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March 9, 2020 - The Ben Shapiro Show

53:05

Coronapanic | Ep. 967

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	Coronavirus spreads as the stock market tanks, the Trump administration calls for calm as panic accelerates, and Bernie Sanders struggles to stop Joe Biden's momentum.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
	This show is sponsored by ExpressVPN's Stop putting your online data at risk.
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	Get protected at expressvpn.com slash Ben.
	Well, you may have noticed this morning that the stock market took an absolute beating, an absolute pounding.
	It's been taking a pounding for the last week over coronavirus, over Saudi oil war.
	We'll get to all of that in a second.
	But this might be a good time to think about, hey, maybe I should invest in something solid, something real, maybe something like precious metals.
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	All right.
	So, feeling the panic?
	Are you?
	Everybody is feeling a little bit panicked after the last week and a half.
	And it is important to note that what is happening right now is based on shortage of information.
	That's really all that's happening.
	We don't know death rates.
	We don't know infection rates when it comes to coronavirus.
	And this is leading people I think reasonably to be very afraid.
	Now, I think that panic and doing things that make no sense, like stocking up on vast quantities of toilet paper or going out and buying medical masks, like stuff that's ineffective, going out and buying water bottles.
	Guys, there's not going to be a cutoff in your water supply.
	You're going to be able to turn on your tap.
	Water is going to come out.
	You know, that kind of stuff is very silly.
	With that said, a discombobulated global response and a patchwork response from various local communities.
	I mean, L.A.
	had an L.A.
	Marathon yesterday.
	At the same time, you're seeing Democrats in the United States claim that President Trump is botching the response and he should be doing more.
	You have Democrat cities like Seattle.
	Seattle had Comic-Con, like, last weekend with 100,000 people in an outbreak center.
	The L.A.
	Marathon took place yesterday in Los Angeles with, like, tens of thousands of people running around together.
	Okay, so there's been no coordinated response.
	People don't know what the rules of the road are.
	People don't know how dangerous coronavirus actually is.
	We don't know how many people are dying.
	I've suggested that we can kind of look at the stats and determine that it's not a grave threat to people, particularly who are very young.
	There have been no reported deaths of kids under the age of nine.
	The death rates tend to go up fairly precipitously once you hit the age of 60.
	Once you hit the age of 80, they go up really precipitously.
	If you have a secondary health condition or if you are elderly, Then coronavirus is a real threat.
	This is particularly true if you're in a nursing home where it's very easy to transmit coronavirus and where, again, you have a very vulnerable patient population.
	But because we are watching these very outsized responses, which may or may not be a good idea in places like Italy, in places like China, in places like Israel.
	We look at other countries and we see that they're taking these very outsized responses.
	It's difficult to make the claim that a global panic Over coronavirus is driven by President Trump.
	So the media today are trying to blame President Trump for everything that is going on.
	President Trump is not helping the situation by being not a supremely, I would say, placid leader.
	You know, in these times, having the President of the United States online tweeting about media coverage of coronavirus is really not useful.
	You want a calming presence in the Oval Office, somebody who feels like there's a plan, somebody who feels like they're in control.
	And honestly, on a political level, The president is making a fairly large mistake politically in not overreacting.
	What I mean by that is when people are feeling a real threat, going out there and being like, everything's fine.
	Our response is perfect.
	The vaccine's in development.
	Everything's good.
	Our testing procedures were great.
	Our testing procedures were not great in the initial stages.
	The tests failed.
	One of the reasons we have a panic on our hands in the United States is because people don't have any access to information.
	The fact is that because a lot of the early coronavirus testing gets failed, we don't know who has coronavirus and who does not in the United States, which is why we've ended up with this sort of bizarre, miasmatic feeling that anybody could have it, when in reality, very few people in the United States have actually been diagnosed with coronavirus.
	With all that said, this would be a time, as we're going to discuss in a little while, for the President of the United States and Congress to seriously consider measures like trying to coordinate a federal, state, and local response in terms of event planning.
	What size of events should go forward?
	What should the state not allow to go forward in terms of size of event?
	And you're seeing a lot of local communities taking the lead in all of this.
	I'm most aware of my local Jewish community.
	I know that major Purim events, right?
	Tonight is Purim, which is a major Jewish gathering, big parties happening all over the world.
	I know that in the Jewish community in Los Angeles, major events are being canceled, like Purim carnivals are being canceled.
	I know that at schools, local Jewish schools, they're now testing kids who are walking in the door.
	They're giving them temperature tests, and if they are above a certain temperature, they're sending them home for whatever good that is.
	So people on the local level across the country are taking voluntary steps to try and mitigate the effects of this virus.
	Obviously, best advice is still best advice.
	If you gotta cough, cough into your sleeve, cough into a napkin.
	If you gotta touch your face, try not to touch your eyes, try not to touch your mouth, try not to touch your nose.
	I know it's difficult.
	If you're gonna, you should be washing your hands as much as possible, especially after you go to the restroom.
	You should do that anyway.
	But when you go to a new place, when you go to work, first thing you should do, you should go wash your hands.
	You should sing yourself happy birthday twice.
	Not the Stevie Wonder version.
	That'll take you like 14 minutes.
	Like the actual short version of happy birthday.
	You sing the ABC song to yourself.
	These are all the pieces of advice that everybody is giving and they are good pieces of advice.
	Social distancing is something that people are taking into account at this point, which frankly I'm comfortable with.
	I don't like being within a certain, Within a certain distance of other human beings so you know being within try to be without outside of like two and a half feet three feet of somebody handshaking apparently is bad because you can transmit germs that way instead go for like a fist bump or an elbow bump or something if you're gonna greet sorry these are all the steps that we can take but in the absence of information it's hard not to feel panic because the normal human response to lack of information is obviously going to be fear and protection right the amygdala the fear center of your brain is gonna respond and when the media coverage is so blanket this way
	It is very difficult not to feel caught up in it.
	And that's what you're seeing in the markets today.
	If the media during flu season covered flu wall-to-wall, if all you got during flu season was flu outbreak here, flu outbreak there, here's how many people in the United States are dying today, here's how many people worldwide are dying, we would be panicked every year about the flu.
	Now, by all available information, coronavirus is more deadly than the flu.
