MARIA-03
Growth Slower than Expected; Travel Stocks Down Following Brussels Attacks - Part 1>
Ling Kent>
Jeff Flock, Scott Keogh>
Industry; Belgium; Donald Trump; Ted Cruz; Jeb Bush; U.S. State Department;
Mason Wells; Barack Obama; Hillary Clinton; Arizona >
MARIA BARTIROMO, FBN ANCHOR: Not known yet -- in Brussels, there have been conflicting reports this morning on exactly who was arrested.
If you're just joining us this morning, what we know, someone has been detained in Brussels, his identity, not known yet.
Earlier, a local Brussels newspaper reported that a person arrested was in fact that third attacker in the picture.
Local police and prosecutors will be providing an update momentarily and we will bring you that live once we find out who in fact has been arrested.
Our other top story this morning, the results are in from Arizona and Utah last night.
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton extending their leads with the victories in Arizona.
Senator Ted Cruz beating Trump in the Utah caucus, securing that state's 40 delegates.
Who's also secured the endorsement of former presidential candidate and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush this morning.
Big endorsement from Jeb Bush to Ted Cruz today, I will ask Senator Cruz about that endorsement coming up in the program when he joins me live.
Turning to markets this morning, Asia finished the day mostly lower, investors pulled back in the wake of the terrorists attack and ahead of the Easter holiday in a long weekend for markets coming up.
In Europe, markets are open and higher today. In fact, you've got gains of between a half of a percent to better than 1 percent in the Eurozone this morning.
In the U.S., Futures are searching for direction although we are expecting a fractionally better opening for the broader averages.
Dow Industrials expected to open up about six points, Nasdaq, S&P also fractionally moving.
That's after yesterday's performance. The Dow snapping a 7-day-winning streak yesterday.
Joining me all morning to break it down, Fox Business Network's Dagen McDowell, Rhino Trading Partners Michael Block and Fox News legal analyst Arthur Aidala.
We have some amazing guests this morning and really learned a lot.
ARTHUR AIDALA, LAWYER: Truly --
DAGEN MCDOWELL, FOX BUSINESS: Unbelievable, OK. I always love hearing from Speaker Gingrich because he has just such a history and a vision of what's going on in politics.
But Jim Kallstrom, Eric Trump, you name it, and --
BARTIROMO: Yes --
MCDOWELL: You got more coming up --
BARTIROMO: And we --
(CROSSTALK)
Ted Cruz coming up as well. Our top story --
MICHAEL BLOCK, CHIEF STRATEGIST, RHINO TRADING PARTNERS: There's no other place to be in the morning than MORNINGS WITH MARIA --
BARTIROMO: That's right --
BLOCK: Don't you agree, Dagen?
AIDALA: Yes --
MCDOWELL: Absolutely --
BARTIROMO: That is right.
BLOCK: Thank you --
BARTIROMO: Our top story right now, there's reported arrest in Brussels. There have been conflicting reports this morning on exactly who was arrested.
Now, what we know is someone has been detained, the identity is not known. Earlier, a local newspaper reported that the person arrested was the third attacker.
That's the gentleman on the right side of your screen right there, wearing white and a hat.
Local police and prosecutors will be providing an update momentarily, we will bring you that update from Brussels prosecutors coming up live, so stay with us on that.
Joining me right now is former CIA Director James Woolsey, Mr. Director, good to see you, thanks so much for joining us.
JAMES WOOLSEY, NATIONAL SECURITY SPECIALIST & FORMER DIRECTOR, CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY: Good to be with you, Maria.
BARTIROMO: First, let me get your take on this investigation going on in terms of these three bombers, two suicide bombers.
What do you believe is the most important focus for the authorities right now in terms of finding out whether more attacks are on the way or who else is involved?
Where will they zero in? --
WOOLSEY: Well, question those who did not vote themselves up of which there may be a couple.
