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March 31, 2020 - The Ben Shapiro Show

01:05:51

The Waiting Game | Ep. 983

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	President Trump and governors across America urge citizens to stay in for months.
	The economy continues to melt down, and the media continue to meditate on the evils of President Trump's press conferences, of all things.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	This is the Ben Shapiro Show.
	Today's Ben Shapiro Show is sponsored by ExpressVPN.
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	Protect yourself at expressvpn.com slash Ben.
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	Well, if it seems like I'm a little bit flustered this morning, this is what it's like having children in a small space during a pandemic where everybody's locked inside.
	I think everybody is feeling me right now who has kids.
	But even if you don't have kids, look, this is a rough time for the country.
	It's a rough time for all of us.
	And people making light of it like, well, you know, it's not like World War II.
	That's true.
	It's not like World War II.
	And honestly, that is one of the difficulties is that during World War II, the threat, the external threat was pretty obvious because there were bombs falling from the sky on buildings.
	And you could join the military.
	You could go fight back against a material enemy.
	It's, in some ways, more psychologically difficult, probably, to be stuck inside when there's so much uncertainty about, if I walk outside, am I just going to die from a thing that is in the air?
	That doesn't mean that it's tougher than the sacrifices made during World War II.
	Obviously, people were literally being killed on beaches in World War II.
	But psychologically, for the average citizen who stayed at home during World War II, this I've talked to some old people who remember World War II.
	This is really rough.
	This is a rough time, and being told that we are supposed to remain in our homes and shelter in place for an indefinite period of time without even the ability to really sacrifice on behalf of the country, without the ability to take active measures on behalf of the country, is...
	You know, that's a difficult thing, and I think that we're all, you know, trying to muddle our way through.
	Now, thank God we have the accoutrements of modern life to make that a lot easier.
	Thank God, you know, we're not in the business of rationing here in the United States.
	But I think it is fair to say, it's funny, sometimes you'll hear somebody complain about a minor health problem, and somebody say, well, you know, there are people starving in Asia.
	And I always thought, that's such a dumb response.
	That has not actually alleviated the person suffering in the here and now.
	It's just comparing it to something that's much worse.
	It is true.
	There are situations in human life that have been a lot worse.
	It is also true.
	A lot of people are suffering right now, particularly in the economic side.
	A lot of people are suffering on the psychological side.
	And to make light of that would be to be foolish.
	And that, of course, is putting aside all of the incredible human suffering that is going on by the people in the hospitals, the medical professionals who are trying to work through this thing and now being overwhelmed in certain areas of the country, and obviously the people who are suffering.
	From COVID-19.
	Okay, with all of that said, you know, we're all going to try and get through this together.
	We will get through this together because there will be an end date.
	There will be a time when we all go back out.
	It's going to take a while before we get back to life as normal.
	I think, I was thinking about this last night, I think it's going to be at least a year before people are going out to mass events, before Disneyland reopens, before Theatres reopen before people start going to basketball and baseball and football games.
	I would be shocked if the entirety of the NFL and NBA and MLB seasons are not cancelled from here on out, simply because in order for people to go out en masse and feel safe, there's going to have to be vaccines developed.
	The soonest that would happen is probably the beginning of the next year.
	So it's hard for me to believe that.
	I think weddings are going to be downscaled.
	I think that big events are going to be postponed.
	It's going to be a rough bunch of months, even after we all start going back to work.
	And by the way, when we do go back to work, I think there's going to be a lot of social distancing.
	I think a lot of office space is going to go empty as people try and continue to work from home.
	I think that the idiocy of the government suggesting that face masks was a bad idea.
	I think that's going to go by the wayside and everybody's going to be wearing face masks for at least several months here.
	Now, there are some possible alleviating factors.
	Obviously, the possibility that this coronavirus flu strain gets killed off during the summer, that the heat tends to drive it down.
	But in populous areas, that may not be enough.
	With that said, here are your updates across the globe on the coronavirus levels, the death levels across the world.
	Right now, there are 810,000 diagnosed cases.
	We're up to almost 40,000 deaths globally in the United States.
	We are up to 163,788 new cases as of this point.
	There are almost 21,000 new cases identified yesterday.
	Again, we're going to see these numbers go up until they start to go down simply because we are testing more.
	And by the way, just a note to the media.
	If you are going to suggest that America is number one in diagnosed cases on the basis of absolute numbers as opposed to per capita basis, then you also have to acknowledge that President Trump is right when he says we are also doing the most tests of any country.
	Because he's saying that on an absolute basis, not on the basis of per capita.
	So you have to pick your standard.
	Either we're going to measure per capita or we're going to measure on an absolute basis.
	One of the two.
	We had 558 new deaths in the United States yesterday from coronavirus.
	It's important to put this in perspective.
	In the United States, we have approximately 1,500 to 2,000 deaths per day of heart disease and cancer.
	Those are the two leading killers in the United States.
	Heart disease kills about 650,000 people a year in the United States.
	Cancer kills about 600,000 people a year in the United States.
	So, we could see, I mean, the estimates suggest that as we peak, that on a daily level, there will be days when coronavirus kills more people than heart disease and cancer, which is You know, a hell of a number.
	We only hope that those numbers only spike for a couple of days or that we never reach those numbers at all.
	But 558 is a big number.
	Italy, of course, had 812 deaths yesterday.
	Spain is now surpassing Italy as the center of the crisis.
	They had 913 deaths yesterday, even in places that have locked this down better than Italy, Spain, and probably the United States.
	Germany had 104 deaths yesterday.
	France had 418 deaths yesterday.
	It's funny, you know, for all the people who say the U.S.
	is handling this worse than any other industrialized country, I've yet to see The evidence for that.
	There are countries that have handled it better than we have, no question, right?
	South Korea handled it better than we did.
	Perhaps the Netherlands did, but you're comparing apples and oranges in some of these cases because when I interviewed Dr. Deborah Birx over the weekend, Dr. Birx pointed out with regard to, for example, Sweden, that not a lot of people traveling from Wuhan go to Sweden in the middle of the winter where it gets dark at 2.30 in the afternoon.
	So that's a very different thing from the United States, where of course you have tremendous travel, huge population, a lot of diversity.
	That is going to change the math a fair bit.
	So comparing apples to oranges is a bad idea.
	But even Germany, which had supposedly locked this thing down, saw an increase of almost 4,500 cases yesterday and 104 deaths.
	France had about 4,000 diagnosed cases and 418 deaths.
	Iran is lying about their numbers.
	The UK, which recently went into lockdown, they had about 2,600 new cases and 180 new deaths.
	On a per capita basis, deaths per one million population, the United States is still ranking near the bottom of the rankings in terms of death per one million population.
	Now, that is because we're still at the beginning of this curve.
	We're not going to look like these numbers by the time this is over, because the numbers can only increase from here.
	Deaths are an absolute number.
	Population's an absolute number.
	And so as the deaths increase, the proportion is going to increase as well.
	Right now, the United States, in terms of deaths per one million population, we stand at nine.
	That's as opposed to Italy.
	Italy has 192 deaths from coronavirus per one million of the population.
	So, like, we are an order of magnitude times two, right?
	Not two orders of magnitude, but an order of magnitude, and then multiply that by two, away from Italy's standing right now.
	Same sort of deal with Spain.
	Germany, well, we're basically on par with Germany at this point.
	Germany has about as many deaths per one million of the population as we do.
	France is really way more deaths per one million of the population.
	And then the UK has more deaths per million of the population.
	Again, these are places with smaller populations.
	The places that seem to have locked it down pretty well with small populations.
	Israel has locked it down pretty well with a small population.
	Canada has locked it down pretty well so far with a fairly small population.
	But Sweden has more deaths per 1 million of the population than we do.
	So for all the people saying the United States is doing an awful, terrible, no good, very bad job with this, there are things that we could do better.
	But let's not pretend that we are up there with Italy and Spain yet because we just are not.
	That is not where the facts lie.
	We're going to get to more of this analysis in just one second.
	More facts, more news.
