Stability in washington and any hint i mean, any hint that the growth agenda could get done. And perhaps overshadowing, pun intended, all those headlines today, the Solar Eclipse. Many are wait what many millions are waiting what many are calling a once in a lifetime event. Varney Company Begins right now. Ashley we begin with sad news this morning, the search continuing for ten u. S. Sailors missing after an Early Morning collision between a Navy Destroyer and a tanker or near singapore. What on earth is going on. Whats the latest . Yeah, search and rescue underway. It happened east of singapore. It hit an oil and chemical tanker three times its size. So basically this is the second serious collision in about a month. The uss fitzgerald collided with a freighter off the coast of japan, seven sailors dead there. Sailors are being evacuatedded, and so the search is on right now for the ten missing, five injured as well. Ashley all right, thank you very much. Lets bring in colonel ralph peters, hes here. Great to have you as always. My question is we have this Amazing Technology on our military, you know, on our navy ships. Here we have a destroyer thats pretty nimble. Why does this keep happening . Well, the obvious conclusion is the officers on the bridge and the seamen dont have basic navigation skills. They dont, no longer are drilled in basic seamanship. They dont have the discipline they should. I mean, i love the u. S. Navy. Its vital to our national defense. But its in a bad way right now. Of its coming off the corruption scandals, you had the horrific behavior of the sailors who were grabbed by iran without a fight. Ashley yes. But i think theyre one of parts of this problem, part of it is fundamental. Those soldiers, sorry, those sailors did not have the basic seamanship skills. But by god, they got their sensitivity training, their Race Relations training, Sexual Harassment training. And we have for a long time but particularly under obama turned the military into a social engineering experiment. And, no, the purpose of a military is to fight. And for the navy of, boy, you cant fight if you dont have basic navigation skills. And the nonchalance, the neglect, the lack of focus that goes into an accident like this is just appalling. Ashley yeah. Twice is too much. Ashley twices in two months. Next one for you, colonel, President Trump we know now is going to address the nation tonight on u. S. Involvement in afghanistan and south asia. Question i have for you is are we going to hear about more troops going and whats your thought about that . Well, the rumor intelligence has it that well have about 3,000 more troops sent to afghanistan. And, you know, it sounds like a relatively small number, but there are three problems here. The first is that will bring up our troop level up to about 13,000. How on earth can we expect 13,000 troops to do what 140,000 u. S. And allied troops couldnt do at the peak of our commitment when the taliban was much weaker . The second problem is, you know, i understand it, but we have military leaders who have served in afghanistan, and theyve got in the emotional attachment because they saw their soldiers and marines die there, and they dont want to let go. Its the principle of some costs. Ashley are, you got to know when to stop invest anything a losing stock. Ashley so, colonel, let me stop you right there. I feel like youre saying its time to pull out. I would leave a residual force a little smaller than we have now, about 5,000, to do some fundamental training, but primarily to kill terrorists. The only reason for us to be in afghanistan today is to keep killing terrorists. But if heres the bottom line, ashley. If the people of afghanistan will not fight for their own government, why should u. S. Troops fight for it . If the afghans wont save that government, we cant save it. And by the way, were so emotionally involved in this that we cant see whats obvious. The pashtun majority in afghanistan views the taliban as the home team. Knows after 16 years weve hammered them with everything weve got, and theyre still there. People are still volunteering to fight for the taliban, and theyre not willing to die for the kabul government. If we cant i mean, its so obvious that this is an impossible situation. But at the end of the day, look, this is ugly. I have no sympathy with the taliban. Theyre a bunch of brutal, womenhating [inaudible] ing but by god, were the minutemen and theyre the red coats. Ashley it doesnt help when pakistan keeps offering safe havens. Thats true. Weve tolerated, and that was wrong. We spent well over a trillion dollars total in afghanistan. Weve had the jets, weve had the sophisticated weapons, the sophisticated intelligence. Weve given the Afghan Military equipment, weve given them training, weve poured money into the afghan government, and the taliban are still there. And i had a very high ranking general, one who i respect very much, ill leave his name out of it. Over the years, weve talked about this. He kept telling me the taliban are lousy fighters. You know what . The minutemen at concord and lexington were lousy fighters. They lost tactically in the early years of our revolution. Kept losing tactically, but we won strategically. And what the taliban are doing is losing tactically. Theyre lousy fighters compared to our troops, but theyre winning strategically, and we cant, we just cant face up to it. Ashley all right. Colonel ralph peters, stay right there. More for you in a minute on killer robots. Stay right there. Meanwhile, dow futures off the lows from earlier this morning, lots of red arrows but modestly so. The dow, s p and nasdaq all just slightly lower before we head into the trading day in about 23 minutes from now. Other news, the big shipping company agreeing to sell to totale in a 7 billion deal. Texas power distributer Encore ElectricDelivery Company for 9. 