	The question is by what multiple?
	So is it a multiple of 10?
	Is it a multiple of 20?
	Is it a multiple of 4?
	We don't really know at this point, but suffice it to say that the media attention combined with lack of information and repetition of the same Conflicting information over and over is making people feel very uneasy.
	This is being reflected in the market.
	So this morning, the stock futures had already dumped over the weekend, and finally that materialized.
	The early morning trading, the S&P 500 sank 7% shortly after opening.
	The Dow Jones Industrial Average crated as much as 2,000 points before it clawed back a little bit.
	The Dow actually had to be shut down.
	I mean, they shut down the Dow for 15 minutes.
	They shut down the stock market for 15 minutes to allow people to sort of regain their bearings with reality.
	The stock market has basically stayed the same since then.
	It dropped briefly.
	The early morning trading, over the weekend, the Dow Jones Industrial Average About basically 25,000.
	It was at 24,992.36.
	It dumped immediately, like in the opening minutes, all the way down to below 24,000.
	So it dumped 2,000 points in the opening minutes of the stock market.
	It paused for 15 minutes, it dumped a little bit more, and then there was sort of a slight recovery.
	It would not be a shock if by the end of the day there was another dump, because the bottom line is that people who are investing in short-term trading are not looking at this market and feeling that the market is being quieted.
	According to the Washington Post, the forced freeze was a sign of unprecedented volatility for Wall Street.
	Amid the most turbulent trading in recent memory, another 15-minute halt will be triggered if the S&P 500's losses hit the 13% threshold.
	In the event of a 20% decline, markets would actually shut down for the entire day.
	Now that is speculative, that the markets would dump that much, that there'd be that much of a dump.
	Now listen, here's the reality.
	If you are investing over the long haul, that's actually a fantastic time to buy.
	But over the long haul, not over the short haul, not for the next year, not for the next six months.
	If you're investing over the next 30 years, now's a great time to buy, right?
	You got a little bit of a market discount.
	But if you are investing over the next two years or five years, anybody who tells you they know what's going to happen over the next year is lying to you.
	Nobody knows what's going to happen over the next year because nobody has enough information about coronavirus, the disruption of global supply lines, whether this thing is actually being mitigated in China or the reports are just going down, whether there are secondary infections available.
	Now there are rumors.
	That COVID-19 actually has two strains, and that one strain is less deadly, and there's a second strain that's more deadly, and you can be reinfected.
	We just don't know enough at this point, which is what you are seeing in the markets, and the fact that there is no credible, globally-coordinated response to this thing, and all you see are headlines about 15 million Italians being quarantined.
	That sort of stuff is going to make people pretty damned uneasy.
	Greg McBride, the chief financial analyst at Bankrate, said the bull market's 11-year birthday is today, but investors are not in a celebratory mood, with trading halted shortly after the open as markets plunged.
	The uncertain economic impact of coronavirus continues to grip markets, with stocks, commodities, and interest rates all dropping sharply.
	Markets hate uncertainty.
	There's a ton of it currently in play.
	That, of course, is exactly right.
	I mean, the fact is that airlines, I got two emails from separate airlines this morning.
	I'm sure all the airlines sent emails this morning about what they are doing about coronavirus, pledging to bleach the entire insides of planes, basically.
	They've used the bleach typically overnight in the lavatories, but now they're talking about bleaching entire planes.
	They talk about the sort of air recirculation they've been using on planes, the filters they've been using on planes to get coronavirus out of the air, if God forbid somebody on the planes has coronavirus, the sort of testing protocols they have in place.
	for fever and all the rest of this sort of stuff.
	The travel industry is taking a bath, just taking an absolute bath, right?
	The US government has already recommended that nobody go on a cruise.
	So that means that the cruise industry is basically shut down.
	The airline industry is basically going to shut down over the next several weeks.
	You're going to see people canceling trips en masse.
	I would be very surprised if over the next few months, you don't see the cancellation of, maybe over the next couple of weeks, of major sporting events because of local concerns about the spread of coronavirus.
	The economy is going to grind to a halt.
	And the question is going to be how long the economy grinds to a halt for.
	Which sectors of the economy are hardest hit?
	Now, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 dumping, part of that also has to do With a major oil war that is going on between the Saudis and the Russians.
	So the commodities market is taking a dump.
	People are rushing to treasuries, but the problem is that as you rush to treasuries and the interest rates go down, that is not actually spurring people to borrow money from the government.
	The government, the Fed, has been lowering its rate, lowering its rate, lowering its rate.
	Who wants to expand their business in the middle of what could be a prolonged recession?
	We'll get to more of this in just one second.
	Again, none of this is to spread panic because I keep saying, Like, we just don't know enough to panic at this point, but it is to say that there is justifiable concern today, and unless we see more information emerge relatively soon from the state, local, and federal government, unless we start seeing some real answers as to these rates, This uncertainty is going to prevail.
	And that's not unreasonable.
	It's not unreasonable for uncertainty to prevail.
	Again, this doesn't mean go panic buy everything off the shelves at Costco.
	It doesn't mean that everyone around you is going to get coronavirus.
	Your risk is still relatively low.
	But to not take this seriously would be tomfoolery.
	And by the way, for all those Democrats who are saying that Republicans were calling this a hoax, that is not true.
	What Republicans were saying was a hoax is blaming this on Trump.
	This is not Trump's fault.
	It is hard to see how, given the resources at his disposal, the reaction could have been appreciably different from the federal government.
	Trump's rhetoric could have been appreciably different.
	That would have been helpful.
	But in terms of what the federal government has done and continues to do, the federal government just approved over $8 billion in coronavirus spending over the weekend.
	So I'm hard-pressed to see what Trump should be doing that he is not doing at this point, other than shut up.
	We'll get to more of this in just one second.
	First, you know, now would be a good time to buy some life insurance.
	Man, this is a dark show today.
	Really, really dark.
	But here is the reality.
	If you're a responsible human being, you should always have life insurance.
	If you've got a family, you should have life insurance.
	You never know what's going to be around the corner.
	Is it a car or is it coronavirus?
	Who the hell knows?
	But what you do know is that at some point, Something bad could happen.
	This is why you ought to have life insurance so your family is taken care of in case, God forbid, something happens to you.