And further investigations in these Muslim suburbs of Brussels like Maelbeek and there are a couple of others.
That appears to have been what was successful because young men in Europe and to some extent as we know in the United States for example, in California, have gotten recruited either through the media or through themselves to become suicide bombers and to sign on to that set of beliefs.
BARTIROMO: Let me -- let me ask you about those areas because this seems to be really where everyone is zeroing in right now these areas throughout Europe, certainly throughout Brussels we know that.
Where they obviously are practicing Sharia law, but more than that, they're walking around in plain sight.
Even the police are afraid to go into these areas. What needs to be done and how come we haven't done more if in fact we knew where the terrorists were hanging out.
WOOLSEY: Well, we are much better than the Europeans at assimilating people from all sorts of different cultures and religions and backgrounds.
And we tend not to have these types of neighborhoods in the U.S., not nearly the greed that they have them in Europe anyway.
And as a result of that, we have a harder time I would think finding exactly what areas to go through with the thoroughness for example that the Belgians took them a long time but they did get it done.
Went through Maelbeek, ended up finding one of the -- at least one of the terrorists in a general search of houses and finding fingerprints and so forth.
So, the main point is that we can't just play defense here. You're not going to win a hockey game if you have only a goalie, even if he's a great goalie.
We have to go to where the terrorists are being generated and that means their ideas and that means the Middle East.
We have to win in the Middle East over ISIS. And people are not wanting to hear that because they're tired of fighting in the Middle East.
But that's in part because we've been fighting in a kind of Hattie-Katie way, we haven't been trying to win.
BARTIROMO: So, how do you win?
WOOLSEY: Well, probably we have to first put together a dedicated coalition which we would be willing to lead of the number of moderates in these states such as Jordan and Egypt and others.
We need to go into the heartland along with the Kurds of where the ISIS is operating in Iraq and Syria particularly.
We probably need a substantial number of special forces, not so much because it's American boots on the ground in the terms of the main military forces being used.
That would presumably, principally come from the Kurds and our allies that I described. But we do have to have plenty of people who are there as artillery and air attack observers and targeters.
We need to have trainers, we need to do this right, we know how to fight. What we haven't been doing is getting orders to do so.
BLOCK: You know, Mr. Woolsey getting back to Europe for a moment here. You know, clearly, there's been some sort of failure.
You mentioned these neighborhoods within the EU and typically talk about Brussels that have been these hot beds for radical Islamism.
Well, does affect Belgium, but it's also affecting American interests, American nationals.
WOOLSEY: Sure --
BLOCK: What are the American security personnel doing directly to sort of saying, you know what? You're not fixing this problem.
Maybe you need our help -- how are they getting involved here? What's really happening?
WOOLSEY: I think we're going to have to leave a good deal of fixing of the neighborhoods to our European friends and our contribution would I think substantially be military with airpower especially and special forces and the like.
This is -- this arrangement they have with these suburbs that they produce all these terrorists is really not something we can do a lot to change.
It's part of the fact that they don't assimilate the way we do in Europe. And we're not perfect at this.
But there're really rough neighborhoods in United States, too. Of course, but generally speaking, people come to the United States because they want to be Americans, they want to be part of this country and its culture.
And in Europe, that's often not the case. They are into the multicultural business and they don't press people to become true believing --
BARTIROMO: Right --
WOOLSEY: As the Frenchmen or whatever, they don't do that.
BARTIROMO: Sir, good to have you on the program, Mr. Woolsey, thank you so much for joining us.
WOOLSEY: It's good to be with you, Maria.
BARTIROMO: We will see you soon, James Woolsey joining us there. Straight ahead, Senator Ted Cruz will be here live. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BARTIROMO: Welcome back. Our top story this morning, politics and the primaries.
Yesterday, Donald Trump with a big victory in Arizona last night pulling in just over 47 percent of the vote in the winner-take-all state, nearly doubling Ted Cruz's total there.
