All Episodes
Previous Next
April 7, 2020 - The Ben Shapiro Show
58:16
Trouble With The Curve | Ep. 988
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
As America flattens the curve, questions arise about what comes next, the media beclown themselves with a variety of foolish narratives, and Alyssa Milano discovers due process.
I'm Ben Shapiro.
This is the Ben Shapiro Show.
Today's Ben Shapiro Show is sponsored by ExpressVPN News.
Your online activity should not be public.
Protect yourself at ExpressVPN.com.
Slash Ben.
Alrighty.
Well, time for your coronavirus updates because once more, this is the only thing happening on planet Earth in the news at all.
And it's the only thing anybody cares about, which makes perfect sense.
The United States has passed 11,000 total deaths.
This comes basically a week and a half after we were less than 3,000.
The United States is seeing a significant curve in terms of cumulative deaths, but in terms of new cases, we are not seeing cumulative growth.
It looks more arithmetic than cumulative.
It's a percentage of the new tests that are being taken.
We are not seeing a sharp uptick in the number of new cases that are out there, more just an uptick in the number of cases that are identified as we are doing more testing.
Yesterday, New York saw 599 deaths according to Worldometers, which is the Johns Hopkins Rip.
Overall, the United States yesterday saw about 1,255 deaths.
These are not good numbers, obviously, but we are starting to see the curve flatten somewhat, and everybody is sort of optimistic.
Andrew Cuomo in New York, he said the data are hopeful but inconclusive.
At this point, here's the governor of New York.
It's hopeful, but it's also inconclusive, and it still depends on what we do, right?
These models all have a coefficient of what we do and how successful we are at social distancing, etc.
And from our decision-making point of view, it doesn't really matter if we've hit the plateau or not, because you have to do the same thing.
If we are plateauing, we are plateauing at a very high level.
And there's tremendous stress on the healthcare system.
Okay, so he has said that the coronavirus deaths have been flat.
That's the plateau that he is talking about.
The idea is that if you keep having that number of deaths day after day after day, that's bad.
Eventually, you want that number to go down.
We have not hit the peak yet.
The peak is expected to hit sometime later this week.
The study that everybody had been using in order to determine exactly how many deaths there would be is, of course, the University of Washington study.
And they had projected that Overall, peak resource use in the United States would not happen until April 15, 2020.
In New York, they were expecting that this thing would happen just a little bit later this week.
It was going to precede the rest of the United States.
They have downgraded, as I mentioned yesterday, the number of total deaths to 82,000 in that University of Washington model.
Andrew Cuomo says the coronavirus deaths are indeed flat, which is, again, good news.
I mean, if it were continuing to go up, then that would be a little bit scarier.
And again, the number of coronavirus deaths, if we were to plateau exactly where we are in the United States, that would be some very, very good news because we are expecting that this thing is supposed to kill some 3,000 people by the middle of the month in a single day.
And right now, again, we're at about 1,300, which is ugly, but it is nowhere near 3,000.
Here's Andrew Cuomo pointing out the coronavirus deaths have been flat in New York City.
4758, which is up from 159, but which is effectively flat for two days.
While none of this is good news, the flattening, possible flattening of the curve is better than the increases that we have seen.
Big question that we're looking at now is what What is the curve?
And we've been talking about cases increase, increase, increase until they don't.
When they stop increasing, then what happens?
And that is the real question is where we go from here.
So what you're seeing from cities all over the nation is an attempt to keep people in their homes that sometimes takes very dystopian forms.
We've seen people being pulled over in places like Pennsylvania for literally just going for a joy ride, like literally just getting in a car and driving.
There's nothing wrong with that.
It's absurd.
One of the big problems when you have an emergency is that petty tyrants often emerge and then use their petty tyranny as an excuse in order to do really stupid things.
There's nothing wrong with getting in your car and going for a drive with your kids and then driving right back home.
I do it with my kids all the time because anybody with kids understands you must do this or your kids will go completely mad, rip all of the Windows off the hinges and start hitting each other with them.
You need to get them outside.
If there's no place to go outside, sometimes you throw them in the car and you go for an hour drive.
That is not a big deal.
You have not hurt the social distancing curve.
All of this is very stupid.
It has also taken the form of some pretty freaky video in New York City where the police have been using drones to tell people to socially distance.
I get it.
I do.
But it's kind of weird.
Here's this video from New York City.
Now, do I think that that's particularly do I think that that's particularly effective, having drones that are flying above walkways and telling people to socially distance?
Presumably not, and I look forward to Judge Dredd arriving to do justice in the middle of all of this.
Now, the reason that obviously there's the amount of focus that there is on these death totals and on the curve is the fact that The experts keep saying that we can only lower the curve if we continue to keep people indoors.
What they are afraid of is that people are going to say, oh, it looks like things are all better, and then they rush out of doors and they infect each other over and over.
So Dr. Deborah Birx, who's of course leading up the coronavirus task force for the White House, she said the death totals could be a lot lower than we were seeing from University of Washington, but only if we work hard and only if we pay attention to the orders to socially distance and stay at home.
Dr. Fauci and I both strongly believe that if we work as hard as we can over the next several weeks, that we will see potential to go under the numbers that were predicted by the models.
And I think that is really two things.
It is the extraordinary compliance of the American people and the diligence that they have mitigated with.
Because remember, we're doing this strictly by behavior change.
And as she says, there's not a lot of tracking in place right now.
Basically, I guess the goal is that we lower the curve again below the point where we overwhelm the hospital system.
As the University of Washington study shows, that actually is likely.
We are now likely to not exceed the requirements of the hospital system, actually, as we adjust these totals downward.
But the question is going to be what happens afterward.
And listen, I'm all for the hopeful language.