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	That's PolicyGenius.com, PolicyGenius, because we'll always get the future wrong.
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	Now, the reason that I'm not speculating too much on where I think this is gonna go is because I don't think speculation is supremely useful.
	If I were to speculate, I do not think that hundreds of thousands of people in the United States have died from coronavirus.
	I do not think that you're going to see, you know, the stand.
	I don't think that's best available information.
	That's speculating on the best available information.
	But again, taking those sort of safe procedures makes some sense.
	What's happening right now is also coronavirus is having some systemic impact.
	It's basically a trigger mechanism for what Is happening in the stock market, underlying the stock market anyway.
	The European economy has been weak for years.
	The Chinese economy has been overblown for years.
	And now that supply chains are being disrupted and demand is going down, you're starting to see the economy tumble into a recession that honestly is not completely unpredictable.
	Like literally every 8 to 10 years, the United States goes into some sort of recession.
	This one is not Trump's fault.
	It really is not.
	The Fed is not going to relieve this.
	Anybody who thinks that the Federal Reserve is going to fix all of this is not telling you the truth.
	The Federal Reserve lowering interest rates is not going to jog the economy.
	People are not spending because there is too much uncertainty, because supply lines have been disrupted, because demand is going down.
	If you actually want to jog the economy right now, there are only a couple of things you can do.
	Stimulus packages, by the way, are also not going to work.
	Government spending is not going to work.
	The only thing that can be done, really, is you gotta solve the underlying issues.
	And that means get more information about coronavirus as soon as humanly possible.
	Once that happens, then things can go back to a level of stasis.
	And people in the media are saying, throw money at it.
	Stimulus packages will solve this thing.
	Stimulus packages did not solve the global recession of 2007 and 2008.
	What solved the global recession of 2007 and 2008 was basically time.
	Some of the bailouts helped, for sure, in terms of short-term recovery.
	But the stimulus package, in my opinion, did not have a markedly appreciable effect on the increase in the economy.
	In fact, government spending and increased taxation probably slowed the recovery, which is why you ended up with the most prolonged recovery in American history, because it was very slow and steady all the way till basically this point.
	But meanwhile, things are being complicated because oil prices are tumbling.
	So normally, again, when the stock market starts to tumble, people rush to invest in commodities like oil.
	But oil prices are also tumbling because the Saudis went to the Russians and they said, guys, we need to pump a little bit more.
	We need to do that in order to ease global economic tensions, global economic fears.
	We need to make it cheaper for people to go to work, cheaper for people to travel.
	And the Russians said no.
	And the Saudis said, well, fine, screw you.
	We'll just out pump you.
	And so the Saudis have been undercutting the Russian prices in terms of oil.
	Oil prices tumbled into the $30 range after Saudi Arabia and Russia deadlocked overproduction.
	The Saudis had been pushing for a cut in output to prop up prices, rather.
	Sorry, I got that wrong.
	The Saudis wanted to prop up the prices a little bit to prop up the oil industry, but did a reversal when Russia balked and decided instead to flood the market with hundreds of thousands of additional barrels per day at a steep discount.
	The Russians were attempting to undercut the American fracking industry, at least in part.
	And the Saudis were like, okay, you want to play this game?
	We'll play this game.
	And the Saudis decided to lower the oil prices fairly dramatically.
	Cheap oil is one thing, super cheap oil is another, said John Kilduff of Again Capital.
	The stock market is looking at the oil price plunge as a canary in the coal mine of a disinflationary one-two punch, driven partly by cratering demand for transportation fuels and a wanton price war among the major oil producers that could result in big losses for oil producers across the planet.
	So you are seeing a radical reduction in demand at the same time that in terms of oil, you're seeing a radical increase in supply.
	As I say, the energy industry is about to take a major hit.
	The travel industry is going to take a bath.
	Public events are going to take a major bath.
	So we're looking at some very serious issues.
	And not all of those are driven by coronavirus.
	Part of that is driven by excessive government spending in the West that has been really debt-related.
	I mean, it's easy to say that the United States should just take out debt, but who exactly is going to be buying up that debt?
	Is there tons of appetite for American debt given the slowing of the American economy?
	There's more appetite for the debt right now than there is for stock market pricing, but you really have to incentivize people to take the debt, which is why I would not be surprised to see President Trump start to push negative interest rates.
	The idea that we are going to start actually paying people to borrow from the U.S.
	government.
	And meanwhile, confusion spreads in Italy as Italy is trying to lock down 16 million people.
	This is why I say it's not about Trump.
	It is not about the United States per se.
	This is...
	A global worry issue.
	According to the Washington Post, Italy on Sunday launched a complicated and urgent plan to restrict the movement of roughly 16 million people, a measure that unleashed confusion about how it could be enforced and whether it would be enough to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
	The plan to lock down large swaths of the North was the first major attempt by a democracy during the coronavirus crisis to radically halt the routines of daily life, an effort that will have significant impact on civil liberties.
	But in the hours before and after the measure became law, people continued to stream out of the northern hubs of Milan and Venice on trains and planes for southern Italy or elsewhere in Europe.
	Sunday provided the first glimpse of a coronavirus lockdown European style, a test of how the open border spirit of the continent might change as countries grapple with the scale and risk of the disease.
	Italy is not trying to completely lockdown.
	Movement like China did.
	But even limited movement risks further spreading the virus.
	Also, countries in Europe are trying to shut their borders to one another.
	They are very much afraid that human migration is going to spread this thing.
	Now, here's a piece of good news.
	A piece of good news that the virus's spread in China is apparently slowing.
	China on Sunday announced only 40 new cases of coronavirus and 22 additional cases of deaths.
	The problem is you can never really trust the Chinese government to be honest with you about this.
	China's propaganda arm, the media in China, they've been trying to suggest that Xi Jinping did a wonderful job with this whole coronavirus thing.
	Oh yeah, you mean except for the first six weeks where you were like imprisoning everybody talking about it and preventing everybody from effectuating effective travel bans?
	Like would that be the part where you did a great job or was the part where you're welding people inside their houses?
	Daily new infections in China had dropped into double digits Friday, again according to the Washington Post, for the first time since figures began coming out in January.
	As usual, the toll in China was concentrated in Hubei province, the outbreak's epicenter.