Cruz fairing much better in Utah, he brought in nearly 70 percent of the votes, awarding him all 40 of the available delegates in Utah.
Donald Trump now has 739 delegates to Senator Ted Cruz's 465 and John Kasich's 143. Joining me right now is Republican presidential candidate and Texas Senator Ted Cruz.
Senator, good to see you, thank you so much for joining us this morning.
SEN. TED CRUZ (R), TEXAS: Good morning Maria, thank you for having me.
BARTIROMO: Congratulations on Utah, let me get your thoughts and you characterize what you saw last night.
CRUZ: Well, last night was a terrific victory. You know, in Utah, we had been hoping to break 50 percent, at 50 percent you get all of the delegates.
And we ended up blowing past that. We saw a landslide victory, 69 percent, nearly 70 percent of the vote.
And I think it's really indicative of what we're seeing nationwide, which is, we are seeing Republicans uniting behind our campaign.
Utah was now the 10th state across the country where we've beaten Donald Trump, and we are the only campaign that has beaten Donald Trump over and over again.
And that has a clear path to beating him, winning the nomination and going forward and defeating Hillary Clinton.
BARTIROMO: I want to ask you more about that clear path --
CRUZ: Yes --
BARTIROMO: Because I know Wisconsin is coming up --
CRUZ: Yes --
BARTIROMO: And that's really --
CRUZ: Yes --
BARTIROMO: An important one for you.
BLOCK: Pretty --
BARTIROMO: But this morning you got some big news from Jeb Bush.
CRUZ: Yes --
BARTIROMO: An endorsement from Jeb Bush, how important was the former governor of Florida endorsing you?
CRUZ: Well, tremendously important. Governor Bush is a good man, and I'm very grateful for his endorsement.
And I think his endorsement is indicative of what we're seeing, which is Republicans unifying, coming together.
You know, in the last 10 days, our campaign has been supported by Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney, Mike Lee and Mark Levin.
Now, you want to talk about a broad ideological spectrum runs, the entire gamut across the Republican spectrum.
And what we're seeing is, you know, 65 to 70 percent of Republicans nationwide recognize Donald Trump is not the best candidate to go head-to- head against Hillary Clinton.
That Donald losses to Hillary and I beat Hillary. And that's why we're seeing Republicans coming together and unifying, it's what led to our landslide victory in Utah and it's what puts us in a very strong position going forward.
BARTIROMO: And of course, the issue around immigration has been --
CRUZ: Yes --
BARTIROMO: So critical. I want to turn to Brussels for a moment --
CRUZ: Yes --
BARTIROMO: Because we're following reports this morning that someone involved in yesterday's bombing has been arrested.
CRUZ: Yes --
BARTIROMO: We don't know if it's that third individual --
CRUZ: Right --
BARTIROMO: That was walking around carts in the airport yesterday. But there were reports that this bomber in the video that he was captured first and those reports were retracted.
Your thoughts on this investigation so far, and how they are approaching --
CRUZ: Sure --
BARTIROMO: Taking down the individuals --
CRUZ: Well, you know, I will say all of us, our thoughts and prayers are with those who were murdered, those who were wounded in this terrorist attack in Brussels.
And especially with the three Americans, the Mormon missionaries who were wounded in this attack.
And I think this attack really underscores the threat we face from radical Islamic terrorism.
This was not a lone wolf, it was not an isolated attack. We are facing global Jihad from ISIS and radical Islamic terrorism.
And I think people across this country are fed up with President Obama and Hillary Clinton and the modern Democratic Party that is so captive to political correctness.
That they won't even say the words radical Islamic terrorism, indeed, following the Paris attacks, following San Bernardino, President Obama predictively goes on television and lectures Americans on Islamophobia.
We need a commander-in-chief whose first priority is keeping America safe. If I am commander-in-chief, we will utterly destroy ISIS.
We're going to defeat radical Islamic terrorism and we're going to end this ostrich head-in-the-sand political correctness that refuses to acknowledge our enemy.