I like it.
I think it's good.
I think that we ought to continue to maintain this sort of thing until we have the data.
The problem is that now that the data seems to be showing that we are flattening faster than we actually thought was going to be possible, how fast can we actually get back to some semblance of normalcy?
Dr. Anthony Fauci also sounds it off alongside Deborah Brooks.
He said, we too are hopeful.
I don't think anyone has ever mitigated the way I'm seeing people mitigate right now.
This has never happened in this country before.
So I am optimistic, always cautiously optimistic, that if we do what I've been talking about over the past few minutes, we can make that number go down.
I don't accept every day that we're going to have to have 100,000 to 200,000 deaths.
I think we can really bring that down, no matter what a model says.
Okay, so everybody is suddenly optimistic in a way they were not optimistic just a little while ago.
We'll get to what the studies are showing, what the data are showing, and what are the shortcomings of those data.
Because as it turns out, all the models are basically flawed and everybody knew this going in.
And what that creates is a sort of unfalsifiable thesis.
Because Every time the data are adjusted downward, we just say, OK, well, we're adjusting the model as new data comes in.
And then the idea becomes, OK, well, but you modeled with a certain level of certainty what exactly everything would look like in the counterfactual if we had not all locked down or if we had done sort of partial lockdowns or if we had let the healthiest people go to work or if we had taken the elderly and we had basically segmented them off and the vulnerable and segmented them off.
Like, we were basing our action on these models, and as the models change, our actions should change.
But our actions seem not to be changing, even as the models change, because nobody has set out any sort of reliable counterfactual in that case.
To give a brief example, let's suggest that the United States is experiencing well under 80,000 deaths.
Let's say the United States comes in at, say, 50,000 deaths, or 40,000 deaths.
Like, right in line with the actual numbers that you get every year from the flu.
Now, of course, the flu Those number of deaths happened when we were all going out and infecting each other.
And this is happening in the absence of us going out and infecting each other.
But let's say we get 40,000 deaths.
There will be two narratives that emerge.
And this is the highest likelihood here is that we actually do a pretty good job in flattening the curve.
It's fewer deaths than expected in the first wave.
And then you have one side that says, okay, so the models were totally wrong.
And we destroyed the entire American economy.
And we went to 20% unemployment on the basis of models that were wrong.
Why did we pursue it this way?
And the other side says, well, if we hadn't pursued it this way, then millions would be dead.
And there's not going to be any way to bridge that gap at all, right?
Because you can't live in a counterfactual universe because we actually don't know the counterfactuals.
The models were supposed to provide the counterfactual, but how are you supposed to trust the model's worst case scenario?
When they're moderated worst case scenario, meaning even if you stay indoors, 100,000 people are going to die.
What if the numbers come in way under that?
Well, that sort of discredits the entire model.
And this is one of the problems that we're going to have going forward, because one of the ways that the experts and the folks who are in charge and the scientists are going to suggest that we stay indoors is, again, suggesting the counterfactual.
And a lot of people are going to look at the counterfactual and say, right, right, but you suggested a counterfactual like a few months ago, and you said two and a half million people were going to die.
And then you said, if we all stay indoors, still a quarter million people are going to die.
And so we all did stay indoors, and 40,000 people died.
Or 30,000 people died.
Right?
And so, why should we take seriously your worst case scenario?
Like, what do you know that we don't?
And the answer is that a lot of the experts still know more than the average man.
I'm not proclaiming that I am an epidemiologist.
I think it's dangerous for anybody to proclaim that.
I still think the experts know a lot, but they don't know A lot.
Too.
And they're not being transparent about what it is they don't know, and that actually is going to undermine faith in the experts at a time when the experts are suggesting that we have to listen to them no matter what, right?
I mean, that's the biggest problem here.
If you have somebody who proclaims expertise on a subject, and then they're wrong on a bunch of things.
And they haven't told you where the uncertainties lie.
It makes everybody pretty nervous about the expertise.
Sometimes it makes people feel that the institution itself is discredited, and that's a danger.
It's why radical transparency is necessary, and you need an explainer out there explaining the models.
You need an explainer out there explaining why we are doing what we are doing.
But the truth is, I'm not sure that the politicians or the economists or the health care professionals, the epidemiologists, actually know full scale why we are doing what we are doing in the long run.
We'll get to that in just one.
Like this really is catch as catch can.
This really is that we are betting that maybe worst case scenario happens and a couple million people die.
And so we sort of just said, lock it down.
Right.
That was the first move.
Just lock it down.
And now that that has been made the extreme.
Where do you go from here?
That's the really tough question.
I keep harping on that because it's pretty important that we end what is going on right now.
I mean, Tony Blair of the Labour Party, right?
He was saying, listen, the NHS is going to collapse if the economy collapses.
So you talk about the health care service in Britain.
You can't keep taking out endless debt and then paying for the health care service because what if the debt is not sellable?
We'll get to more of this in just one second.
First, let us talk about the fact That there are lots of things in life you get wrong.
Like, for example, everybody got everything wrong on everything with regard to coronavirus, except for like a couple of people.
Well, it is very easy to get things wrong in life, whether you're a pundit or whether you're just a person going about your daily business.
One thing that you cannot afford to get wrong is your life insurance.
If you're a responsible human being, one of the things that you should be doing is taking out life insurance.
If you've got a family and you want to make sure that your revenue stream does not stop in case you plot, Well, you need to make sure that your family is taken care of.
Get life insurance with PolicyGenius.com.
PolicyGenius makes finding the right life insurance a breeze.
In minutes, you can compare quotes from the top insurers and find your best price.
You could save $1,500 or more every year by using PolicyGenius to compare life insurance policies.