	21 of the reported deaths were in Hubei.
	36 of the new cases were in its capital city of Wuhan.
	But even in Wuhan, Chinese officials have been signaling optimism.
	The Communist Party boss said there on Friday he would begin a citywide thankfulness education campaign to encourage people to show their appreciation for the leadership.
	Because in a commie country, you can just force people to clap, even if those leaders were responsible for the spread of death inside your country.
	China's infections total about 81,000, more than 3,100 deaths inside the country.
	There's still almost 20,000 coronavirus patients remaining in the hospital.
	5,000 of them have been deemed critical.
	So, it could be that that death toll raises dramatically, right?
	If 5,000 people are critical, let's say half of those people end up dying, God forbid, then you end up with an initial 2,500 deaths on your hands, which is a pretty massive increase in the death rate, even in Wuhan.
	Yeah, Europe is trying to figure out what to do.
	There's a lot of talk about closing borders.
	Meanwhile, the government in the United States is stepping up its coronavirus response as the U.S.
	cases top 500.
	According to the Post, governments intensified their efforts on Sunday to combat the global spread of the novel coronavirus.
	Uncertainty continued to permeate the response effort amid muddled directives from the Trump administration and reports of some patients unable to access testing.
	It is true that the testing in the United States has been incredibly lackluster.
	It has been late.
	And that's a real problem because we don't have information on the levels of spread based on the lack of testing.
	A virus-stricken cruise ship made its way to California to dock, only for Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson to decline to discuss the details of the federal response plan during a national television interview.
	We're going to get to the Trump administration response in just one second.
	Also, of course, we're going to get to the fact that Ted Cruz has self-quarantined.
	We've also seen Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona self-quarantine, which, by the way, is the responsible thing to do.
	If you think that you've been exposed to coronavirus, then you shouldn't show up to the office, Michael Moulse.
	You should probably instead stay home that day.
	In any case, we will get to more of this in just one second.
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	Okay, so the Trump administration response.
	Originally, the Trump administration was criticized for trying to run all this through Pence's office.
	Now, the fact of the matter is that the Trump administration does need to be very coordinated in its response because the markets are reacting to the Trump administration, the media are reacting to the Trump administration, and again, it is the blanket media coverage that is driving a lot of this.
	As I say, if there were blanket media coverage about the flu every year, there would be, if not a similar level of panic, because the flu ain't quite as dangerous as coronavirus by all available indicators, there would still be a significantly higher level of concern about the flu if we covered flu the same way that we cover coronavirus.
	With that said, Coronavirus did break out at CPAC.
	According to the Washington Post, a growing sense of concern and uncertainty about the reach of the novel coronavirus has begun to take hold in the White House after an attendee at a recent political conference where President Trump spoke tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.
	Trump was photographed shaking hands with Matt Schlapp, the chairman of the American Conservative Union.
	He confirmed he had been in direct contact with the infected man during CPAC.
	He also says that he feels fine.
	Meanwhile, Senator Ted Cruz apparently met the person who was affected By coronavirus at CPAC as well and released a statement saying that he briefly interacted with this person.
	He said he consulted with medical authorities from Houston Health Department, the Harris County Public Health Department, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Health and Human Services.
	And he also spoke with Vice President Pence, Leader McConnell and Mark Meadows, the new chief of staff to the president.
	He says, I'm not experiencing any symptoms.
	I feel fine and healthy.
	Given the interaction was 10 days ago that the average incubation period is five to six days.
	The interaction was less than a minute, and I have no current symptoms.
	Medical authorities have advised me that the odds of transmission were extremely low.
	But, out of an abundance of caution, because of how frequently I interact with constituents as part of my job, and to give everyone peace of mind, I've decided to remain at my home in Texas this week until a full 14 days have passed since the CPAC interaction.
	That is the smart thing to do.
	That is sort of the responsible thing to do.
	And the fact that Cruz is being criticized for that is ridiculous.
	People who are saying, well, you know, Cruz and the rest of the Republicans, they were saying that this is a hoax.
	No.
	Again, the part that everyone was saying was a hoax.
	That's the part that was a hoax.
	itself.
	What everybody was saying was a hoax was the media coverage focused on Trump as though Trump were responsible for coronavirus as opposed to the Chinese government, that the Trump administration was responsible for the stock market drop as opposed to, you know, the global economy coming to a screeching halt.
	That's the part that was a hoax.
	No, I'm not aware of anybody who suggested the coronavirus itself was a hoax.
	And again, I think everybody is, if not, you know, the panic I think is too much, but overt concern is not too much.
	And the fact is that we do have to spend more money on converting medical ICU beds, on preparing for the possibility of serious outbreak here in the United States.
	Now, with all of this said, there are experts who are sort of giving conflicting messages, and this is why it's hard to tell exactly what's going on.
	Dr. Tom Inglesby of Johns Hopkins University, he runs their public health department over there.
	He says, listen, we're actually fairly well prepared for a coronavirus outbreak here in the United States.
	We have good public health facilities.
	I was surprised to see that report.
	I didn't know it was coming.
	And it is true that the U.S., when you measure capabilities up and down in public health, health care, surveillance, the U.S.
	is better prepared than any other country.
	Okay, so that is a good thing to keep in mind.
	It is also a good thing to keep in mind.
	The U.S.
	Surgeon General says, listen, the average age of people who are dying is 80 plus.
	So yes, this is mostly dangerous to people in nursing homes.
	So if you're going to have contact with somebody in a nursing home, don't go to a public event and then go to a nursing home, right?
	Don't be a person who has a grandmother who's 90 and you talk with her every week and she comes over to your house and then you like out in public all the time.
	That's what the Surgeon General was saying and this is correct.
	We know that the average age of people who are dying from coronavirus is 80 plus.
	We know that the average age of people who are needing medical care and advanced medical care is 60 plus.
	And so what we're telling folks is that if you're in an at-risk group, meaning you're elderly and or you have comorbidities, heart disease, lung disease, you're immunosuppressed for whatever reason, that you should be taking extra precautions not to put yourself in a situation where you may be exposed.
	And that, of course, is the responsible thing to do.
	Democrats and Republicans are basically saying that the public reaction is overblown.
	Concern is warranted.
	Panic is not.
	Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York, is saying the same thing that Trump is saying.
	It's just that he's not getting blamed the same way that Trump is getting blamed.
	But just let's pause for a moment on how serious it is, because I'm afraid that the fear is actually outpacing the facts.
	And we're fighting the virus, but we're also fighting this anxiety.
	And people have to take a step back, a deep breath, and actually understand what we're looking at.
	Okay, now with that said, again, everybody is taking safety precautions.
	Princeton University in the last couple of hours issued a notice to students that people should be encouraged to stay home after spring break.
	They shouldn't even come back after spring break.
	That they should just stay home and they're gonna make sure that students can still fulfill their class requirements.
	Maybe the upside of all of this is everybody goes to online education, which wouldn't be the world's worst thing.
	I mean, not gonna make up for, obviously, the cost of all of this.
	Again, one of the problems here is that when the Trump administration responds, when President Trump responds, Because he speaks in superlatives.
	And now would be a time for measured response.
	Superlatives are not a good idea.
	So President Trump tweeted out, We have a perfectly coordinated and fine-tuned plan at the White House for our attack on coronavirus.
	We moved very early to close borders to certain areas, which was a godsend.
	VP is doing a great job.
	The fake news media is doing everything possible to make us look bad.
	Sad.
	Okay, two things can be true at once.
	The media will jump on anything they perceive Trump as doing wrong.
	They did the same thing to George W. Bush over Hurricane Katrina.
	That is 100% true.
	It is also true that suggesting that the plan is perfectly coordinated and fine-tuned in the middle of people feeling like we can't even get testing done, that is not smart politics.
	The President of the United States should convene a massive conference, video conference, so people aren't coughing on each other, all the governors, The President of the United States, the heads of HHS and Homeland Security, and they should lay out some procedures for what exactly the federal government would like to see done in terms of public events, in terms of public gatherings, in terms of testing procedures and protocols, in terms of advice to give to the public.
	The administration and states at this point should be speaking with one voice in how they deal with all of this.
	That's not just me saying this.
	Okay, that is experts on this stuff who are saying this sort of stuff.
	Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former FDA commissioner under President Trump.
	Right.
	He's taking this stuff very seriously.
	He says, listen, we're going to have to take some really serious measures here, like serious, serious measures.
	And we're going to see economic slowdown.
	We're going to see public events shut.
	Here is Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former FDA commissioner.
	By the way, nobody that doesn't mean that huge numbers of people are going to die.
	The whole point here is to mitigate the effect.
	Here is Dr. Gottlieb.
	Well, I think no state and no city wants to be the first to basically shut down their economy.
	But that's what's going to need to happen.
	States and cities are going to have to act in the interest of the national interest right now to prevent a broader epidemic.
	Shut down their economy?
	You mean?
	Close businesses, close large gatherings, close theaters, cancel events.
	I think we need to think about how do we provide assistance to the people of these cities who are going to be hit by hardship, as well as the localities themselves, to try to give them an incentive to do this.
	And again, this Scott Gottlieb should be called in by the president.
	He should help coordinate this thing.
	Right now, when we say we have to have a coordinated response, that coordinated response has to be made public because the problem is, like, Ben Carson shouldn't be on TV being asked these questions.
	So Ben Carson, who's the head of the Housing and Urban Development Department, why is he being asked about America's response, about the federal government's response to a cruise ship on which coronavirus has appeared off the coast of California?
	Ben Carson is heading the Housing Department.
	What the hell does he have to say about coronavirus outbreaks?
	Here's Ben Carson.
	The president met with the CEOs of the major cruise ship companies yesterday.
	And they are coming up with a plan within 72 hours of that meeting.
	The ship's docking tomorrow.
	The plan will be in place by that time.
	But I don't want to preview the plan right now.
	Shouldn't you be able to do that?
	I think it needs to all come from a solitary source.
	We shouldn't have 16 people saying what the plan is.
	Okay, he is correct.
	We shouldn't have 16 people saying what the plan is.
	So why is Dr. Carson being booked on this week?
	You know he's going to be asked about this stuff.
	I mean, and then the media go with, well, they don't have a plan.
	Well, maybe they do have a plan, but Ben Carson isn't the one speaking to it.
	He's the head of the Housing and Urban Development Department.
	It's like asking Betsy DeVos what the plans are for cruise ships.
	She's the head of the Education Department.
	Like, the media expect there to be a great answer here?
	There's no great answer here.
	Now again, I don't think that the Trump administration is botching this thing.
	I just think that the messaging is pretty screwed up.
	And I think that we actually need a coordinated response with an actual plan.
	And governors and states are not doing a great job either.
	Again, the city of Seattle, right?
	Jay Inslee is the governor of Washington State.
	Why exactly did Governor Inslee not shut down Comic-Con in the state of Washington, in Seattle?
	Why did the LA Marathon proceed apace in Los Angeles?
	Why are big local leaders have capacity to hear and they're not doing any of this?
	The Democrats, by the way, are also doing this routine.
	The Democrats are suggesting that President Trump is violating all norms, that there's no plan here.
	Bernie Sanders says he's going to keep going ahead with his rallies.
	Bernie Sanders has said that he's not going to stop his rallies.
	Trump says he's going to go ahead with his rallies.
	Meanwhile, universities are saying, we don't want liability of all of this.
	So with all of this mixed up information that is emerging, how do you expect people to feel super secure?
	And the person who's going to bear the brunt of that is President Trump.
	He is.
	He is the president of the United States.
	The president of the United States bears the brunt of all of this, fairly or unfairly.
	I don't think that the Trump administration has botched this in any serious way, but I do think that now it's time to up the ante.
	The president is being politically irresponsible if he does not come up with a coordinated and extremely public plan that doesn't involve him tweeting things like this within the last few hours.
	So last year, 37,000 Americans died from the common flu.
	It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year.
	Nothing is shut down.
	Life and the economy go on.
	At this moment, there are 546 confirmed cases of coronavirus with 22 deaths.
	Think about that.
	Okay, why?
	Why?
	Is that part of your coordinated response?
	Is that part of the coordinated response to go on Twitter and say this kind of stuff?
	You literally handed messaging over to Mike Pence, and now you're seizing messaging back in order to militate against me.
	Look, Trump is a counterpuncher.