To identify or do what's necessary to defeat it.
BARTIROMO: And it's the approach that --
CRUZ: Yes --
BARTIROMO: Really is being debated. So, you had some comments yesterday - -
CRUZ: Yes --
BARTIROMO: That were criticized, I want to get to those comments --
CRUZ: Sure --
BARTIROMO: It's because there's a debate about it.
CRUZ: Yes --
BARTIROMO: You said that it's time for law enforcements to "patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized."
People had a problem with that. Patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods. As if saying all Muslims are radical.
CRUZ: We need to use proactive policing, and we need to use national security and intelligence assets to stop radical Islamic terrorism.
And you know, if you look at the city of New York under Mayor Bloomberg, had a program that worked actively cooperatively with the Muslim community to go in and prevent radicalization and to identify and stop radical Islamic terrorists plots before they're carried out.
Now, Mayor de Blasio in a predictable act of political correctness canceled that program.
BARTIROMO: He takes the police out of these areas --
CRUZ: Yes --
BARTIROMO: And out of the Mosques.
CRUZ: And you're not benefiting anybody by refusing to acknowledge what you're facing. We need to be combating it.
You know, to use an analogy, if you're concerned about gang violence, you naturally direct law enforcement resources to neighborhoods communities where there's a high prevalence of gang violence.
And you go into the communities, you work with the communities to take the gang members off the street.
And I would note, the victims of gang violence are the citizens of those communities.
They're often African-Americans or Hispanics who are -- who are victimized, who were assaulted, who were murdered by gang violence.
Likewise, if you look at Muslim communities --
BARTIROMO: Yes --
CRUZ: Radical Islamic terrorists, they don't just murder Christians and Jews, they murder fellow Muslims as well.
And we need to stop ignoring the problem, stop justifying the problem, we need to focus on Islamism.
Islamism is a political and theocratic philosophy that commands its adherence to murder infidels which they define as everybody else --
BARTIROMO: Right --
CRUZ: Or violently convert them and subject them to Sharia law. And we need a focused and direct approach from law enforcement, from national security and the military.
And especially ISIS. As long as ISIS continues to thrive, these attacks will continue and grow and we'll see more attacks in America.
BARTIROMO: Differentiate your position from Donald Trump's position --
CRUZ: Yes --
BARTIROMO: Because I feel like when Donald Trump first called --
CRUZ: Yes --
BARTIROMO: For a temporary ban on Muslims from entering the United States, everybody looked at him and said this guy is nuts.
You can't ban all Muslims. And then yesterday you said, you know, we need to immediately halt the flow of refugees from countries with a significant al Qaeda or ISIS --
CRUZ: Right --
BARTIROMO: Presence. I feel like now most people are agreeing with what - -
CRUZ: Yes --
BARTIROMO: Donald Trump said initially.
CRUZ: Well, you know, Donald uses a lot of hot and angry rhetoric. Donald's approach to every problem is to yell and scream and curse.
But he doesn't actually have real solutions to fixing the problems. So, for example, Donald has said multiple times, that he intends if he were president to be neutral between Israel and the Palestinians.
Now, that statement reflects an astonishing lack of understanding. That Israel and the Palestinians are not the same situation.
If you look at the radical Islamic terrorists in Hamas that are part of the Palestinian authority in a unity government, they are murdering citizens and no one who understands the situation wants to be neutral between the IDF forces that are protecting innocent citizens in Israel.
And the terrorists who are celebrating, who are inciting violence, who are compensating the terrorists, likewise.
You know, two days ago, Donald Trump called for effectively America withdrawing from NATO.
One day later, we saw this Brussels attack obviously where NATO is headquartered. Withdrawing from NATO would be a catastrophic mistake.
It would hand Putin a massive victory. It would hand ISIS a massive victory. And Donald's foreign policy is a foreign policy of weakness and isolationism withdrawing from the world.