	And the media I think there's a comfort right now to people reverting to partisan priors.
	It makes you feel like the world is half normal when you can just go on Twitter and rail at people about stupid crap.
	But the reality is the world is not normal.
	And we need to put some of this nonsense aside for just like five seconds would be really nice.
	Because frankly, I'm tired of it.
	You're tired of it.
	I was tired of it before all this happened.
	I think you were tired of it before all this stuff happened.
	The fighting over stupid garbage every single day.
	I'm really tired of it when, you know, I have to worry about the health of my children and my parents.
	And I think that most people feel the same way.
	And the media definitely exacerbate that.
	President Trump doesn't bring the temperature down, but the media definitely exacerbate that.
	We'll show you how in just a few minutes.
	First, let's talk about the reality of the situation, which is, it's very nice to know who's stepping on your property at this point, right?
	We're all kind of paranoid about who's going to step foot on our property.
	When someone rings the doorbell, you want to know who that is.
	This is why you should have ring.com.
	And in cities across the nation, There are mayors who have been releasing people from local jails.
	Crime rates are undoubtedly going to go up as we're going to discuss in a little while here.
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	Okay, so...
	There is a piece of quasi-good news, although not as good as you would want it to be.
	There's a new study that was published in the Lancet Infectious Diseases Medical Journal yesterday, and it estimates the death rate of coronavirus is significantly lower than previously reported.
	Now, originally, the WHO, Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said the estimated mortality rate of COVID-19 globally was about 3.4%.
	Dr. Anthony Fauci had suggested that it might be anywhere from 1 to 2% based on initial reports out of other countries.
	He said that in the first week.
	But we are now seeing a report from Lancet estimating that the 1% fatality rate is probably too high.
	A more accurate estimation of the percent of people who will die from complications from the virus, according to researchers, is about 0.66%.
	Now, before we all start getting excited, 0.66 is still six times deadlier, almost seven times deadlier than the average seasonal flu.
	CNN explains, when undetected infections aren't taken into account, the Lancet study found the coronavirus death rate was 1.38%, which is more consistent with earlier reports.
	But again, one of the big problems here when you're calculating the fatality rate is the denominator.
	And as we now know, a lot of people are lying about the denominator in these particular cases.
	We don't know how many Unsymptomatic cases there are out there.
	The estimates have been anywhere from for every person who has symptoms, five to ten people may not have symptoms.
	We have no idea how transmissible it is because there's a new report today suggesting this thing may be passable through air.
	Again, take all these sort of new reports to the grain of salt because we just don't know.
	That hasn't been confirmed yet.
	With all of that said, the lockdowns have now become policy across the United States.
	We are seeing three quarters of the American population locked in place for the most part.
	According to the New York Times, we are seeing out of every four Americans, three have restrictions on movement at this point, which is a lot of Americans locked in place.
	And I'm not going to be the person who says that it's time to go out and party it up, because that is not what the models are suggesting.
	According to the New York Times, the American public on Tuesday is expected to get its first look at the statistical models guiding the policy decisions that have led governors and mayors across the country to order more than 250 million people to stay at home.
	Dr. Deborah Birx tried to brace both President Trump and the country for some tough weeks ahead.
	Yesterday, she said even if all the social distancing guidelines are followed perfectly, the death toll in the nation could reach 100,000 to 200,000.
	Now, that would be She says, best case scenario, that'd be about twice, on the low end, that'd be about twice what we lose every year from the seasonal flu.
	As I say, we lose about 650,000 people a year from heart disease in the United States, another 600,000 people from cancer.
	That'd be really dangerous.
	The problem is that if we release everybody into the wild, the theory goes, it's not gonna be 100,000 or 200,000 dead, it could be a million dead, right?
	Which would easily make this the leading cause of death in the United States, and it would keep recurring year after year until there is some sort of vaccination or herd immunity.
	Nations across Europe have continued to see the steady rise in new infections and death.
	In the United States, the outbreak in New York remains the largest in the nation.
	More than 1,200 deaths weeks away from its apex, according to Governor Andrew Cuomo.
	More than 250 coronavirus patients died between Sunday and Monday.
	The governor said that number could ultimately reach 800 a day in New York alone.
	In Michigan, state officials reported 50 additional deaths on Monday.
	Governor John Bel Edwards of Louisiana said his state is already a few weeks behind New York.
	One of the reasons why You know, we got to wait this thing out, is because for every day that people don't abide by the restrictions, that's another day when on the other end you're going to have to abide by the restrictions.
	Because eventually we're all going to be in lockdown until this thing passes, given the possibility of massive carnage across the United States.
	So, that is where things stand.
	Over in Virginia, Governor Ralph Northam has declared that people should stay in place up until June.
	He says all the way until June.
	Remember, it is not even April yet, right?
	April is tomorrow.
	Now, the updated order allows for people to leave their homes if they have to go out for food, supplies, medical care, or to get fresh air, or exercise.
	It also allows people to travel to workplaces of worship, child care providers, and for volunteering, caretaking, and to seek Social services.
	So the order is not quite as restrictive as people are making it out to be.
	It's not like the full-on stay-in-place order that is in place in New York City.
	A lot of businesses are still open in Virginia.
	And this is basically the rule.
	The more restrictive the rule, the less amount of time you can keep people in place.
	Because in the end, you cannot keep people in place indefinitely, especially as the economy goes down the tubes.
	And as we're going to see, there's some pretty significant ramifications to the economy going down the tubes.
	Now last week, if you mentioned this, this is very bad.
	You weren't supposed to talk about this because this was undermining the work of trying to get people to stay at home.
	But if you look over at Italy, it is pretty obvious that people cannot stay indoors indefinitely.
	Italy is now risking the possibility of riots, according to Bloomberg.
	As Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte fights to hold Italian society together through a crippling nationwide lockdown, the depressed South is turning into a powder keg.
	Police have been deployed on the streets of Sicily's capital Palermo amid reports that gangs are using social media to plot attacks on stores.
	A bankrupt ferry company halted service to Palermo, including vital supplies of food and medicine.
	As the state creaks under the strain of the coronavirus pandemic, officials worry the mafia may be preparing to step in.
	Now, Italy has always been a place with a thriving black market.
	Estimates suggest that perhaps half of Italy's economy, thanks to high tax rates and low ability to govern, is in the black market.
	So it is not a great shock that the breakdown of the system has caused the criminal syndicates to step in.
	But With that said, the longer you see states locking down, the more strain there's going to be on supply chains, because who exactly is going to pay for the groceries?
	Who's going to make sure people keep going back to work?
	Normally the market does all of those things, but when the market has been forcibly suspended by government, what you start to see is people saying, okay, I'm not going to do this anymore.
	What happens if the food doesn't get delivered on time?
	What happens if the rent check doesn't come on time?
	We're going to start to see that sort of unrest in the United States too if this thing goes on long enough.
	So that's why it's imperative that we all lock down, like do it right now, lower that curve, ramp up production as fast as possible, and hopefully we can all start getting this economy moving again to forestall the kind of activity we are seeing in Italy.
	Hopefully we can do all of that faster rather than slower so that we can not see riots in the streets and violence in the streets the way that Italy is apparently going to see pretty soon.
	These are unthinkable things that we're talking about.
	But they are not so unthinkable that we shouldn't be talking about them, given the fact that in the past, in United States history, when we have had depressions like this, there's been significant civil unrest.
	People tend to forget this about the Great Depression.
	There was an entire march on Washington by veterans.
	And that march on Washington was utilized by FDR in the 1932 election as sort of a baton to wield against Herbert Hoover.
	But it actually got fairly dangerous.
	I mean, there was serious concern that there was going to be like an armed insurrection in Washington, DC in 1932.
	This is all stuff that we should be keeping our eye on and it should be an impetus for all of us to do what we can to flatten that curve so we can all get back to work ASAP.
	The economy actually matters.
	It's a real thing to real people.
	We're going to get into more of this in just one second.
	First, let's talk about the fact that you're staying at home all day and you may be looking at your walls and thinking, why is my house so ugly?
