service in minutes, making moving with xfinity a breeze. Visit xfinity. Com moving today. Stuart senator mike rounds with us now. Senator, i have to ask you about that smithfield Processing Plant in south dakota. Theyve got 500 virus cases there. They are shut down and that threatens the food chain supply for the whole country. What can you do to get that plant reopened . 3700 south dakotans want to go back to work. This is about any meat Processing Plant in the United States, this can happen at, where you have people close together. We are talking about a critical industry that has to get back to work. The Company Already started making changes. They need the same type of protective equipment you find on people that work in hospitals and other front line providers. Stuart you think they can get that equipment and get the processes worked out and get them back into that plant within by the end of the week . Is that possible . Perhaps not by the end of the week, but within several days, the answer is yes. We believe that thats a possibility. We know that that plant also provides protein for other plants around the country and with their production shut down, there will be other plants in other states that will have to shut down as well. Smithfield desperately wants to get that plant back up and operational but its got to be safe for these south dakotans. They have to be in a safe position. This is one that once we get them back in, we dont want to have to shut it down again. Stuart yes, sir. Senator mike rounds, south dakota republican, thank you very much for being with us, sir. Always appreciate it. Thanks very much. Now this. Relief funding for Small Businesses. The moneys running out. Congress cant seem to agree on how to get the money to those Small Businesses which clearly need it. Hillary vaughn joins us. Dig deeper into this, please. Tell us whats going on. Reporter this is the update from just 30 minutes ago from the Small Business association. There have been 1. 6 million applications from 4900 different lenders that have been approved and right now, the total amount of those loans, 339 billion and the reason why thats relevant is because a source at the Small Business association tells my colleague Edward Lawrence that once that number hits 340 billion, they basically run out of money. Even though there has been 350 billion allocated for this Paycheck Protection Program, 10 billion of that is going to be absorbed in lender fees. We are just 1 billion away right now of this Program Running out of money. Thats the update from 30 minutes ago. Overnight, we also have been getting updates that treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin has been in deep negotiations with House Speaker nancy pelosi trying to work out a deal, something she thinks her caucus can stomach to get through the house to get more money for this program. She wants added things, more money for state and local governments, more money for hospitals, before she says her caucus can support this, but heres the problem. We are already hearing percolations from other republican lawmakers in the senate and the house that say treasury secretary mnuchin does not speak for all republicans in congress and they are worried hes going to make a deal with pelosi and that not all republicans are going to be able to stomach it and get behind it. So we are really in a stalemate here in terms of trying to get more money to congress. There is a little light at the end of the tunnel. The president is holding a call with republican law makers later this morning, perhaps hes going to convince them to get on board with whatever mnuchin is able to work out with House Speaker pelosi. Stuart . Stuart all right, hillary, we understand exactly whats going on. Got it. Thanks very much. I want to get back to Scott Shellady and that report we are hearing that the government may be paying American Drillers to keep their oil in the ground. That sounds like desperation to me, scott. Yeah, unfortunately, thats a bad sign. Its not an uncommon sign. Weve got a similar kind of program in the agricultural world across the map. So thats something that looks like its going to be a bad situation. All you have to do, youve got a lot of smart people on the show but when we bring it down to nuts and bolts and say that look, when a case of beer is more expensive than a barrel of oil, houston, weve got a problem. Stuart yes. Understood. I dont see how you restore demand without getting america and the world back to work. Because thats the essence of the problem. The crash in demand for oil and gas. Scott, thanks for joining us. Good stuff today. Lets get to susan. Youve got the numbers on how much we are all streaming in this virus environment. What have you got . Susan a lot. Eight hours a day of content so thats a lot. The reason, we have a lot more free time on our hands and we are being stuck at home. So also, parents are allowing more of their kids to watch tv shows and movies during this pandemic so they are allowing them to stream. In fact, 55 in this survey, 65 of parents say yeah, i will get my kids to watch a little bit more. On average, the average american enjoys around four streaming services, think of netflix, hulu, disney plus and the like, and another 38 are usually logged in to five or more at any given time. But 75 of respondents say they have used more of the streaming Services Since covid19 and the outbreak and quarantines that are being involved but also 50 have cut the cord as well on some of these str