We need to be standing with our friends in Europe, we need to be standing with Israel, not withdrawing and showing weakness.
And Donald, you know, it is striking that --
BARTIROMO: Yes --
CRUZ: Donald's foreign policy is to the left of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Even they don't advocate withdrawing from NATO, and yet Obama wants -- Trump wants to essentially preemptively surrender.
BARTIROMO: Yes, I'm glad you mentioned that, I was going to bring it up because his comments yesterday are being really --
CRUZ: Yes --
BARTIROMO: Debated and criticized --
CRUZ: Yes --
BARTIROMO: As well On NATO. Let me ask you about this fight with you and Donald Trump over the wives.
I mean, what is this all about? A Super PAC that supports your campaign --
CRUZ: Yes --
BARTIROMO: Initially posted this picture of Donald Trump's wife Melania, and he got very upset by that.
And Donald Trump responded.
CRUZ: Yes --
BARTIROMO: There is the Melania tweet, I mean, Melania picture from a Super PAC.
And Donald Trump is saying on Twitter, "be careful Ted or I will spill the beans on your wife."
Then he said if you try to attack -- Heidi, you are more a coward than I thought -- you said that in response.
What is he trying to say about your wife?
CRUZ: Well, look, first of all, the group that sent out that tweet about Donald's wife is not our Super PAC, I don't know the people, we have no connection with the --
BARTIROMO: And you take control of --
CRUZ: No, we can't control them. And I never had conversations as far as I know, and no one in my team has ever had a conversation with them.
They're totally separate. It's not -- we do have Super PACs supporting us, that's not one of them.
It's totally separate and unrelated to us. But you know, Donald's approach when he's scared, when he's threatened, when he's rattled.
He inevitably starts yelling and screaming and insulting people and often cursing. And Donald is a bully. That's how he approaches people.
So, he immediately threatened my wife. I got to say Heidi is the daughter of Christian missionaries.
She lived in Africa as a little girl. Heidi is my best friend in the whole world, she's an incredible mom.
And I would say to Donald Trump, if you want a character fight, stick with me because Heidi is way out of your league.
BARTIROMO: She's lovely and we've had her on the show --
CRUZ: Yes --
BARTIROMO: And we send her our best. Your tax plan -- got to talk about - -
CRUZ: Yes --
BARTIROMO: The economy for a moment because Art Laffer says it's the best tax plan --
CRUZ: Yes --
BARTIROMO: Out there. Why does lower taxes create jobs? What's the 411 on your tax plan?
CRUZ: Well, look, the simple cause and effect. If you want economic growth, small businesses are the heart of our economy.
Two-thirds of all new jobs come from small businesses. When you do what we've done in the last seven years, when you hammer small businesses with taxes and regulation, you get the stagnation and misery and malaise we've seen.
On the alternative, when you lift the burdens on small businesses, when you lift the taxes, when you lift the regulations, you see incredible economic growth.
Now, my tax plan is a simple flat tax. So, for a typical family of four, first $36,000 you earn, you pay nothing.
No income tax, no payroll tax, no nothing. Above $36,000, everyone pays the same simple flat 10 percent, no longer do you have hedge fund billionaires paying a lower effective tax rates than their secretaries.
Everyone pays the same. You fill out your taxes on a postcard. And we actually have the postcard on our website tedcruz.org, and you see the real postcard.
(LAUGHTER)
And when we do that, we abolish the IRS. On the business side, we eliminate the corporate income tax.
We eliminate the payroll tax, we eliminate the Obamacare taxes, we eliminate the death tax.
BARTIROMO: Right.
CRUZ: Replace all of them with a simple 16 percent business flat tax, that's fair and uniform.
The effect of this will be to produce nearly 5 million jobs to raise wages for everyone, to produce economic growth.
And economic growth is the key to solving every other problem we've got.