	We all know this.
	This means that the media jabbing at Trump is going to elicit counterpunches from Trump, but that's not going to help Trump.
	It's not going to help people feel more secure.
	It's not going to help people feel more calm in all of this.
	Let Anthony Fauci speak about it, right?
	Dr. Fauci from the National Institute of Health.
	Like he's at least being honest about all of this stuff and he knows what he's talking about.
	First of all, he is happy to debunk media falsehoods.
	So they were saying that Dr. Fauci had been muzzled by the Trump administration.
	Dr. Fauci said, of course I'm not muzzled.
	I'm right here talking to you on CBS.
	What are you talking about?
	I think a lot of people are very interested in the relationship between the scientists and the administration.
	Right.
	And specifically, if President Trump says something at the beginning of February like, we think we have it under control, you're in the room.
	Were you able to- I pushed back, of course.
	Some people have been worried that you've been muzzled.
	I'm not muzzled because I'm talking to you.
	Exactly, you're right here.
	Okay.
	Okay, and that's true.
	Also, Fauci's honest enough to say, yeah, there were some early missteps in the testing.
	We don't have enough information at this point to make solid calls.
	Here's Fauci explaining.
	Can anybody who needs a test get a test now?
	The fact is the tests are out there.
	There was a misstep early on with regard to the test, namely a technical difficulty.
	But right now, about 1.1 million tests are out there now.
	Okay, so now he's saying we're getting this on track.
	Let Fauci talk.
	Let Fauci help set the policy.
	Let your experts set the policy.
	Trump is not reassuring anybody.
	No national address is going to do anything.
	Last time he gave a national press conference on coronavirus, the stock market tanked.
	The president needs to step aside right now.
	He needs to let Pence lead the effort.
	If Pence wants to kick it to Fauci, he should let Fauci do this.
	If he wants to kick it to Scott Gottlieb, Dr. Gottlieb, and bring him back in, let him do this.
	The dumbest thing that Trump could do right now is try and seize control of this messaging.
	It is not going to bode well for him.
	In fact, politically speaking, it's almost a perfect storm for Joe Biden.
	The reason it's almost a perfect storm for Joe Biden is a tanking economy is horrible for the incumbent president.
	Presidents do not win during a tanking economy.
	And two, If you are looking for reassurance, and the president doesn't provide it, and then Joe Biden, whose entire pitch is, back to normal, I'm gonna put together back the Obama team, you know me, I've been here for a long time, I'm your reassuring old uncle, right?
	That's actually a really good pitch for Joe Biden in the face of all of this.
	So Trump's vulnerabilities are being exposed by his response to the coronavirus.
	That doesn't mean that Trump loses the election.
	It does mean that a coordinated, serious response with coordinated, serious people is necessary.
	And by the way, there's a significant possibility that three months from now, We have more information, the fears have abated a little bit, the economy picks back up, and Trump is fine.
	But the current response from the Trump administration, and not even the administration, from Trump himself, is insufficient and very, very politically stupid.
	Very politically stupid.
	Now again, that doesn't alleviate the media from their responsibility of jumping with both feet on Trump even before he had done anything wrong.
	They were going to do that in any case.
	But just because somebody is shooting at you doesn't mean that you should put a gun to your own head and blow your face off.
	Like, that's just not a smart political strategy, as it turns out.
	Okay, we're gonna get to the 2020 race in just one second.
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	Okay, so again, as I said, this is a perfect storm for Joe Biden.
	Joe Biden was just on Lawrence O'Donnell moments ago about Trump and coronavirus fallout.
	He said, I wish he'd just be quiet.
	I really mean it.
	That's an awful thing to say about a president, but I wish he'd be quiet.
	Just let the experts speak.
	I hate to say when Joe Biden is right, Joe Biden is correct.
	The president is not making, like, honestly, do you feel calmer when Trump speaks about coronavirus?
	I don't feel calmer.
	Do you feel calmer?
	I feel calmer when I hear Fauci.
	I hear calmer when I hear Gottlieb.
	When I hear people who I think know what they are talking about, I feel calmer.
	When I hear President Trump mouth off about this stuff, I don't feel calmer.
	What that means is that anyone who pledges to calm fears is going to be in a politically advantageous position.
	And if it's chaos all the way down, if there's a feeling of chaos leading into the election, like Trump's biggest asset was that as chaotic as he is as a human being, the feeling leading up to the election was not one that the United States was in chaos.
	Based on the stock market, based on coronavirus, based on the election itself.
	I mean, what happens if coronavirus is still affecting the population and we got a vote in November?
	Are we all just going to vote absentee?
	Like, how's exactly that going to work?
	If the feeling is generalized chaos and Trump is an agent of chaos, that is not going to benefit him politically, which is why it behooves him to run a smart campaign and to be a smart president and to simply back off and shut up.
	This is a time when your Twitter account is not helping things.
	I know this ain't going to be popular with a lot of my conservative listeners who love Trump's Twitter.
	And who may feel, may feel correctly that coronavirus is overblown.
	I've written two pieces in the last week about how I think that the risks of coronavirus are not nearly as great as the media have been making them out to be.
	But with that said, reassurance is the name of the game politically and also in terms of public policy.
	If people feel reassured, then they are going to be more responsible in their handling of this stuff.
	They aren't going to panic, buy medical masks from Amazon for a hundred bucks a pop.
	Right?
	They're not going to be looking for reams of toilet paper as though nobody's ever going to wipe their butt again.
	Reassurance is the name of the game here.
	And that is why, you know, that is why this is, it's a, it's a boon to Biden.
	Meanwhile, speaking of that 2020 Democratic presidential race, Bernie is basically out of this thing, right?
	Bernie has, there's an election coming up in Michigan, the Michigan primaries are coming up very soon, and Bernie is really trailing heavily in the Michigan primaries, which has led Bernie to attack Joe Biden.
	Bernie says, listen, I'm not dropping out no matter what.
	I'm sticking around.
	Even if I lose Michigan, I'm sticking around.
	That's a problem for the Democratic Party because there may be a lot of Biden supporters, I mean, Bernie supporters who don't show up in the election if Biden acts all ticked off all the way to the convention.
	How serious is that?
	How damaging?
	And would you consider dropping out?