	Now's a good time to refresh your house.
	One of the things you may not be thinking about is your window coverings.
	It may turn out that your window coverings really Black.
	A certain savoir faire.
	You really need better window coverings.
	This is why you need Blinds.com.
	And you can't go out to a blind store right now.
	Those things aren't open.
	Instead, you should be ordering from Blinds.com.
	Not everyone has the means to do a full renovation, but you can make your house look a lot better with Blinds.com.
	Window treatments are a simple project you can do.
	They really benefit the feel and style of your home.
	Experts actually say not getting enough sun can increase levels of stress hormones in your body, so you should consider light filtering window treatments like roller shades or cellular shades to transform your home into even more of a sanctuary during these difficult times.
	If you're nervous about doing it yourself, there really is no reason to be, because Blinds.com will help you through every single step.
	They've helped millions of homeowners through the process with free online design help.
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	You screw it up, they will fix it for you.
	Go to Blinds.com to see how you can reimagine the look of your home Rules and restrictions may apply.
	Go to blinds.com so you can reimagine the look and feel of your home today.
	We've been doing it in my home and it really does help a lot.
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	Again, that's blinds.com.
	Okay, so South Florida is going to be locked down until April 15th, according to Ron DeSantis.
	So we're seeing sort of these differing timelines.
	And again, those timelines will all converge because the data is going to drive this.
	If it turns out that the pandemic is still out there and that the risk of an exponential increase in death Continuing for a long period of time.
	If that risk continues to be out there, then you're going to see these deadlines extended.
	DeSantis announced on Monday morning those living in Southeast Florida should stay home until mid-May to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
	But then he walked that back to April 15th for an end date to what he called the safer at home order for millions of residents in Washington, D.C.
	They've decided to go even further over the top.
	Mayor Muriel Bowser is now threatening residents of Washington, D.C. with 90 days in jail and a five thousand dollar fine if you leave your home during the coronavirus outbreak, which is a shocking threat, obviously.
	You know, what the penalties should be.
	remains the same.
	Stay at home.
	The stay at home order has exceptions for grocery shopping and work deemed essential.
	Outdoor recreation like running is allowed, but can't involve people outside of a household.
	You know, what the penalties should be, like if you're arrested for going outside your home, I mean, this is basically military lockdown.
	This is, you know, that's over the top.
	I mean, I don't, right now you're letting criminals out of prison, so I'm confused as to how you exactly expect to enforce a lockdown order like this.
	We're just arresting people en masse on the streets of Washington, D.C.
	Well, in some better news, in, well, In some better news, we are in fact ramping up production of the machinery necessary in order to keep that curve beneath the available level of medical supply.
	According to Mike Colius at the Wall Street Journal, when President Trump last week criticized General Motors' efforts to produce ventilators, Jim executives were flabbergasted because they'd already begun collaborating with a ventilator company a couple of weeks earlier and had mobilized more than a thousand employees, nearly a hundred auto suppliers to start making the machines.
	We won't let it deter us, said GM Global Manufacturing Chief Gerald Johnson.
	Every ventilator is a life.
	From GM's account, since mid-March, they have been ramping up their ability to do ventilators.
	So the GM contingent has been shifting over its production.
	Ford said on Monday it's working with General Electric to make 50,000 ventilators at one of the automaker's facilities in Michigan by early July.
	Obviously, we're lagging on this sort of stuff, but The real problem here is the disconnect between what Ventec, which is the company that really designs these things, said that it could produce, and what they actually can produce.
	Ventec had provided a range of possibilities for monthly production of ventilators, one as high as $20,000 a month.
	Each scenario required a gradual increase for the GM operation to get up and running.
	The Trump administration was under the impression it could move to full production faster.
	They said they were going to give us a $40,000 much-needed ventilators very quickly, Trump said in a Twitter post, but they were not able to do that.
	So we are ramping up production.
	President Trump pointed that out yesterday.
	He said private companies are in the process of making hundreds of thousands of ventilators, so help is on the way.
	Here's President Trump yesterday in his daily presser.
	So we have 10,000.
	We kept them for this very specific purpose.
	It sounds like a lot, but it's not when you think about it.
	But we're making a lot.
	And when you see you're talking about hundreds of thousands being made in a very short period of time, because if you look at what just so we have now 10 companies at least making the ventilators.
	And we say go ahead, because honestly, other countries really they'll never be able to do it.
	It's a very complex piece of equipment.
	And it's it's big and expensive.
	Okay, so we are ramping up production.
	That is the good news.
	Now the question is, how well is all of this going to work?
	There's an editorial from the Wall Street Journal today talking about all of this.
	They say the good news is that the fatality forecast that's being put forward by the administration, 100,000 to 200,000 deaths, is much lower than the 2.2 million The president suggested as a worst case that figure, of course, comes not courtesy of the president.
	That figure comes from Great Britain, the Imperial College study that has been so widely cited.
	Estimates could still shift significantly, says the Wall Street Journal.
	The Murray Group plans to update its model as more data flow in from states and other countries.
	The Murray model is the one that is coming from University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.
	The Murray Model measures deaths in terms of population rather than confirmed cases because testing varies geographically.
	It's also extrapolating U.S.
	fatalities based on evidence from other hotspots and Wuhan in China after government lockdowns.
	One important point is it took 27 days after strict social distancing was implemented in Wuhan before the daily deaths peaked.
	New York, California, other states that took early action to close non-essential businesses were starting week three.
	So it's still probably another week and a half before we hit peak minimum.
	Data out of China may not be reliable.
	The Murray study underlines modeling for U.S.
	states based on one completed epidemic, at least for the first wave, and many incomplete epidemics is intrinsically challenging.
	That may be especially true if China has been lying about their numbers, which is extraordinarily likely.
	The Murray model also simulates healthcare utilization in the states over time based on other countries' experience and their projected fatalities in the United States, About 64,000 more hospital beds, 17,000 ICU beds, 19,000 ventilators on average will be needed nationwide, but demand will be most acute in a handful of states according to that study being cited by the University of Washington.
	For instance, according to the Wall Street Journal, New York will need an estimated 35,000 more hospital and 7,300 ICU beds next week when demand for care is projected to peak, which is a lot, but that's a lot fewer than the 55,000 to 110,000 hospital beds and 18,000 to 37,000 ICU beds that public health officials had said a week ago Could be needed, which shows how quickly these projections can vary and change over time.
	The Murray summary says daily deaths in the mean forecast exceeds 2300 by the second week of April.
	Well, peak demand will occur at the national level in the second week of April.
	This does vary by states.
	We may see some bumps along the way as various states hit their own peaks.
	So these statistical models are incredibly variable.
	It's difficult to make policy based on them.
	One of the big problems with them also is that they're basically unverifiable because if the social distancing works, if we all stay at home and then the numbers are way lower, the temptation is going to be to say, well, I guess we did too much.
	Maybe we shouldn't have done that in the first place.
	And so it's sort of unverifiable in the sense that perhaps if we didn't do it at all, the death rates would have been exactly the same.
	But at this point, better that we do too much for a cut.
	Look, we're locked down anyway.
	Better that we all abide by the lockdown.
	At least let the rules work for a couple of weeks until we see what exactly this thing looks like.
	Now, one of the reasons it's hard to tell whether this thing is working or not is because other nations are indeed lying about their own statistics.
	Mike Pompeo made this point yesterday.
	Secretary of State Pompeo, he said that there are lots of nations out there that are withholding their own data.
	He was on with Sean Hannity and he says, listen, we have to deal with the fact that we have incomplete data and all of our modeling is based on this incomplete data.
	President Trump and I have been committed to making sure that we had the best data available.
	When you hear doctors Fauci and Birx talk about risk, talk about fatalities, trying to think about how to model, what they need is data.
	They need data from Italy, they need data from China, they need data from Iran.
	We need every country to step up and provide accurate, transparent information.
	If we can't have that, if we have disinformation instead, there are more lives that will be at risk, not only today, but in the weeks ahead as we battle this enormous challenge.