BARTIROMO: That was great analysis, but we got to jump to Europe and a press --
CRUZ: Yes --
BARTIROMO: Conference, but Wisconsin super important for you.
CRUZ: Tremendously --
BARTIROMO: How are you feeling ahead of Wisconsin, and does that lead --
CRUZ: Yes --
BARTIROMO: To your contested convention which is what you need.
CRUZ: Well, Wisconsin is in two weeks, I'm flying to Wisconsin today. We got great support on the ground.
And actually our first path is to win 1,237 delegates before the convention. And we've got a direct path to doing so.
Yesterday's win in Utah was a big step, and as long as Republicans continue to unite behind our campaign, we will beat Donald Trump either by getting 1,237 before the convention, or if both of us come into the convention with a bunch of delegates short of 1,237, we win by continuing to unite Republicans.
Because Donald Trump loses to Hillary Clinton and I beat Hillary?
BARTIROMO: Senator, good to have you on the program --
CRUZ: Thank you, Maria --
BARTIROMO: We'll be watching the path.
CRUZ: Excellent.
BARTIROMO: Senator Ted Cruz joining us. Breaking news -- local police prosecutors writing an update on the Brussels attacks. Let's listen in.
We were watching because you got to get to "FOX & FRIENDS" --
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BARTIROMO: Thank you, captain.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stand by --
BARTIROMO: Thank you.
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BARTIROMO: We are listening to a Belgium press conference as you can see. Officials are providing an update on the Brussels terrorist attack.
We are listening to find out exactly who was arrested and whether or not it was that third individual we are seeing in those pictures.
We've got a lot to come and a lot of breaking news this morning, stay with us. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton sweeping the winner-take-all Arizona primaries last night.
Bernie Sanders pulling off victories in Utah and Idaho. We head to Tempe, Arizona, next live after this break. Back in a minute, we're looking at voter turnout.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BARTIROMO: Welcome back, breaking news. Belgium's main airport will remain closed until at least tomorrow night following the terrorists attacks in Brussels.
A massive manhunt for a suspect is underway for those responsible for yesterday's tragic events which killed 31 people and injured at least 270 others.
Cheryl Casone with the latest and the morning's headlines, Cheryl.
CHERYL CASONE, FOX BUSINESS: And Maria, we've been monitoring that press conference coming out of Brussels.
We are now learning that Belgium federal prosecutors say that police found the Brussels suicide bombers Will on a computer.
Now, Belgium police are searching for the man that was seen with two suspected bombers at the Brussels airport.
You're seeing the photo now. Earlier, there had been reports that Belgium media has said that the man was arrested, but now we're getting word that that arrest has reportedly been withdrawn.
So, that is not the case. All of this happening as a back drop to the U.S. State Department who is now warning Americans that are in Europe right now to avoid crowded places and also to exercise extra caution.
There are the two brothers for you as well. Now, here is the travel alert, here is what it says.
"Terrorists groups continue to plan near-term attacks throughout Europe, targeting sporting events, tourist sites, restaurants and transportation."
Meanwhile, the family of an American injured in the attacks is saying this is the third time that his -- the 19-year-old, and there he is, has had a connection to a terrorist attack.
This is Mason Wells, he was a block away from the finish line during the Boston Marathon bombing.
He was in France during the Paris attacks, Maria, and now he was in Brussels. Wanted to get that story to you.
And finally, we will leave you with this. President Obama is continuing on with his full day today in Argentina and he did this yesterday in Cuba.
He only used about 50 seconds of his message to the Cuban people to address the Belgium terrorists attacks. Listen.
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BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The thoughts and the prayers of the American people are with the people of Belgium and we stand in solidarity with them in condemning these outrageous attacks against innocent people.
We will do whatever is necessary to support our friend and ally Belgium in bringing to justice those who are responsible.
And this is yet another reminder that the world must unite.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CASONE: All right, well, the President's statements broadcast live on local television and foreign media to over 50 countries.