	Well, no, I certainly would not consider dropping out.
	You know, Chris, media asks you, is this state or that state life or death?
	I was asked that in Iowa.
	I was asked that in New Hampshire.
	We won California, the largest state in this country.
	We are winning among Latino voters big time.
	We are winning among young people.
	Okay, and Bernie is also winding over Super Tuesday.
	This is bad news for the Democratic Party.
	Internally, the Democratic Party is still rift over the Biden versus Bernie split, and the consolidation behind Biden is not alleviating the concerns of the Bernie people who feel like he got job, like he was about to get the nomination, and then the entire party establishment swiveled behind Bernie.
	Here is Bernie winding over Super Tuesday.
	The establishment put a great deal of pressure on Pete Buttigieg, on Amy Klobuchar, who ran really aggressive campaigns.
	I know both of them.
	They work really, really hard.
	But suddenly, right before Super Tuesday, they announced their withdrawal.
	If they had not withdrawn from the race before Super Tuesday, which is kind of a surprise to a lot of people, I suspect we would have won in Minnesota, we would have won in Maine, we would have won in Massachusetts.
	The turnout may have been a little bit different.
	The ongoing consolidation behind Biden continues as well.
	Kamala Harris has now endorsed Joe Biden.
	She says that she believes in Joe, which is weird since he tried to prevent her, I heard, from taking a bus to her integrated public school.
	If it had not been for the rest of the government, then Joe Biden would have stopped Kamala Harris from being a senator, apparently.
	But now she's a big fan of Joe Biden.
	Weird how times change that quickly.
	I have decided that I am with great enthusiasm going to endorse Joe Biden for President of the United States.
	I believe in Joe.
	I really believe in him and I have known him for a long time.
	One of the things that we need right now is we need a leader who really does care about the people and who can therefore unify the people.
	And I believe Joe can do that.
	Okay, well that's weird because I'm old enough to remember when Kamala Harris had this to say.
	I was actually very, it was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country.
	And it was not only that, but you also worked with them to oppose busing.
	Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton is still sounding off about Bernie Sanders, like slamming him over and over and over, ripping Bernie over lack of 2016 support.
	That's an ongoing threat to the Democratic Party because the fact is that the Bernie bros could simply not show up for Joe Biden either.
	His failure and the behavior of a lot of his top aides, and certainly many of his supporters, up to the convention, at the convention, and even up to election day, was not helpful.
	I had thought we would unify.
	That's what we'd always done before, and that's what I expected.
	Okay, so again, the split inside the Democratic Party is not going to be alleviated anytime soon.
	The question in the 2020 election going forward is going to be about whether it's a referendum on Trump.
	I've been saying this for years.
	If the election is a referendum on Trump, he's in trouble.
	If the election is a referendum on the Democrats, the Democrats lose.
	Trump's assumption was that it would be a referendum on the Democrats.
	He'd go in with a solid economy.
	People would feel good about the country.
	Polls were showing this just a month ago.
	The assumption was that if it were Bernie Sanders, he could make it pretty easily a referendum on Bernie Sanders, and that's true.
	If Joe Biden is the nominee, if the economy is still in trouble, if Trump continues to demonstrate chaotic leadership in the face of something like coronavirus, it will be a referendum on Trump.
	It will not go well.
	Watch for the polls in the next week and a half to reflect this.
	And now, again, we are super early.
	It is March.
	There's a lot of time until November.
	I would not be surprised if the polling in the next week between Biden and Trump shows Biden up with very, very large numbers.
	Now, again, I think a lot of that will alleviate as time goes on, as coronavirus alleviates, as we get more information.
	But now is a time, I've been saying for a while, Republicans cannot be sanguine about President Trump winning re-election on the back of his chaotic campaigning.
	He has to run a disciplined campaign.
	And people have been like, well, you know, he didn't run a disciplined campaign last time.
	It worked out fine.
	Right.
	And doing it once does not mean that it is duplicable.
	Lots of things happen once.
	The question is whether lightning strikes twice.
	Don't make luck your business strategy if you're the Trump campaign.
	Discipline.
	Discipline.
	Somebody needs to get in the presidency right now and tell them to stop tweeting about flu.
	Let your people do their jobs.
	When you let your people do their jobs, people feel secure, and they're more willing to overlook all of the other sillinesses that have happened.
	But right now would be a time for discipline, particularly message discipline, when people are so deeply worried.
	And again, I think that some of the, I think the panic is overblown, but I think worry is appropriate in the face of a complete lack of information and the amount of chaos that is going on, not domestically in America, right?
	Not just driven by the US media, going on globally.
	We are seeing panic that is happening all across Europe, in Asia.
	Okay, that has nothing to do with Trump, it has nothing to do with the US media.
	Okay, time for some things I like, and then some things that I hate.
	So...
	Things that I like today, over the weekend reading some sci-fi, I've been sort of on a sci-fi kick.
	There's a fun series from a guy named Pierce Brown.
	The first book in this series is called Red Rising.
	And it basically, the basic premise of the book, it's sort of like a cross between Hunger Games and Game of Thrones, which is a fairly good recommendation.
	The basic premise of the book is that on Mars, there's a group of people who are kept in slavery in order to mine and provide the resources necessary in order to power a society they don't even know exists above them.
	And finally, one of these people escapes the kind of slave society and elevates in rank.
	The whole book is supposed to be based on Greek notions of – or Spartan notions, rather, of sort of divisions of society, that they're the people who are best tasked to lead, they're the people who are best tasked to follow, and why that is anti-democracy.
	The book is fun, and it's easy to read, and it's kind of a kick.
	Check out Red Rising if you're into sort of dystopian sci-fi.
	And again, it's kind of a cross between The Hunger Games and a little bit Game of Thrones, and it's fun.
	Check it out.
	Red Rising by Pierce Brown.
	Other things that I like.
	So one of the things that I love most is the fact that socialists in the United States are happy to live off the benefits of capitalism.
	Carlos Maza, who's just a garbage heap.
	Carlos Maza, you'll remember, is the person who tried to get Steven Crowder kicked off of YouTube for using terms for gay people that I would not use.