	Yeah, that is obviously and eminently true.
	The fact that China has been lying all along is a serious, serious problem.
	And now we find out that China does have additional data they've not been releasing.
	Not only if we, like, everyone sort of suspects they've been lying about their death statistics.
	Like, if you think they've had no deaths for several months over in China, I think you have another thing coming.
	I mean, there was information we read from Radio Free Asia yesterday suggesting there may have been up to 40,000 deaths in Wuhan, which would obviously radically shift all of the modeling that is happening.
	It would look a lot closer to Italy than it would look to South Korea, China.
	But with that said, China apparently has been hiding other statistics as well.
	According to the Wall Street Journal, China When they counted their infected population, they excluded infected people with no symptoms.
	This actually would lower the fatality rate in China.
	So the original statistics that were being handed out by the WHO were incredibly skewed.
	This we already know.
	It turns out that China might have been just lying about all of this.
	China said that more than 1,500 people who were infected with the new coronavirus but haven't shown symptoms were excluded from its national tally of confirmed cases.
	As questions arise about its accounting of the infectious disease that burst into a worldwide pandemic, according to the Wall Street Journal, public concerns about the risk of infections by asymptomatic carriers have grown in recent weeks as China begins to relax its cordon around Wuhan, a city where the virus was first identified.
	Now, if China thinks there are only 1,500 people infected with coronavirus with no symptoms who were out there, that, of course, is utterly untrue.
	We were measuring that 3.4% fatality rate based on China's confirmed cases versus the number of people who had died with the confirmed cases.
	But if they think there are only 1,500 people who were measured, who were asymptomatic, that, of course, is absolute nonsense.
	Chang Jil, a top Chinese health official, said at a press briefing in Wuhan on Tuesday that the country would report the number of infected people who are not showing symptoms beginning on Wednesday.
	Zhang Guang, chief epidemiologist of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told a state news magazine, it's okay if they aren't included in the tally of confirmed cases.
	The key question is, have those people been put under restriction?
	Scientists do not have a consensus on the impact of asymptomatic cases.
	Italian scientists tracing almost 6,000 infections around Lombardy, for instance, found nasal swabs of asymptomatic carriers had similar amounts of virus as those with symptoms, which could make them contagious, according to a pre-publication draft.
	But they said the small number of asymptomatic cases turned up in contact tracing may mean such carriers have played a limited role in spreading the virus, which would mean that the fatality rate is higher than originally suspected.
	So bottom line is we just don't know anything at this point.
	And also until we have an antibody test, we're not going to know how many people had this thing and then got over this thing.
	We're just not going to know.
	One of the things that makes this also extremely difficult is because of lack of testing and because nobody wants to go to get tested unless you absolutely have to get tested.
	There are a lot of cases of the flu that are out there that people probably think is coronavirus and that is not.
	Like a couple of weeks ago, my son came down with a fever.
	And we were all freaked out about it.
	He had a fever.
	It was like for four days.
	It was a low-grade fever.
	He wasn't feeling good.
	And we went in and we got him a test.
	It took them two weeks to get us the results.
	We literally just got the results, and he was negative for coronavirus.
	Now, given what is out there, we thought, OK, well, there's a possibility that he has coronavirus.
	But he did not have coronavirus.
	It's a seasonal thing.
	Lots of flu cases out there right now.
	And this is bolloxing up a lot of the data.
	As we're going to see, New York has started to assess whether the social distancing measures are actually lowering the curve.
	One of the things they're using Is temperature numbers lowering?
	Well, there's a problem with that, which is temperature numbers.
	My son popped a fever.
	He didn't have coronavirus in the first place.
	That's a big con found.
	But it is certainly true, as Mike Pompeo says, that without complete information, it's going to be extraordinarily difficult for us to tell what the hell is going on.
	And here, we need to point out that the World Health Organization is a garbage heap.
	They're just awful at their jobs, the World Health Organization.
	Not only did they buy China's lie originally, that there was no human-to-human transmission, not only did they wildly overwrite the fatality rate because of Chinese misinformation, not only were the heads of the WHO hanging up on reporters in Hong Kong who were asking about the Chinese government, but it now turns out that the World Health Organization has basically become a tool of Hong Kong.
	The World Health Organization has done nothing About the Chinese government apparently reopening their wet markets.
	They're reopening the wet markets.
	Again, it is neither racist nor culturally insensitive to point out that eating the freaking bats is a terrible idea and that these wet markets have now been responsible for both SARS and this particular disease.
	And that, frankly, you should not be allowing wet markets, which have externalities, to be open in any, like, it's amazing to me, I will say this, it is amazing to me, I said this on an earlier podcast and people sort of went nuts, at least on the hardcore left who have lost their complete, ever-loving minds.
	Look, if you, I don't understand, if you're an animal rights lover, why exactly are you resisting my call for shutting the wet markets, which are some of the most brutal, vicious places on earth?
	They're truly awful.
	I mean, you're talking about the killing of exotic animals for meat.
	And in many cases, they're not killed.
	They're eaten while they're alive in some cases.
	I mean, it's just like, it's horrific.
	It's horrific in the ultimate.
	Stephen Miller, not the one from the administration, the columnist Stephen Miller over at Twitter, Red Seas.
	He has a piece in the American Spectator talking about this.
	He says, the World Health Organization is not just standing by and letting this happen.
	They're even running interference for China.
	During an interview this weekend with Hong Kong's RTHK News, Dr. Bruce Aylward blanked questions about Taiwan's membership of the World Health Organization.
	Taiwan is excluded from the WHO thanks to China, who backed current WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom.
	At first, Aylward awkwardly pretended not to hear the question.
	We played this tape yesterday, and then he abruptly ended the call.
	Shortly after the video call went viral on Twitter, Aylward's name was scrubbed from the WHO website.
	Taiwan's foreign minister said the WHO should set politics aside in dealing with the pandemic, but the WHO has been nothing but political throughout the COVID-19 outbreak.
	There's going to have to be some real changes in how we deal with international institutions like the WHO and the aftermath of all of this.
	With all of this said, is this working?
	Well, we have some evidence that it is.
	And we have some evidence that things are still going to get really bad, even if it is.
	And then we're going to get to the economic news.
	We'll get to all of that in just a second.
	First, you have to go over to dailywire.com and subscribe.
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	If you haven't had a chance to hang out with us over at All Access Live, you're missing out.
	It's a lot of fun.
	People have been hanging out with us over there.
	We had like 5,000 different questions yesterday on the All Access Live that I did.
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	I've been doing it twice a week at 5 p.m.
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	Our other hosts, people like Matt Walsh and Michael Knowles and Jeremy Boring and Andrew Clavin, we've all been hanging out with you at night just so we can get that sense of community again, because this is a very lonely and difficult time, obviously a very scary time, and so it's imperative that we have these sorts of get-togethers.
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	You're listening to the largest, fastest growing conservative podcast and radio show in the nation.
	Okay, so there is some good news.
	I'm trying to give you the good news and the bad news.
	I want to give you the fulsome oversight of the data so that we all know what's going on.
	Because I don't like alarmism.
	I don't like the, we're all going to die if we step outside kind of stuff, and we should never get the economy back going, and we're all going to live in lockdown forever, and the government should take over the entire economy.
	I don't like that kind of stuff.
	On the other side, I don't like the whistling past the graveyard.
	Everything is fine.
	All of this is overblown.
	Nothing bad is happening.
	I'm going to, again, the theme of this show, until there is further data, is we don't have enough data.
	You're allowed to say that.
	We don't have enough data.
	We don't know yet.
	We don't know yet.
	All we can do is watch the trend lines.
	In Italy, things seem to have started to flatten out in terms of new cases being diagnosed.
	The question is going to be how they release people back into society, how we tranche people back into society, Do we go through and find all the people who've already had it?
	Are they the first people to go back to work?
	Is it young, healthy people who are the first to go back to work?
	What sort of social restrictions are put on?
	Do we have masks and social distancing in place?
	The recovery here, so let's put it this way, I think there's going to be two stages to the recovery when it comes to the economy.