Once you apply, the PolicyGenius team will handle all the paperwork and the red tape for free.
And PolicyGenius doesn't just make life insurance easy.
It can also help you find the right home and auto insurance, disability insurance.
So even if you look back on the decisions that you made over the course of the past few years and think to yourself, man, should have done that differently.
There's no reason to get life insurance wrong or home insurance or auto insurance or disability insurance.
And now, by the way, the rates are pretty good.
It's a good time to shop.
Go check out PolicyGenius.com right now.
Everybody gets things wrong.
Do not get your life insurance wrong.
PolicyGenius.com.
Again, that's PolicyGenius.com.
Okay.
Let's take a look at some of these models.
So first of all, an MIT economist is already saying that the curve is basically flattening, which again is a lot earlier than originally thought.
According to Robert Verbruggen over at National Review, he is suggesting that an MIT economist concludes that the curve is indeed flattening in New York City and that does bode well for Actually, you can see the trend lines.
It's flattening in New Jersey.
It's flattening in Michigan, even though Michigan obviously is having this scary uptick in number of deaths.
LA has been basically flattening.
None of the curves look exponential in terms of confirmed cases.
All of the curves look Like this.
All the curves look like they are flattening out.
And that's a very good, they look parabolic.
That's a very good thing.
I mean, that's exactly what we are looking for.
The growth rate in new cases continues to slow.
In New York, the change in the growth rate, day over day, is 4.1% down.
California, 4.1% down.
Washington, 4.7% down.
Michigan, 7.6% down.
Massachusetts, 6.7% down.
The slowing transmission is beginning to reduce deaths.
In New York City, the number of daily deaths has actually been decreasing Since the weekend, which indicates a decreasing strain on medical systems and reduces worries that hospitals will be overwhelmed with coronavirus cases.
Now remember, there's a lot of worry about ventilators being, having to be rationed.
There wasn't, there weren't gonna be enough ventilators on order.
Well, Admiral Brett Giroir, who is the Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services, he says, listen, everybody who needs a ventilator has gotten one so far, right?
There's not been anybody who's walked into the hospital and somebody says, okay, sorry, all our ventilators are used.
You're gonna have to die here in the waiting room.
Here's Admiral Brett Giroir.
We look at ventilator use granularly every single day in every single state and down to the hospital level.
So we have been able to meet and easily meet all the ventilator requirements that have been brought to us by the state.
No one has not gotten a ventilator that needs a ventilator.
And as far as we can project, looking at all models, every person who needs a ventilator will get a ventilator.
Daniel Tenray-Rosari is the author of this piece at National Review, looking over sort of the record there.
By the way, it is interesting, the focus on ventilators.
We'll get to the hydroxychloroquine question in just a little bit, because people are still going nuts over Trump mentioning hydroxychloroquine.
They're saying, oh, it's an unconfirmed treatment.
Let me explain something about ventilators.
Once you're on a ventilator, you are in serious, serious trouble.
This Sunday, we had on a doctor from University of California, San Francisco, and we talked specifically about what ventilator use means.
He said anywhere from 50 to 90% of people on ventilators will die.
Okay, so the idea that the ventilator is sort of the cure-all?
I understand it's the last gasp measure.
But you know what is not a last gasp measure, at least not to that extent, is hydroxychloroquine, right?
You start to degrade, and they give you hydroxychloroquine.
Okay, you're right.
There have not been any clinical trials of hydroxychloroquine.
One of the reasons there have not been any clinical trials of hydroxychloroquine is because it's basically unethical to have two people in a room and then randomly select one of them to get hydroxy, right?
You can't do that.
Instead, you have to ask people what they are willing to do.
Informed consent is still an element of clinical trials.
And you can't actually tell people who are dying, "We're not going to give you this experimental drug that is basically off-label." You can't tell people you're not going to do that.
So while the media are fulminating over hydroxychloroquine, they are simultaneously suggesting that ventilators are the most important single thing that any hospital can have at this point.
The fact is, ventilators are important.
But you know what else is super duper important?
Coming up with mitigating medications at this point.
And if that means it's experimental, if that means that the only evidence for it is anecdotal so far, well, the last thing you want is to not have that and then end up on the ventilator.
The ventilator is not where you want to be.
In a second, I want to go back through the question of modeling.
Because again, it's based on these models that we are making the decisions.
And that's okay, right?
As models change, we need to update our decision-making processes.
And some of the solutions that have been put forward are just not realistic.
Like when people are talking about contact tracing in the United States.
The question is how you contact trace in a country of 330 million people, where people are fairly used to not being monitored by the government.
South Korea has had contact tracing in place since 2003, since the SARS outbreak.
In the United States, what are we going to do?
Ramp up contact tracing?
Now when we have community infection?
And when the testing is not complete?
If you're talking about ramping it up to the point where you have a million tests a day for people who are symptomatic, and that you are then going to contact trace when the number of cases goes all the way down to zero, then you could talk about it.
But that seems fairly unrealistic.
I mean, it seems fairly unrealistic that we're going to get to the point where we are contact tracing every single person who has coronavirus in the United States when we have in the United States, at last count, 350,000 cases of coronavirus that have just been identified and tons of people who are asymptomatic, maybe up to five to ten times that number.
It's gonna be pretty damned difficult.
So, we'll get to more of this in just one second.
First, let's talk about the fact that now is a pretty stressful time, and if you have some sort of genetic predisposition to losing your hair, like most guys do, two out of three dudes are going to experience some form of male pattern baldness by the time they're 35, that would be exacerbating that hair loss.
Well, what you actually need are the approved clinical drugs that are useful in preventing hair loss.
How can you do this?
Do this easily, not spend a lot of money, and get it delivered directly to your home?