45 billion. Some big deals. By the way, that last bid tops a bid by Berkshire Hathaway that came just last month. Okay, well, white house economic adviser gary cohn looking visibly uncomfortable. Weve shown this to you many times. This was at a News Conference with the president last week when the topic shifted from infrastructure to charlottesville and pretty much stayed there. Mr. Cohn standing there wishing, looking like hed rather be anywhere else but there. The markets were rattled because they thought gary cohn may be out, and that would hurt the president s progrowth agenda. So where do we stand now between washington and the markets . Come in market watcher Keith Fitzgerald. Keith, look, the markets recovered after we learned that mr. Cohn, quote, isnt going anywhere. Is he really key to this stock rally right now . Well, heres the thing, i dont know whether hes truly key or just the perception is that hes key. Either way, traders have to make a decision right now, they have to decide which side theyre going to bet on literally and figuratively. I think he is more critical to the emotion of the market than to the substance of the market, and i think if he departs, that does, in fact, pose a significant problem for traders, and we could see the correction that we would normally to otherwise have this time of year. Yeah. Earnings season is over, were in a vacuum right now. August, september notoriously rocky on markets. Ashley doldrums. Yep. Heres the thing, if he pushes on tax cuts, gary cohn is so key for that, thats the way for the president to reconnect with with the gop and Business Leaders who have abandoned him, right . Itd be an easy win on that front. The russell 2000 is on a shinnery ride right now. Ashley lets hope. Senate majority leader mitch ever Mitch Mcconnell and rl Steve Mnuchin were at loggerheads, they appeared together in kentucky. Is this the kind of olive branch markets are looking for . Oh, thats tough to say. Give a politician a microphone, theyre always going to be there. If these guys are going to be like this, it doesnt matter, theyre still like a bunch of 5yearolds in the sand box. Americans are getting burned because these guys wont do their job. Ashley exactly right. Middle class tax cuts, we need them. Keith, stay right there. Were coming back in a little while. This is the story that everyone is talking about today, the first full Solar Eclipse in the United States since four decades, its been 99 years since it went coast to coast. Im sure youve heard of all the warnings, dont look at the eclipse without special glasses, but heres the question how much damage will you do to your eyes if you do sneak a sneak please dont, but well tell you. Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchins classmates calling on him to resign, he says hes standing by the president. And check this out, university of texas removing confederate monuments on the campus. The university called them symbols of modern White Supremacy and neonaziism. What will congressman Louie Gohmert say about all of that . Well, were going to ask him after this. Here he comes. Dont let dust and allergens get between you and lifes beautiful moments. Flonase outperforms the 1 nondrowsy allergy pill. It helps block 6 key inflammatory substances that cause symptoms. Pills block one and 6 is greater than 1. Flonase changes everything. Ashley lets take a look at the price of gold, still moving up, up 3. 40 to 1295, a bit of a safe haven play. Lets take a look at oil as well. Oil down half a percent at 48. 24. Weve been in this same range for a while now. All right, back to politics and to steve ban non. Now that he is out of the west wing of the white house, there are reports he may start leaning on the gop establishment from his perch at breitbart. Come in congressman Louie Gohmert, republican from texas. We are delighted to have him in studio, not via satellite. By the way, its great to be ed had. Ashley your reaction toll steve bannon. Hes out. What happens now . Well, steve is a real strategist, and despite all the knocks ashley did you meet with him at allsome. Oh, yeah. Numerous times. In fact, Andrew Breitbart introduced us years ago, and ive known him since then. Ashley right. Hes a strategist, hes a thinker. And, certainly, there were problems, but theyre going to miss his strategic thinking. Too much ashley why are they going to miss him when the administration up to this point has been very muddled . Yes, it has. Ashley what did he provide when he was there . Unfortunately, its been