	The first stage to the recovery is going to be a bit of a U-shaped recovery, a soft launch of the economy, people starting to go back to work slowly in waves as we recover from this.
	And then after a vaccine is developed, this is going to be the roaring 20s, the roaring 2020s.
	People are going to be so It's gonna be like orgies in the streets people at giant raves like people people are gonna lose it because after being locked down for a year if you're a 20 year old having been locked down for a year the the notion that you are going to not go to every party that is possibly imaginable is just Insanity, right?
	I mean, that's what's going to happen.
	And then the economy will explode because people are going to spend lots of money.
	People are going to want to be creative.
	People are going to want to get out.
	So let's put it this way.
	Do I think this is forever?
	No, I don't think this is forever.
	Do I think this is bad for... I think it's worse for the next couple of months.
	I think after that...
	It's unpleasant for a few months after that.
	And then hopefully by the early part of next year, we have vaccine in the works.
	And then I think everything explodes.
	And I think the economy not only moves forward, I think it moves forward at an extraordinary rate because I think everybody goes back to work and we're all excited to be out there.
	I mean, it'll feel like the first day of spring in Boston, right?
	All of this sort of feels like when I was in law school in Cambridge.
	The winter was really long.
	It was really lonely.
	It really sucked.
	All there was to do was basically hang out in your dorm room.
	And I didn't drink, but a lot of my friends were.
	A lot of alcoholism at Harvard Law School during the winter.
	And then first day of spring.
	And by spring, I mean like it's 50 degrees outside.
	First day of spring, everybody is out.
	Everybody wants to be outside.
	Everybody wants that.
	That's what it's going to be like on the other end of this.
	So let's keep that in mind.
	There is a light at the end of the tunnel here.
	The good news is that apparently the Restrictions are slowing coronavirus infections, according to new data.
	The New York Times says harsh measures, including stay-at-home orders and restaurant closures, are contributing to rapid drops in the number of fevers, a signal symptom of most coronavirus infections, recorded in states across the country, according to intriguing new data produced by a medical technology firm.
	At least 248 million Americans in at least 29 states have been told to stay at home.
	It seemed nearly impossible for public health officials to know how effective this measure and others have been in slowing coronavirus.
	But the new data offer evidence in real time that tight social distancing restrictions may be working, potentially reducing hospital overcrowding and lowering death rates, according to the experts.
	The company, Kinza Health, produced a national map of fever levels on March 22nd, was able to spot the trend within a day.
	Since then, data from the health departments of New York State and Washington State have buttressed the finding, making it clear that social distancing has saved lives.
	This became obvious because President Trump extended the, until the end of April, his recommendation that Americans stay in lockdown.
	Kinza has more than 1 million thermometers in circulation.
	They've been getting up to 162,000 daily temperature readings since COVID-19 began spreading in the country.
	The company normally uses that data to track the spread of influenza.
	To identify clusters of coronavirus infection, Kinza recently adapted its software to detect spikes of atypical fever that don't correlate with historical flu patterns.
	As of noon Wednesday, the company's live map showed fevers holding steady or dropping almost universally across the country, with two prominent exceptions.
	One was in an area of New Mexico, where the governor only issued stay-at-home orders the day before, and also in adjacent counties in southern Colorado.
	The other was a ring of Louisiana parishes surrounding New Orleans, but 100 and 150 miles away from it, and that was possibly caused by the outward local spread of infections from New Orleans, which was set off by crowding during Mardi Gras.
	So some information, this thing is starting to be tamped down.
	Meanwhile, Bob Wachter, who is one of the chief, he's the chair of UCSF Medicine over at Berkeley.
	He said yesterday that there is no change in the hospital's status at UCSF.
	And he says that our command center briefings now seem less newsy, like we're over prepped for a surge that may not be coming, which will be great.
	He says the overall case is still mild growth.
	In San Francisco, everyone is struggling with the curve is flat versus calm before the storm narratives, but even pessimists are starting to tilt toward the former.
	So maybe these lockdown measures are working.
	We also discussed yesterday the fact that coronavirus slowdowns in Seattle suggest the restrictions are working.
	Now in New York, which is ground zero for all of this, it's where the most people are.
	It's where people are living in extraordinarily close quarters.
	Things are getting bad over there.
	How bad remains to be seen.
	There's an article in the Wall Street Journal today talking about NYU Langone telling ER doctors to think more critically about who gets ventilators, which of course is the sort of rationing that we've seen in Italy, which is so frightening.
	NYU Langone Health, one of the nation's top academic medical centers, told emergency room doctors they have sole discretion to place patients on ventilators and institutional backing to withhold futile intubations.
	So they're not going to force people to put people on ventilators if they believe that that is going to be a complete waste of time.
	A March 28th email from Robert Femia, who heads the New York Health Center's Department of Emergency Medicine, underscored the life-or-death decisions placed on the shoulders of bedside physicians as they treat increasing numbers of coronavirus patients with a limited supply of ventilators.
	New York state guidelines established in 2015 recommend that hospitals appoint a triage officer or committee to decide who gets a ventilator when rationing is necessary.
	The guidelines say that removing the decision from the physician treating the patient avoids conflict of interest, allows an officer or committee with access to overall ventilator availability to make the call, prevents health worker burnout and stress.
	But Dr. Femia says we just don't have time to do all of this stuff.
	In emergency medicine, we don't have the luxury of time, data, or committees to help with our critical triage decisions, he wrote.
	Senior hospital leadership recognizes this and supports us to use our best clinical judgment.
	Femia wrote that decisions about airway management and whether to use a ventilator or other respiratory support devices were at the sole discretion of treating physicians.
	He told doctors to think more critically about whom we intubate.
	That, of course, is scary, scary stuff.
	Now, with that said, Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York, he says that the rate of doubling is already down.
	Both things can be true.
	Right.
	It can be that we end up in a very bad medical situation in New York because there are shortages of ventilators and shortages of ICU beds.
	And also it can be true that things are getting better, but we're not going to see the impact of things getting better, particularly in terms of the deaths, which trail the hospitalizations by a week to two weeks, that we may not see the results of this in the death rates for another week or two.
	Here's Andrew Cuomo yesterday saying that the rate of doubling is already down in New York, thanks to the measures being taken.
	The number goes up, the number goes down.
	There's no doubt that the number is still increasing.
	There's also no doubt that the rate has slowed.
	We had a doubling of cases every two days.
	Then a doubling every three days, then a doubling every four days, then every five.
	We now have a doubling of cases every six days.
	So while the overall number is going up, the rate of doubling is actually down.
	So Chris Cuomo, by the way, in breaking news has come down with coronavirus as well.
	So prominent people are not escaping coronavirus.
	They're just able to get tests more quickly.
	Although at this point, testing has been radically increased.
	Look, it's scary out there.
	Andrew Cuomo, yesterday, he basically was pleading for healthcare workers to come out.
	Again, I can't say it enough.
	The people who are going out in the midst of this epidemic, this pandemic, and are risking their lives, seriously risking their lives to take care of people, those are the people storming the beaches in Normandy.
	I mean, this is heroism.
	If you're watching the respiratory therapists, the nurses, the doctors, the people who are on the front lines of this thing, going out and doing this thing, nothing but Admiration for those people.
	They, honestly, Congressional Medals of Honor for all of them when this is over.
	Like, Mass Congressional Medal of Honor.
	Because it's, you're putting your life at risk doing this sort of thing.
	I mean, we've seen reports from other countries that 25% of healthcare workers are coming down with this because you're in close proximity with people who have this incredibly transmissible virus.
	Here's Andrew Cuomo pleading for healthcare workers yesterday.
	By the way, about 80,000 people in New York State have responded, which is just incredible.
	I mean, what a country this is.
	Here's Andrew Cuomo.
	As governor of New York, I am asking healthcare professionals across the country, if you don't have a healthcare crisis in your community, please come help us in New York now.
	We need relief.
	We need relief for nurses who are working 12-hour shifts, one after the other after the other.
	We need relief for doctors.