Well, this is where it comes in.
I've been using keeps because male pattern baldness runs in my family, I enjoy my hair or what is left of it, and you should enjoy your hair too!
The fact is that Keeps is the best way for you to obtain these FDA approved products.
You don't have to go broke to avoid going bald.
Keeps offers generic versions of the only two FDA approved hair loss products out there.
Some of you may have tried them before, not for this price.
Prevention is key because Keeps treatments really do work.
They're up to 90% effective at reducing and stopping further hair loss.
The sooner you start using Keeps, the more hair you're going to save.
So, act fast.
You know, you think you're young and the hair will be there forever?
Wrong you are.
It will go.
Go check out Keeps right now.
Keeps has revolutionized the way men are treated for hair loss.
Thanks to Keeps, you don't have to go to the doctor's office for their hair loss prescription.
You can't even do that anyway right now.
Anyway, so instead, check out Keeps.com.
Find out why Keeps has more five-star reviews than any of its competitors and nearly 100,000 men trust Keeps for their hair loss prevention medication.
For a limited time, you get your first month for free.
That's one hell of a deal for getting to keep your hair.
Go check them out.
Right now, K-E-E-P-S dot com slash Ben.
And that's K-E-E-P-S dot com slash Ben.
Keeps dot com slash Ben to receive your first month of treatment for free.
Go check them out right now.
Keeps dot com slash Ben.
Okay, so, as I have mentioned, because the models have been So variable.
It makes it difficult for people to trust experts when experts say you need to stay in your house, and especially when they say things like you're supposed to stay in your house indefinitely and social distance from your own family inside your house.
So what we have seen is that the models have been dramatically downgraded.
So the model that's been getting the most press in the United States is the University of Washington model.
I talked about this pretty extensively yesterday.
They dramatically downgraded over the weekend the number of expected national deaths from 94,000 to 81,000.
They also really, really dramatically downgraded the number of hospital beds they thought would be necessary.
But originally, they thought that the number of hospital beds that were going to be necessary, that that was going to actually be a lot, a lot higher.
They thought the number of hospital beds that was going to be necessary, it could stack up at something like 260,000 by August 5th.
something like 260,000 by August 5th.
Instead, they decreased that number to 140,000, which is a decline of 120,000.
ICU beds needed at peak, they went from 39,727 down to 29,210, which is a decline of over 10,000 ICU beds.
Invasive ventilators needed to peak they went down from 32,000 all the way down to 19,000.
Those are really significant changes in the in the data that they have been providing to us.
And so the question becomes why did the changes occur?
Well, the first thing to understand about that University of Washington model everybody is relying upon is it's a curve-fitting model.
So there are certain models that sort of attempt to model out what disease vectors look like.
By looking at particular factors and then speculating.
But the IMHE model actually attempts to just use data as it comes and then fit the curve to the data that's coming in.
So originally they were using the Wuhan data, then they were using the Italy data, and now as they're starting to get U.S.
data, it looks like U.S.
data is actually pretty different from Italy data and also from Wuhan data.
Robert Verbruggen has a good explanation here at National Review.
The IMHE model by contrast simply looks at what has actually happened elsewhere in the world during this outbreak and then uses that information to predict what will happen in the U.S.
how a virus spreads through a population based on a host of assumptions about how easily the disease jumps from one person to another and how often people come into contact with each other under various social distancing rules.
The IMHE model, by contrast, simply looks at what has actually happened elsewhere in the world during this outbreak and then uses that information to predict what will happen in the U.S. and individual states.
That means that the IMHE model is a lot more malleable because as new data puts in the curve itself changes, as opposed to as data comes in in the Imperial College model, you have to actually go in and change the factors that are being used in order to calculate that model.
So when the group released their new predictions, which came out just two days ago, they put out a big explanation, including a salient bit regarding deaths.
They said, at the time of our first release on March 26, the only location where the number of daily deaths had already peaked was Wuhan City.
These data from Wuhan formed the basis of our estimation of the time, from the implementation of social distancing policies to the peak day of deaths.
One of the reasons that they were in fact saying that was a longer curve to peak day of deaths is because China was lying about its numbers.
They started seeing mass death very early and then it tailed off really fast, which is why what you saw in the updated numbers from the University of Washington model is a quick rise to apex and then a fairly steep decline from apex.
Since then, an additional seven locations in Italy and Spain with large coronavirus epidemics appear to have reached the peak number of daily deaths.
That'd be in Spain and then Italy.
With today's update, they say, we now estimate the time from implementation of social distancing policies to the peak of daily deaths using all eight locations where the number of daily deaths appear to be peaking or to have peaked.
The time of implementation?
of social distancing to the peak of the epidemic is shorter than what was observed in Wuhan because China has been lying.
By the way, NBC News doing yeoman's work, parroting all Chinese propaganda.
They had a story out today that they tweeted out saying, America experiences over 1200 deaths.
China reports no new deaths.
Yeah, well, China reported no deaths at Tiananmen Square also.
So it turns out that a communist country is a lying country.
Also, they dramatically downgraded in this study what they thought hospital capacity would be necessary.
Originally, they suggested a ratio of 11.1 hospital admissions per COVID-19 death.
Now they're saying 7.1 hospitalizations per COVID-19 death.
And that means that what they were doing is they were just multiplying the number of expected deaths by the number of hospital admissions.
So you saw the rate of death go down and you saw the rate of hospital admission go down.
And so the result is fewer hospital beds needed and less of a chance of overwhelming the system.
Andrew Cuomo yesterday, by the way, said they don't have a hospital bed problem in New York City.
He said they might still have a ventilator problem, but that has not actually materialized in terms of being overwhelmed at this point.