	Okay, and Carlos Maza was being made fun of by a comedian and decided he didn't like what the comedian said, and so he led a national campaign to get Steven Crowder kicked off of YouTube, leading the leadership of his then-publication Vox Media to try and kick Steven Crowder off of YouTube while claiming that they weren't actually in favor of censorship, despite the fact that Steven didn't actually violate any of YouTube's policies.
	And YouTube instead demonetized Crowder on the basis of not violating any of their policies.
	Okay, well now it turns out that Carlos Maza, he launched his own channel.
	It is a communist channel.
	It's about how he is a commie.
	There's only one problem.
	He is extremely, extremely rich.
	If Maza wants to start eating the rich reports of the New York Post, he may have to begin with his own family.
	Through his clan, the millennial firebrand is connected to multiple Florida mega mansions, a $7.1 million pad on the Upper West Side purchased under an LLC, and a yacht by luxury boatmaker Donzie.
	As it turns out, the most ardent socialists in American society are very often the people who have never had to experience socialism because mommy and daddy made lots of money.
	So mommy and daddy will just let them live off the trust fund while they talk about revolution.
	Mazza's mother, Vivian Mazza, was one of the first employees at Ultimate Software, a Florida-based behemoth that now employs more than 5,000 people.
	Starting in 1990 as an office manager, she ultimately rose to become the group's chief people officer in 2004.
	In addition to her day job, Vivian Mazza also developed a very close personal relationship with the company's founder, Scott Sher, so close that an independent assessment of the company in 2016 cited the relationship as a corporate governance concern.
	The report said the pair were believed to be more than just co-workers and had a familial relationship.
	Hmm.
	The two later became engaged.
	The couple has lived together for years.
	Sher is a de facto stepfather to Carlos, according to the New York Post.
	Public records show that Vivian, Scott, Carlos, and Sister Isabel all registered to vote in a five-bedroom, eight-bathroom waterfront palace in Boca Raton.
	The property sold in 2018 for $11 million.
	$11 million.
	But socialism, guys.
	He's an ardent commie.
	He's an ardent commie.
	Sure, his mother and stepfather presumably would be the first Kulaks to go, but he is an ardent communist.
	Vivian currently resides, full-time, in a $4.4 million two-bedroom, three-bath luxury condo in Fort Lauderdale.
	The same LLC purchased a $7.1 million condo on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in November 2017.
	While serving as CEO of Ultimate Software, Schur was one of the most handsomely compensated CEOs in the country.
	In 2015, he took home $38.3 million.
	Weird, I don't see Carlos Maza going to his stepdad, who presumably has provided him a basis of support and being like, you know, it seems to me that you aren't living the principles of Marx, sir.
	It's not clear how much Vivian and Shir actively support Maz's lifestyle, but evidence suggests the family has been happy to pitch in to help spread his socialist message.
	Both Shir and Vivian Mazza are listed as comrades at the end of Carlos's most recent YouTube video.
	Basically, he sounds like the kind of child that they don't really want to deal with, and so they're like, okay, we'll just give him a little bit of money and he can go play commie over here on YouTube.
	He's a trust fund commie.
	Mazza didn't respond to multiple inquiries from the post, but then, because of the inquiries, he posted a statement on Twitter He said, my mom and her fiance are very wealthy thanks to a software company they started together when I was a kid.
	As a result, I've gotten to live a life of tremendous privilege.
	He said he acknowledged that he always had a safety net should his career to go south, but insisted nobody was bankrolling his effort.
	Okay, well, if you have a safety net of, you know, tens of millions of dollars, then you can afford to spend your life making useless YouTube videos about how communism is the greatest way of life of all.
	So again, I love that we live in a country so wealthy that the children of our wealthiest people can be communists.
	That's really, really exciting stuff.
	Normally when they say the proletariat are gonna rise, workers of the world unite, you have to be a worker.
	You know, not a lazy bum who relies on his parents' money for years on end and then gets a job writing garbage at Vox Media while trying to oust other YouTube stars and then makes stupid communist videos.
	Well, apparently taking money from mommy and daddy.
	So that I find fairly delicious.
	Well done, Carlos Maza.
	Speaking, by the way, of socialists who are apparently happy to take advantage of the benefits of capitalism, Elizabeth Warren appeared on SNL over the weekend.
	I don't know if you saw this one.
	So Elizabeth Warren has been worshipped by members of the media, if by nobody else.
	And she showed up on SNL with Kate McKinnon, and it was extremely, extremely awkward.
	But not only did I not accept money from billionaires, I got to give one a swirly on live TV!
	I want to put on my favorite outfit to thank you for all that you've done in your lifetime.
	I'm not dead.
	I'm just in the Senate.
	Remember when they did this for Ted Cruz?
	I remember.
	Remember when SNL?
	Don't worry, SNL is just comedy, guys.
	They're just comedy.
	They are not just a propaganda outlet on behalf of the Democratic Party.
	I do.
	Well, the reason that's in Things I Like, honestly, is because I do like it when they expose, number one, how unfunny they are.
	And number two, how politically motivated they are.
	So Elizabeth Warren, it's amazing.
	She just gets skunked.
	How do you appear on, by the way, how do you appear on SNL and no one makes fun of the fact that the funniest thing in American politics is about you, that you pretended to be Native American for decades?
	How is that not even a joke?
	How is that possible?
	Okay, so that brings us to the end of things I like.
	We'll skip some things I hate today because listen, there's too much worry.
	So let's end on an up note.
	I hope that you come back later today with two additional hours because there'll be plenty of updates, I promise you.
	Otherwise, we will see you here tomorrow.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
	The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Colton Haas.
	Directed by Mike Joyner.
	Executive producer Jeremy Boring.
	Supervising producer Mathis Glover and Robert Sterling.
	Assistant director Pavel Lydowsky.
	Technical producer Austin Stevens.
	Playback and media operated by Nick Sheehan.
	Associate producer Katie Swinnerton.
	Edited by Adam Sajovic.
	Audio is mixed by Mike Koromina.
	Hair and makeup is by Nika Geneva.
	The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire production.
	Copyright Daily Wire 2020.
	Hey everybody, it's Andrew Klavan, host of The Andrew Klavan Show.
	You know, some people are depressed because the American Republic is collapsing, the end of days is approaching, and the moon has turned to blood.
	But on The Andrew Klavan Show, that's where the fun just gets started.

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