	We need relief for attendants.
	So if you're not busy, come help us, please.
	And we will return the favor.
	So, you know, that call did not go unheeded, you know, and healthcare workers have been stepping forward.
	Now, obviously there's an enormous amount of economic fallout from all of this as well.
	The estimates from the Federal Reserve is that coronavirus job losses could total 47 million.
	47 million, which is just an insane number.
	The Fed estimates unemployment rate may hit 32%.
	Now, again, We can all hope and pray this is short-term.
	It will be short-term, because we're not all gonna remain in lockdown forever.
	But 32% unemployment, I mean, those are levels that not even the Great Depression reached.
	I mean, these are insane levels of unemployment.
	Of course, that was caused by bad government action, bad government policy.
	This is being caused by the forcible lockdown of the entire global economy, which will be alleviated as coronavirus itself wanes.
	But, I mean, these are nightmare scenario numbers.
	The projections are much worse than St.
	Louis Fed President James Bullard's much-publicized estimate of 30%, according to CNBC.
	They reflect the high nature of at-risk jobs that ultimately could be lost due to a government-induced economic freeze aimed at halting the coronavirus spread.
	St.
	Fed economist Miguel Faria y Castro wrote, these are very large numbers by historical standards.
	This is a rather unique shock, unlike any other experienced by the US economy in the last 100 years.
	Now, this does not account for workers who may drop out of the labor force, which brings down the headline unemployment rate.
	They do not estimate the impact of recently passed government stimulus, which will extend unemployment benefits and subsidize companies for not cutting staff.
	But we are estimating that by the end of the week, another almost 3 million people will join the unemployment lines.
	Now, people are going to receive unemployment.
	That was in the new $2 trillion stimulus bill.
	People are going to be receiving unemployment that basically amounts to obviously the $1,200 check per month, but they're also going to be receiving unemployment benefits that fill in most of what people were making is what was in that bill.
	When you file for unemployment for the next four months.
	Most people are not going to be receiving a check until mid-April.
	So April to May, May to June, June to July, July to August.
	So you could be receiving checks up through August, according to current estimates.
	Hopefully, the goal is by the time we get to June and July, people are starting to hire back.
	We are seeing massive furloughs over at Macy's and Gap.
	Now, we here at The Daily Wear, we're trying to make sure that everybody stays employed.
	Everybody in every company is working to make sure that they don't have to lay off workers.
	Macy Gap, other retailers are furloughing tens of thousands of employees beginning this week.
	The furloughs add to the swelling ranks of the unemployed and the economic damage resulting from coronavirus, which has now infected more than 150,000 people, according to The Wall Street Journal.
	The federal rescue package provides direct payments to individuals, enhanced unemployment benefits, and loans for small employers that keep people on their payrolls.
	Macy's closed its doors March 17th.
	Macy's employs roughly 125,000 people.
	They said the majority of those employees will be furloughed.
	they'll still have access to the company health benefits.
	Gap is doing the same thing.
	They're furloughing 80,000 people.
	The difference between a furloughing and a firing is the assumption is that at a certain point, the retail shops will open back up and those people will come back on the job.
	So it's not a full on firing.
	In the midst of all of this, there is some talk of economic turmoil and that is going to be exacerbated by the length of this thing.
	This is one of the reasons.
	It's not a matter of small priority to ensure that the economy gets back on track.
	It is a matter of top priority to make sure that we don't have an epidemic that kills a couple million people.
	But the economy is definitely a priority here.
	It must be a priority because we're already starting to see signs that this is going to be unworkable and faster than we thought it was going to be.
	So President Trump yesterday said that the economy comes second to saving lives.
	Of course, this is true.
	Here's President Trump yesterday.
	It's so bad for the economy, but the economy is number two on my list.
	First, I want to save a lot of lives.
	We're going to get the economy back.
	I think the economy is going to come back very fast.
	Steve's just asking about the economy.
	What's it like?
	We basically shut down our country.
	And we did that in order to keep people separated, keep people apart.
	They're not working in offices.
	They're not in airplanes together.
	You know, we really shut it down.
	Okay, well, again, those priorities are in order, but let's not pretend there are not downside costs to every day that we are out of work.
	I'll give you an example.
	The Whole Foods employees are now staging a nationwide sick-out.
	So right now, there are literally millions of people who are dependent on Whole Foods.
	Why?
	Because Amazon Fresh is Whole Foods, right?
	Amazon owns Whole Foods.
	So when Whole Foods workers storm out, it's not just you're losing your organic kale, you're losing your ability to actually obtain many of the supplies that you need.
	If you're an older person and you're ordering stuff online to be left at your door, you could be utterly screwed by this.
	And this, I'm sorry, but this is not a time for you to strike for better pay.
	This is not a time for you to strike for better pay.
	Because in a normal economy, you know what the company would do?
	They would just fire all y'all, and they would just hire all the people who are newly unemployed.
	That's exactly what would go on in a normal time.
	This is not a normal time.
	By the way, this is not a conservative versus liberal thing.
	Back in the early 1950s, there was a point where President Harry Truman tried to nationalize the steel industry because of striking workers.
	The fact is that striking in a time of pandemic, not because of bad worker pay, but because you just want more money.
	I'm sorry, everyone else lost their job.
	Everyone else lost their damn job.
	If I were Amazon and I had the capacity, I'd fire everybody who strikes right now, and I'd bring in workers who are willing to work.
	I would, because this is, it's unconscionable.
	The reason I say it's unconscionable is not only are you depriving people of the supply lines that are keeping the country running right now, not only that, but Amazon offered you additional benefits already.
	This is not your striking because Amazon's forcing you to go to work.
	On March 31st, today, Whole Foods employees are gonna call in sick to demand paid leave for all workers who stay home or self-quarantine during the crisis.
	Free coronavirus testing for all employees.
	Hazard pay.
	Here's the big one.
	Hazard pay of double the current hourly wage for employees who show up to work during the pandemic.
	You want your pay doubled just for showing up to work?
	While everyone else in the country is out of work?
	I'm sorry, no.
	No.
	Okay, and by the way, the actual thing that Whole Foods has done, Whole Foods Barron, this article from Vice has increased hourly pay for its workers already by $2 an hour in the midst of all this.
	They've offered to provide two weeks of paid sick leave to workers who test positive for COVID-19 and said it would not penalize workers for calling out sick.
	So already saying we're not going to penalize you.
	We're not going to fire you if you call out sick.
	But you need to go get a test because we don't just want people staying home without getting a test, which is perfectly reasonable because you need the supply chains working.
	A Whole Foods worker in Chicago, organizer of the sick-out, who wished to remain anonymous because they feared retaliation.
	They should.
	They should be fired outright.
	The most obvious demand we have is for an increase in hazard pay.
	We're asking for double pay.
	Double pay.
	Since we first announced the intent to do a sick-out, Whole Foods announced a temporary raise of $2 an hour, which isn't enough.
	Okay, I'm sorry.
	What happens if all the cops call out sick because they want double pay?
	What happens if all of the medical professionals call out sick because they want double pay?
	It's funny.
	Everybody is happy to talk about people in the speculative market buying up coronavirus masks and then trying to sell them for $1,000 on eBay.
	This is the same damn thing.
	You're asking for double pay in the midst of a pandemic because you know that those employees are necessary in order to make sure that the old people get their food?
	Okay, that person should be fired outright.
	Fired outright.
	And then there's talk, I mean, things are going to get ugly.
	Then there's talk about rent strikes.
	Okay, so people are talking about not just not paying their rent, which has been alleviated, right?
	I mean, people are not like, people are already saying that we're going to basically delay your rent.
	They go, oh, rent later, which is perfectly reasonable because the property owner is saying they're extending you a zero interest loan effectively.
	They're saying we're not going to evict you.
	There are no eviction orders that are already in place across the country.
	Some tenants are vowing to go on a rent strike until the coronavirus pandemic subsides, meaning they don't want to pay their rent ever for the pleasure of living in their house.
	This is like saying that you should get free food from the grocery store for the next three months.