And in terms of hospital beds, that apparently is not a problem anymore.
The uncertainty in the modeling is both a good thing in the sense that if the models were certain and right, that'd be very scary.
It's also a problem because if you are making all of your decisions off of variable models, Then there are going to be a lot of questions to be asked about how well those decisions are being made.
We'll get to more of this in just one second.
First, let's talk about the fact that if you're having car trouble right now, Rock Auto is an absolute godsend, right?
You don't want to be going out to the store in order to get a part for your car.
Instead, you should be using the interwebs just like you are for everything else.
And Rock Auto not only has a better selection than your local auto parts store, you can get the parts cheaper than your local auto parts store.
The RockAuto.com catalog is unique.
It is easy to navigate.
RockAuto.com has everything from engine control modules and brake parts to tail lamps, Motor oil, even new carpet, whether it is for your classic or daily driver, get everything you need in a few easy clicks delivered directly to your door.
rockauto.com always offers the lowest prices possible rather than changing prices based on what the market will bear.
rockauto.com is a family business serving auto parts customers online For 20 years.
So head on over to rockauto.com right now.
See all the parts available for your car or truck.
Write Shapiro in there.
How did you hear about us, Box?
So they know that we sent you.
Again, go check them out at rockauto.com.
That is rockauto.com right now.
And write Shapiro in there.
How did you hear about us, Box?
So they know that we sent you.
And that's good for them.
It's good for us.
It lets them know that their advertisements are working and that our audience is listening.
And it's good for us in that it shows them how well It shows them where their customers are coming from.
It shows us that you are listening to the program.
So really appreciate it.
Go to rockauto.com right now.
Go shop right now.
Write your peer on that.
How did you hear about Usbox?
Okay, so I'm not the only person who's having questions about the models.
Pretty much everybody at this point is having questions about the models.
According to the Associated Press, A statistical model cited by the White House generated a slightly less grim figure Monday for a first wave of deaths from coronavirus pandemic in the U.S., a projection designed to help officials plan for the worst, including having enough hospitals, staff, beds and ventilators.
The only problem with this bit of relatively good news, it's almost certainly wrong.
All models are wrong.
Some are just less wrong than others.
And those are the ones that public health officials rely on.
NASA top climate modeler Gavin Schmidt says the key thing you want to know is what's happening in the future.
Absence of time machine, you're going to have to use a model.
The latest projections show that anywhere from 49,431 to 136,401 Americans will die in the first wave, which could last into the summer, which is a huge range of 87,000.
So, again, these models are somewhat useful, but they are not extraordinarily useful because they are uncertain.
There's a huge range on them.
They're not great at modeling human behavior.
And so, and the biggest problem with the model, as I keep mentioning over and over and over with this UW model, is that it just goes until the beginning of August.
So it doesn't tell you what happens in a second wave.
And we are beginning to see, even while Italy is flattening, And even while there is consideration being put forward toward the reopening of places like Italy and Denmark, you're starting to see a second wave in Asia, according to the Economic Times.
The Japanese government may declare a state of emergency this week to contain a coronavirus outbreak.
Shinzo Abe, the Prime Minister, is reportedly set to make a declaration for parts of Japan, including Tokyo, as the number of people infected with the virus continues to increase.
The news pushed up Tokyo stocks, with investors seeing the move as a positive for containing the outbreak.
Authorities reported 120 new virus cases on Sunday, so they're declaring an emergency in Japan, which until now had been fairly non-hard hit.
Also, in Singapore, they have been re-locking down in particular areas.
They're locking down dormitory complexes because people are coming in and reinfecting everybody.
So the big question is, what happens when you start to open this thing back up?
Meanwhile, Italy and Norway are beginning to look at easing their lockdowns after Denmark and Austria became the first two European countries to loosen restrictions as governments seek to gradually revive economies crippled by the containment measures without risking a second wave of infections, according to Bloomberg.
Italy, the original epicenter of the outbreak, has begun to plan for emerging from the lockdown.
Selected firms could open in mid-April, according to an official familiar with the discussions.
Norway may also move to ease restrictions, with a press briefing scheduled later on Tuesday.
Parts of Italy's agribusiness and health sectors and mechanical equipment companies linked to those industries could be allowed to restart operations, but protection for workers will be critical for each company involved, said a person who was talking on condition of anonymity.
After weeks of measures designed to limit contact between people, European governments are seeing growing evidence that shutting down much of modern life is containing the disease.
But the scale of the outbreak means officials need to weigh any attempts to restart parts of the economy against the risk of reigniting the spread.
Europe has been hardest hit by the pandemic.
Denmark is going to press ahead with cautious reopening.
They're going to start with daycare and primary schools on April 15th if the virus numbers remain stable.
The government will also start talks with business leaders on gradually moving employees back into offices, but with some restrictions in place for months to come.
So this is where the rubber's gonna hit the road.
It'll be fascinating to see what happens in these countries where they go back to some level of reopening.
Now, people are all over Sweden because Sweden has basically allowed people to continue going to restaurants.
You just don't go to the counter.
Instead, you sit at your table and you social distance.
They've allowed people to continue going to work.
They've kept their schools open.
And so they've seen a jump in deaths.
But we're not gonna know, again, the counterfactual, which is if they had locked everybody home for a year, was that going to be better?
Was that actually going to turn out better?
Again, if the models are trying to tell you that over the next few months you are less likely to die if you stay home, that is true.
If the models are telling you that over the course of the next year you have precisely the same chance of dying if you go out as staying in, then everybody is just going to go out.
And that remains the question that no one is willing to answer.
What happens with this second wave?