an administration thats been totally at odds. Theres been so much infighting within the administration, and i dont know that youre going to see breitbart thats going to become any more strident than they had h. I think now that steve is back at breitbart, theyll be much more focused on where he was seeing the biggest problems ashley do you think hell continue to be, quoteunquote, a loyal soldier to President Trump . To trump but not necessarily to people that are there. I mean, one of the first headline ares you saw was talking about the problems with mcmaster. So you see a little of that flare ashley also going after paul ryan and Mitch Mcconnell, saying its time for the gop leadership to kick it into high gear, lean on them. Well, they absolutely should. But if you look back before the election, paul ryan and Mitch Mcconnell were totally opposed to the things that got donald trump elected. And i told the president back in june, you are being slowwalked. We are being slowwalked. This is exactly what happened in 2005. Dennis hastert and bill frist, you know, they were kind of okay with reforming Social Security, but they really didnt want the heavy lift. They slowwalked everything. Oh, yeah, well get into it by may. And then may its, yeah, probably july or september. And, well, surely by the end of the year. Were working, were working ashley nothings happening. And then we got to january of 06, and at the annual meeting it was, okay, heres the new strategy. All you veterans know were in an evennumbered year, that means you cant do any of those big things. This year well do nothing, just eke by, save the majority which will be in jeopardy. I got up and said if you really think theres any chance of losing the majority, this has to be the year we reform Social Security, we reform the tax code, we streamline government. People will love that even in an evennumbered year. But i was in the minority, and im telling you thats the way some of our leadership is thinking again. Were going to eke by. The Freedom Caucus was begging in july, bring all 12 Appropriations Bills to the floor, well vote for them the way they are right now. The Appropriations Committee did some really tough, heavy lifting. They did a good job overall ashley but nothing happened. Were going to vote for them, and they brought four, and they said, well, we think this is a problem, and they kept back the ones that were going to be able to use as leverage to force others to vote for bad bills. Ashley let me talk about this one for you, confederate monuments being taken down nationwide in the wake of charlottesville, and i understand at the university of texas. What is your feeling on that . Well, this has been stirred up, and i think the democrats, i mean, this needs an investigation, ashley. And the president or through him, the attorney general can appoint an independent counsel. This is so political, this is being driven by forces of evil that are beyond what normal people can think about. How do you have instances of people with kkk shirts and black lives matter, you know, getting off the same bus . I mean, what ashley thats your claim, that these people no, no, its not my claim. Im telling you there are witnesses out there, at charlottesville there are witnesses that were saying, look, the barricades were with funneled so we had to face each err and become at odds. Its like the governor and the mayor, this is a strategy to make race the number one issue in 2018 and 2020. They think its their ticket back. But this is going to blow up in their face. We need an investigation as to what happened at charlottesville, who paid for the different groups to come in, who ordered the funnels of those groups together, who ordered the standby while the violence goes on, you know . Ashley all right. For heaven sake, Heather Heyer should never have been killed, this should never have been allowed to happen. And either Jeff Sessions or the president himself has got to appoint an independent counsel. Lets get to the bottom of this before these people are allowed to explode this country. Ashley all right. This is deadly serious, ashley. Ashley it is. Louie, thank you so much for being here, appreciate it. Thank you. Ashley all right. This sounds like the plot of a scifi movie. Elon musk and other leaders in the Tech Industry calling on the u. N. To impose a worldwide ban on autonomous military robots. Musk says killer robots are, quote, the greatest threat we face to civilization. More varney after this. Parodontax, the toothpaste that helps prevent bleeding gums. If you spit blood when you brush or floss you may have gum problems and could be on the journey to much worse. Help stop the journey of gum disease. Try parodontax toothpaste. 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Ashley tesla chief elon musk among a group of 116 founders of robotics and Artificial Intelligence companies who are calling on the United Nations to ban killer robots. Colonel ralph peters sticking around with us. As a military man, what do you say about that, colonel . The first thing i say, i admire elon musk. Hes really the spirit of american entrepreneurship. Youve got to be clear, hes not talking about right now and robots th