	That's not the way this works.
	We can float you a check to cover your rent, but people do need to get paid for your use of their resources.
	And as things get worse here, as this goes on, there's going to be more and more demand that you just get stuff for free, that you not actually have to pay stuff on the other end.
	Again, no one should be evicted during this thing.
	You lost your job because the government said you had to lose your job.
	You lost your income stream because the government said you had to lose your income stream.
	But that does not mean that on the back end you shouldn't have to pay for the resources that you are using right now, or that the government shouldn't be filling that in right now.
	You want to make sure that nobody is ever able to rent an apartment again.
	Definitely go forward with a rent strike.
	You want to make sure that no new development has ever had in the country?
	Make sure you go forward with Rent Strike and you have nationalization of housing.
	Strike advocates are saying that tenants can't pay rent if they can't earn a living.
	Let's cancel rent for 90 days.
	Again, I'm not saying that you should have to sign a check for your rent.
	Nobody's getting evicted right now.
	I'm saying on the back end, of course you should be charged for rent.
	You are using the resource, are you not?
	This is like saying that we should force everybody to go to work without getting paid for the next 90 days because of the pandemic.
	Use of resources costs money.
	Things are going to get so ugly.
	They're going to get so ugly if this continues for a long period of time.
	Truly ugly.
	Right now, I mean, there was pictures yesterday over at this Pennsylvania food bank.
	And, I mean, just unbelievable pictures of cars waiting in line at this Pennsylvania food bank because people don't have jobs, because they don't have money right now.
	That money should come in, we hope, via the federal government over the next two, three weeks.
	But, I mean, just astonishing, astonishing pictures of thousands of people in line waiting to get canned goods from a food bank.
	This is stuff I never thought I would see in America, and it better alleviate as fast as possible, or things are gonna get supremely, supremely ugly.
	Okay, well, time for a quick thing that I like, and then a thing that I hate.
	So, things that I like.
	Everybody's been watching Tiger King.
	I started watching Tiger King on Netflix last night with the wife, because it was recommended by Colton, among others.
	If this is the average voter in America, then yeah, I'm gonna go with Aristotle's Dictatorship of the Wise if this is the average voter in America.
	It isn't, obviously.
	Tiger King is the story of crazy people who like hanging out with tigers, and they are indeed crazy.
	Here's a little bit of the trailer.
	They have a heart and a soul and a mind.
	I've learned from them.
	But Carole Baskin keeps saying, I can't have these tigers.
	If he ever had an enemy in his life, it was Carole Baskin.
	Hey all you cool cats and kittens, it's Carole at Big Cat Rescue.
	Carole is the Mother Teresa of cats.
	We will end the private possession of these cats.
	This is my way of living, and nobody's gonna tell me any otherwise.
	What in the world?
	So, that's the entire series.
	The entire series is, what in the world is this?
	Seriously, that's the entire series.
	So, if you're just looking for good old American craziness, then this is what you are looking for.
	Utter, utter craziness.
	Okay, time for a thing that I hate.
	All right, so as I've been saying, you know, we live in a time where we should be able to come to some bipartisan consensus.
	We are not, in fact, because people feel a certain level of comfort in being angry at the other side.
	And so you end up with idiocies like this.
	So yesterday, the president of the United States had at the White House, the MyPillow guy, right?
	The guy who makes MyPillow, which is a great product.
	And he happens to be a fantastic story as well.
	His name is Mike Lindell.
	And Mike Lindell's backstory is really pretty amazing.
	I mean, the guy was essentially, I think, a drug addict.
	And he made a comeback by becoming a religious Christian.
	And now he's got tens of thousands of people working for him, making pillows on demand for people, pillows that people are able to customize.
	And so he has now converted His factory's over to making masks.
	His company has been shifting production to N95 masks.
	They're going to start making 50,000 N95 masks a day starting this Friday.
	He says, we've dedicated 75% of my manufacturing to produce cotton face masks, which is an amazing, amazing thing.
	So he gets up at the White House and Trump gives him the podium, and here's what he has to say.
	Thank you, Mr. President, for your call to action, which has empowered companies like MyPillow to help our nation win this invisible war.
	God gave us grace on November 8, 2016 to change the course we were on.
	God had been taken out of our schools and lives.
	A nation had turned its back on God.
	And I encourage you to use this time at home to get back in the Word.
	Read our Bibles and spend time with our families.
	Okay, the media lost their minds because here he was praising Trump and invoking God and suggesting that God wanted Trump to be president and all that.
	Man's entitled to his beliefs, but this is... So the media lose it.
	They lose it.
	There are members of the media who are suggesting...
	And this is a violation of church and state.
	It is not, in fact, a violation of church and state for this guy to talk about God from the podium, you idiots.
	And people were like, why is he even there?
	Why is he even there?
	Seriously.
	Ram Ramgopal from CNN, he tweeted out, he's the executive editor of CNN, he said, in case you're wondering what MyPillow is doing in a time of coronavirus, they're developing 50,000 face masks a day.
	What are you doing in a time of coronavirus, you douchebag?
	Like, seriously, what are you doing?
	Being over at CNN and whining about crap?
	Like, what are you doing?
	How many face masks are you providing?
	Okay, you do the same thing, CNN guy, that I do for a living.
	The difference is, I'm not going to look anybody in the face and yell at them for getting a White House credit line.
	After devoting their entire production resources to developing the medical resources we need.
	How much of a douchebag do you have to be for your priority to be, why is that guy even speaking at the White House?
	He's being nice to Trump.
	Why is he even there?
	Because he develops face masks.
	What do you do for a living?
	Aside from write crap chyrons over at CNN.
	Ali Velshi over at MSNBC, he did the same thing.
	He says, Trump just called the MyPillow guy up to the podium in the Rose Garden.
	You cannot make this stuff up.
	What are you doing, Ali Velshi, over at CNBC?
	Of MSNBC?
	Like, what?
	How many face masks do you have?
	Are you in the back room over there with your sewing machine, are you?
	Making those face masks?
	In the back room, putting together ventilators?
	Newsweek columnist Seth Abramson, who's just the worst, he tweeted out, Dear Trumpets, this is why media doesn't want to cover your god-emperor's coronavirus rallies.
	Because the GD, my pillow CEO, was holding forth on the lectern on a day that 500 Americans died and 20,000 got sick from the virus.
	The briefing was intended to focus on.
	Um, and what have you been doing, Seth Abramson?
	Scott Dworkin, who's deputy director of the 2009 Presidential Inaugural Committee and 2012 DNC, said, Now Trump is having my pillow guy speak.
	This is absurd.
	Hashtag stop airing Trump.
	Joy Reid of MSNBC, who when she's not busy writing homophobic posts that she pretends somebody else wrote, wrote, Not a prank.
	Okay, perfect.
	Everything is fine.
	Over to the Sam Stein of the Daily Beast, I'm a proponent of TV carrying Trump's presser, but allowing corporations to use them as advertising platforms seems like the exact opposite of news.
	How are you this blind?
	How are you this blind that your top priority is, how dare this guy mention God and praise Trump?
	He's developing tens of thousands of masks.
	That's the priority you do.
	Like, seriously, what the hell is wrong with you people?
	What the hell is wrong with you people?
	You say, why won't your entire priority is Trump is not getting the medical resources to the people on time.
	This guy is going out of his way to convert his entire factories to produce medical resources.
	And your chief takeaway is he's he's being nice to Trump.
	So he's a bad man.
	He's bad, bad man.
	Meanwhile, members of the media continue to stump for Trump's pressers to be cancelled on TV because very bad that Trump should be like, look, you're fact checking him.
	We all know it.
	I mean, what?
	First of all, the worst thing that could happen for members of the media is for Trump's pressers to start to stop being aired.
	What would they do the rest of the day?
	Actually report on the news?
	Instead, they wouldn't be able to fulminate and pretend righteous indignation.
	Don Lemon last night over on CNN is like, why are we even taking Trump's pressers?
	Well, because a lot of newsworthy stuff is happening at the Trump pressers.