Once you got the ICUs in place, once you have the ventilators in place, once you've tested all the drugs that you can test, at least for the moment, then why are we not going to a system where the people who are the most vulnerable, namely the oldest, the people with pre-existing conditions, why are we not moving?
to a system where those people are basically quarantined off or self-quarantining until we have a vaccine and everybody else who is much lower risk goes back to work.
Because one of the things that we've been seeing, even in New York City, is that the people who are dying of corona almost entirely have pre-existing conditions.
We are seeing the data.
The data are fairly clear at this point.
Which is that if you are older, you have a significantly higher rate of death.
If you have a pre-existing condition, you have a significantly higher rate of death.
You can see this information is indeed available from the New York City government.
The New York City government is reporting in terms of rates by age per 100,000 people, if you are 75 and older, this is COVID-19 acquisition.
If you have the rate that is so far measured, and again, the rate's not perfect because the testing is not perfect.
If you're 75 and older, then out of 100,000 people, you have about 1.3% chance.
If you're 75 and older of having coronavirus, 1.25% chance.
If you're 65 to 74, 1.2% chance.
If you're 45 to 64, a 0.7% chance.
If you're 18 to 44, and you have a 0.69% chance.
If you are 0 to 17.
And if you look at pre-existing conditions, you will see that the number of people with pre-existing conditions is, it is fairly obvious that people have tremendous underlying conditions if you are typically going to die.
So I'm looking right now at the New York City health data from today.
And I'll get to what exactly that finds in just one moment.
First, let's talk about your safety and security on your own property inside your own home.
So, I've for a long time been worried about safety and security on my property.
We are seeing in cities around the nation, Seattle, LA, New York, crime rates rising as the police are overwhelmed, as many of them are staying home, as people in jail are being released instead of being put into prison or put on trial.
This means now would be a pretty good time to protect your property, and this is why you need Ring.
Ring gives you protection at every corner, helps you create custom, affordable security for your home.
Video doorbells let you answer the door, check in on your home anytime, from anywhere, and full home security systems give you everything you need to protect your family, pets, and property.
With those outdoor security cameras, you can check in on every part of your house, so you're not going to miss a moment.
This is actually fairly useful, not even for safety reasons, but if I've got my kids playing on the side of the house and gardening or something, I can keep an eye on them from inside the house while I'm dealing With the baby.
Get a special offer on one of Ring's video doorbells when you go to ring.com slash ben right now.
Start building custom security for your home today.
Head on over to ring.com slash ben again.
That is ring.com slash ben.
Go check them out right now.
Ring.com slash ben.
I've been using them for years.
If I rely on them for my security, and I get lots of security threats, you should certainly be able to rely on them for your security.
Ring.com slash ben.
Get started building that ring of security today.
Okay, well, in just a moment, we're going to get to the statistics from New York City.
Again, I wish there were more transparency.
It seems like a lot of the experts are trying to upplay the number of young and healthy people who are getting this thing and dying, and downplay the number of people who are elderly and have pre-existing conditions who are dying.
And again, it is an enormous tragedy every time somebody dies of Any of these causes, but certainly coronavirus.
It's not to downplay that, but if we're going to assess risk factors and who gets to go back to work and who does not, let's stop pretending that every element of the population is equally susceptible to dying of coronavirus.
We'll get to more of this in just one second.
First...
If you haven't had a chance to see some of our new content, All Access Live, you should head over to dailywire.com and check it out.
Jeremy and Boring and I launched it a couple of weeks ago.
Originally, it was scheduled for later this summer.
We accelerated it because we want to hang out with you.
We understand everybody is at home.
Everybody is feeling lonely.
Everybody is feeling cut off.
What we do on All Access Live, it's really informal.
Basically, I just take your questions.
I hang out with you.
Sometimes I play Classical music to annoy you off of my phone.
I wear a short-sleeve shirt, which is, if that's something that you've ever thirsted for, then this would be your time.
If not, well, too bad, because I'm not going to wear this long-sleeve shirt all day.
I have kids inside.
Go check us out over at dailywire.com.
8 p.m.
Eastern, 5 p.m.
Pacific tonight.
Join us on the all-access show tonight.
It is I. I shall be hosting over at dailywire.com, our all-access show.
So become a member.
Any level of member is welcome at this point.
Later, we'll cut all of you off who aren't all-access members.
In the middle of a pandemic, we're not going to do that.
We're more generous than that.
Become a member and hang out with us at dailywire.com.
We're the largest, fastest growing conservative podcast and radio show in the nation.
Okay, so I'm going to give you right now some of the information about underlying conditions in the city of New York.
They have the New York City health data, and I wish that this data were a lot more transparent, because it doesn't actually tell you what the underlying health conditions are.
And that's freaking everybody out, because a ton of people in the United States are overweight, a ton of people are taking statins for slightly high blood pressure, a lot of people have sort of mild conditions.
Are those pre-existing conditions?
New York health data doesn't really say.
They say the underlying illnesses include diabetes, lung disease, cancer, immunodeficiency, heart disease, hypertension, asthma, kidney disease, and GI liver disease.
So that sounds, you know, a lot more serious.
Here are the numbers on who is dying.
So only two people have died under the age of 17 in New York City thus far.
Both of them had underlying health conditions.
In the 18 to 44 group, 180 people have died.
144 of them had underlying health conditions.
Only 12 had no underlying health conditions.
The other 24 are still pending testing.
45 to 64, 777 people dead, only 25 had no underlying health conditions.
65 to 74, 789 people dead, only 9 had no underlying health conditions.
75 and over, 1,454 people have died, only 9 had no underlying conditions.
89 people dead, only nine had no underlying health conditions.
75 and over, 1,454 people have died, only nine had no underlying conditions.