	Hey, Dr. Birx is speaking there.
	Dr. Fauci is speaking there.
	And yes, it's newsworthy when a self-made millionaire in the United States with tens of thousands of employees converts his dozens of factories over to making masks.
	That happens to be a newsworthy thing, even if you don't like the fact that he's a religious Christian who likes Trump, you idiots.
	Here's Don Lemon on CNN making a fool of himself.
	I'm not actually sure, if you want to be honest, that we should carry that live.
	I think we should run snippets.
	I think we should do it afterwards and get the pertinent points to the American people because he's never, ever going to tell you the truth.
	It's obvious, it's transparent to me.
	This has become, those press briefings have become his new apprentice.
	They've become his new rallies.
	And he treats the press and the media as if he's talking to the people in his rallies.
	It's the same thing.
	It's no different.
	It's just that the audience is not there.
	Okay, you just don't like that he's president.
	I get it.
	I get that you hate Trump and you hate that he's president and you don't like how he talks and all of that.
	I have some problems with how he talks, too.
	Guess what?
	He's the president of the United States.
	You know who I didn't like how he talked also?
	In a different way?
	Barack Obama, who is just much more subtle at telling lies and self-glorying.
	Right?
	Trump is just the blunt version of Obama.
	He just, he pats himself on the back physically.
	Like, during press conferences, he actually grows a third arm to pat himself on the back and talks up his own achievements.
	Engages in the sort of fluffing that you see in real estate all the time, the sort of puffery that you see in real estate all the time.
	Okay, I get that you hate that.
	He's also the president, and it's newsworthy what he says, and if it's not newsworthy, then stop covering him altogether.
	Idiots.
	Okay, and then Chris Hayes does the same thing over on MSNBC.
	Why are we even taking Trump's pressers?
	He's the president of the United States.
	Why do I have to explain this to you?
	It's more interesting to hear what former Obama staffers have to say on MSNBC, Chris Hayes?
	I think it's pretty harrowing for all of us to watch this lack of leadership from the White House and to, frankly, watch a lot of the media go along with it, because his press conferences, as always, are still entertaining, in part because he is competitive, in part because he does lie, and you can catch him in those lies and hold him accountable, but that doesn't make for an effective public health response.
	Yeah, that's why he's bragging about the ratings.
	It's obviously above my pay grade.
	I don't make the call that we take them or not, but it seems crazy to me that everyone's still taking them when you got the MyPillow guy getting up there talking about reading the Bible.
	Again, like, this is your priority.
	Okay, you wonder why people don't trust the media?
	This is why people don't trust the media.
	It's also why people don't mind when President Trump slams idiots like Jim Acosta.
	And ladies, find you somebody who loves you like Jim Acosta loves Jim Acosta.
	Yesterday at the White House, Jim Acosta gets up, and his only question is, what do you say, Mr. President, to people who are upset at you?
	Okay, if ever there's been a loaded question, that question during the Obama era is, what do you say to people who love you?
	But for Trumpets, what do you say to people who are upset at you, Mr. President?
	Every question from Jim Acosta is like this.
	What is the information you are eliciting?
	Okay, I happen to do interviews a fair bit on this program.
	And on the radio program, on the Sunday Special, I interview a lot of people.
	People on the other side of the aisle, too.
	You know what you try to do with a question?
	Elicit useful information.
	That is the purpose of a question.
	I had on Pence and Birx on Sunday, and all I did was ask them straight questions about What do you say to Americans who are upset with you over the way you downplayed this crisis over the last couple of months?
	You know it is going away.
	And it will go away.
	And we're going to have a great victory.
	orange.
	And Trump rightly slams him here.
	What do you say to Americans who are upset with you over the way you downplayed this crisis over the last couple of months?
	You know, it is going away and it will go away and we're going to have a great victory.
	And it's people like you and CNN that say things like that, that it's why people just don't want to listen to CNN anymore.
	You're You could ask a normal question.
	The statements I made are I want to keep the country calm.
	I don't want panic in the country.
	I could cause panic much better than even you.
	I could do much.
	I would make you look like a minor league player.
	But you know what?
	I don't want to do that.
	I want to have our country be calm and strong and fight and win.
	And it will go away.
	It's almost a miracle.
	And it is the way it's all come together.
	And instead of asking a nasty, snarky question like that, you should ask a real question.
	And he's right.
	He should ask a real question, but the media are too busy.
	You know, it's so funny.
	There was that person from OANN who asked sort of a fluffy question to Trump at a press conference in some kind of high school, junior high.
	The media are, everyone's an idiot, okay?
	Rule of the day, everyone's a moron.
	Half the time it's me, but lots of people are stupid, okay?
	And so somebody slid a note to this person saying, how did your question help solve coronavirus today?
	Question for Jim Acosta, when does your question ever elicit useful information, ever?
	So when Trump slams him and says, you could ask a useful question, Trump is not wrong on that.
	You wonder why Trump hates the members of the media?
	And why they hate him right back?
	It's that kind of stuff.
	OK, final note on this particular issue.
	So remember that story a few days ago that we talked about where a woman ate fish tank cleaner and then blamed Trump?
	Remember this?
	Because he's talking about hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine phosphate.
	And then she went into her pantry and she found a fish tank cleaner.
	And it's called chloroquine phosphate.
	And she promptly downed it with her husband.
	And the entire media was like, oh, it's because Trump keeps talking about this stuff.
	Trump keeps talking about this stuff.
	And that's why, that's why this person almost died.
	Her husband did die!
	Well, it turns out this lady also has some politics to her.
	The Washington Free Beacon went through the woman and her husband's identities, and they report that the woman's most recent donations in late February were to a Democratic PAC, the 314 Action Fund, that bills itself as the pro-science resistance and has vocally criticized the Trump administration's response to the coronavirus pandemic.
	The FEC records show that Wanda has donated thousands of dollars to Democratic electoral groups and candidates over the past two years, including Hillary Clinton, the DCCC, and Emily's List.
	Her contributions to Democrats rose sharply over the past two years.
	Her first recorded political donation was $150 to Hillary Clinton in 2016.
	The next year she gave $550 to the DCCC.
	Since 2008, she's contributed approximately $6,000 to Democratic electoral groups.
	Wanda told The Free Beacon, We weren't big supporters of Trump, but we did see they were using it in China and stuff, and we just made a horrible, tragic mistake.
	It was stupid.
	It was horrible.
	We never should have done it.
	It's done now.
	Now I've lost my husband.
	My whole life was my husband.
	We didn't think it would kill us.
	We thought, if anything, it would help us, because that's what we'd been hearing on the news.
	So the entire media covered this crazy lady's words as though they were the words of a deep Trump supporter disillusioned by President Trump's words about hydroxychloroquine when in fact the lady is a longtime Democratic supporter who doesn't like Trump anyway and then also happens to be a complete moron who downed poisonous chemicals.
	By the way, the media, happy to dig into Joe the Plumber's campaign contributions back in 2008.
	Don't even bother to spend five minutes looking into the person who claims that Trump killed her husband by recommending a drug that actively is being used in addition to azithromycin in hospitals right now for people who are in desperate need over on ventilators.
	Alrighty, so we'll be back here with two additional hours later today.
	Make sure you tune in to Daily Wire.
	All access tonight.
	Become a member so you can hang out with us.
	I think Knowles is tonight.
	Otherwise, we'll be back here tomorrow with all the updates.
	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.
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	Edited by Adam Siovitz.
	Audio is mixed by Mike Koromina.
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	The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire production.
	Copyright Daily Wire 2020.
	The United States has slowed the spread of coronavirus, but there's one scourge whose virality is only increasing.
	Fake news.
	We will examine the most egregious examples of how the left-wing media lies to add panic to the pandemic.
	Then, in an effort to combat COVID, A Democratic mayor politely asks criminals to chill, and a New York jail releases a bunch of child molesters.
	Meanwhile, prosperity preachers command the virus to go away, and President Trump rains fire and brimstone down on Jim Acosta during his latest ratings-busting press briefing.

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