Now, we're still waiting testing on some of this stuff, but the fact is that what that suggests is if you have an underlying health condition, you are severely vulnerable from this thing.
If you do not have an underlying health condition, then there's an almost extraordinary shot that you're not going to die of this thing.
Okay, if you're young and you're healthy and you're out working, you're probably not going to die.
Now, you may transmit it to other people.
And this is where these studies start to come in, right?
Which is how easily is this thing transmitted?
How fast does it pass?
But we may get to the point when we lock this thing down such that The elderly are at least protected for the moment and those who are immunocompromised are protected at least for the moment.
Then we may have to say to that group of people, particularly, guys, you need to stay out of the general population.
You need to stay home.
And listen, I know how rough and terrible that is.
I understand how rough and terrible that is.
I really do.
Look, my parents right now, they're 64 years old.
They're at our house every day.
Why are they at our house every day?
Well, number one, we need the help.
But more importantly, we know we don't have corona because we had a closed loop before some of this stuff started.
We're not super social.
And they've been here for now a month, basically, in lockdown.
Nobody's got it.
And so that means we have a closed loop.
What happens when we open back up?
Right?
What happens when the government says that my kids can go back to school?
Well, now the chances that my kids become carriers Dramatically spike, right?
The chance that when I go back to work and my wife goes back to work and she's a doctor, right?
That the chances that she becomes a carrier, those dramatically spike.
And once those spike, then can my parents be over at our house?
Do they have to lock themselves inside their house up until January, right?
All of this stuff, these are really difficult and terrible decisions.
But something that we're definitely going to have to look at because the case remains, it remains the fact that shutting down the world economy has pretty dire ramifications.
And again, everybody should be acknowledging this at this point.
That the dire ramifications of shutting down the world economy, this is not insensitivity.
It is not insensitive to think of the jobs of literally hundreds of millions of people all over the planet, including tens of millions of people in the United States.
There are food bank lines that are literally miles long right now in the United States for people waiting to get food.
And so the question is going to become if we are not even balancing death, right?
Let's say for example, let's say we best possible world.
We knock this thing down such that beginning of May, the rates of death from this thing are basically 20 a day, right?
We really knocked the crap out of this thing.
And by the end of June, we are down to basically zero, right?
We're really low.
And then we say to the people who are the most immunocompromised and the elderly, we say to those people, you need to stay home.
We'll bring you your groceries.
We'll drop them at the doorstep.
You need to continue to self-quarantine until you get the vaccination because you are the people most likely to die.
And everybody else go back to school.
Everybody else go back to work.
Everybody else keep the economy humming.
That may be the best we can do.
And these sort of solutions that have been suggested by people who really know what they're talking about, right?
Scott Gottlieb over at the FDA, who's now an advisor to Maryland Governor Larry Hogan.
When people talk about contact tracing and hundreds of thousands of tests being done every single week and using the South Korean model and electronic surveillance, does that seem realistic to you in the United States?
Seriously, South Korea has been doing this sort of stuff for 20 years.
Does that seem realistic to you in the United States?
It may be better than the alternative, which is staying home, but does that seem more realistic?
Or does it seem more realistic to say people are going to start to go back to normal life?
That if you're vulnerable and you're elderly, we're going to have to quarantine you off until either herd immunity is reached or until a vaccine is developed.
And right now, again, people are ripping on Sweden for taking this exact strategy, but I don't know whether Sweden is going to pay off.
Maybe Sweden does.
Because one of the things you're doing right now by flattening the curve is ensuring that more people do not get this thing.
Which means that people will get it in the fall.
Fauci has said this is seasonal.
Everybody is saying this is seasonal.
So what exactly is going to happen next?
That's the big question.
Dr. Anthony Fauci says we may never go back to anything approaching normal.
Here is the head of the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases.
Back to normal means acting like there never was a coronavirus problem.
I don't think that's going to happen until we do have a situation where you can completely protect the population.
But when we say getting back to normal, we mean something very different from what we're going through right now.
Because right now we are in a very intense mitigation.
When we get back to normal, we will go back gradually to the point where we can function as a society.
And I don't know what that gradual looks like.
I don't know what that looks like.
Again, if you send the kids back to school, grandparents are still going to have to lock down.
They are.
The minute my kids go back to school, grandpa and grandma have to lock down.
That's what they have to do.
That's just the way it's going to work.
I don't know what going back to semi-normal looks like.
The minute people go back to the office, if you think they're not going to get reinfected, I don't know what planet you're living on.
Right.
Like if they say that we have to wait till 14 days of no cases, that's not going to happen.
There will not be in a country of 330, 350 million people.
There's not going to come a point like Italy's talking about reopening right now.
Italy is talking about how they go back to a partial reopening.
And Italy had like a lot of death yesterday.
OK, Italy still had, as of yesterday, 636 deaths.
They had over 3,500 new diagnosed cases in Italy, and they're talking about reopening right now.
Norway, which is talking about reopening, had 5 new deaths and 178 new diagnosed cases yesterday.
So nobody's down to zero.
The only country that says they're down to zero is China, and they're lying.
So can we at some point get like a realistic assessment of where things are going to be?
I really don't think anybody is being particularly realistic about this stuff, especially in light of the fact that, again, we are not going to keep the economy locked down.
And if you really believe that people are going to sit there and take their $1,200 check and be happy for the next four months while losing their job permanently, If you think that, I mean, I know parents in New York City, right now, in their apartments with three kids, unable to go to a public park, unable to take their kids on walks, and they've been locked down for three weeks.
You think you're gonna be able to do that for another three, four, five, seven months?
Not going to happen.
Not going to happen.
Okay, meanwhile, the media continue to beclown themselves on a wide variety of issues.
Don Lemon, objective journalist, he was really journalism-ing hard yesterday.
He was shouting at the moon, shouting at President Trump, How much more of this are you going to take?
Are you mad as hell?
Mad as hell over what?
What is the thing I'm supposed to be mad as hell over exactly?
Trump saying dumb stuff?
Welcome to Trump world.
That's what he does.
But am I supposed to be mad that Fauci and Birx are running the show?
Because those are the people the media would like to run the show.
Trump is taking their advice.
Am I supposed to be mad that the ventilators are being delivered?
They are.
Andrew Cuomo has thanked the White House pretty much every day for their work with him.
Gavin Newsom has been thanking the White House every single day.
Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan has been thanking the White House every single day.
Like, I just don't understand what we are supposed to be so all fired angry about, Don Lemon.
It doesn't make any sense to me.
Here's Don Lemon.
For the last couple of weeks, when I walk into this building and I get in front of this camera, I swear, I feel like I'm in the movie network.
I feel like Howard Beale.
Americans are mad as hell.
What are you going to... How much more can Americans take?
Every single day, berating people, lying.
First, it's a hoax.
And then, all along, I knew it was serious.
I knew it was a pandemic.
How much more?
How many people have to die?
Okay, I'm sorry.
What in the world?
First of all, Trump never said coronavirus was a hoax.
He said the Democrats playing up his lack of response was a hoax.
And then, Don Lemon says, how many more people are going to die before he gets serious?
Does he look unserious?
He's having a press conference with the doctors every single day.
The media are so eager to rip on Trump that they are making themselves the issue and they are losing credibility in the process.
One of the big problems here, again, is this is a time when you require high institutional health, tremendous institutional health.
We've got to trust Congress to get us our checks.
We've got to trust the White House to provide great information.
We've got to trust the media to be straight in their coverage.
We have to trust the experts in their modeling.
And nobody trusts any of these people.
So it's a really difficult problem right now.
And then you got Don Lemon out there channeling Howard Beale.
I mean, for those who haven't seen the movie, by the way, that is Don Lemon labeling himself an insane schizophrenic because that's what Howard Beale actually is.
He thinks God is talking to him in network.
So not a great way to compare yourself there.
Don Lemon.
But the media are so over the top.
Like they interviewed yesterday.
I think it was on CNN.
They interviewed a New York City health commissioner whose mother, who was in her 80s, died of coronavirus.
And this person gets on TV and blames Trump for it.
Do we have the video of that one?
I mean, it's truly astonishing.
This person gets up and they're like, well, you know, my mother died and Trump has blood on his hands.
You are in the New York City government.
There's a mayor there.
His name is Bill de Blasio.
He had a governor in New York State last I checked.
His name is Andrew Cuomo.
But somehow it's Trump's fault?
And solely Trump's fault?
Bill de Blasio was telling people to go out there and party as of early March.
So, spare me a little bit, but this is, this is, the media are just, they're awful at this.
The case in point, obviously, is their coverage of this hydroxychloroquine issue.
So, I'm going to show you two clips.
One is from Donald Trump, the other is from Andrew Cuomo.
One of these people the media hate.
One of these people the media love.
They're saying basically the same thing about hydroxy.
Here is President Trump touting hydroxychloroquine yesterday at his briefing.
You know the expression, I've used it for certain reasons.
What do you have to lose?
What do you have to lose?
And a lot of people are saying that when, and are taking it, if you're a doctor, a nurse, a first responder, a medical person going into hospitals, they say taking it before the fact is good.
But what do you have to lose?
They say take it.
I'm not looking at it one way or the other.
But we want to get out of this.
If it does work, it would be a shame if we didn't do it early.
Okay, so first of all, he is wrong to suggest that you ought to be taking it preventatively, right?
There's not evidence that you ought to be taking this thing preventatively, that you should be taking... That is a legit fact check.
If President Trump says you ought to be taking this thing preventatively, he should not be saying that, right?
It should be prescribed by a doctor when it is useful.
Okay, but him touting the benefits of hydroxychloroquine, the media have more broadly suggested it is very bad to tout the benefits of hydroxychloroquine, and yet here you have Andrew Cuomo yesterday suggesting there's anecdotal evidence and we're going to ask for more of it.
There has been anecdotal evidence that it is promising.
That's why we're going ahead.
Doctors have to prescribe, but there are some people who have pre-existing conditions where it doesn't work, or they're taking medication that's not consistent with this treatment.
But anecdotally, it's been positive.
We'll have a full test once they have a large enough sample and data set, Jesse.
But anecdotally, it's been positive.
OK, so he's saying also that there is some benefits to the drug.
A Michigan Democrat yesterday came out and said hydroxy saved my life.
Hydroxychloroquine saved my life.
Should thank President Trump for that.
And this has led the media to lose their mind.
The worst story from the New York Times, this is amazing.
So the New York Times is covering hydroxychloroquine and saying Trump is pumping it and all of this.
So why is Trump pumping this?
So the obvious answer is that Trump is trying to give people hope for a treatment that is short of a ventilator and death.
That is the short answer.
That he's looking at anecdotal evidence.
He is seeing anecdotal evidence.
There are small studies that suggest that this thing is at least somewhat effective.
Some say mildly effective.
Some say more than mildly effective.
And Trump is trying to give people a ray of hope in the midst of a really, really dark time.
Right?
That is the most logical explanation.
That is not where the New York Times goes.
Instead, here's the New York Times reporting.
If hydroxychloroquine becomes an accepted treatment, several pharmaceutical companies stand to profit, including shareholders and senior executives with connections to the president.
Mr. Trump himself has a small personal financial interest in Sanofi, the French drug maker that makes Plaquenil, the brand name version of hydroxychloroquine.
Um, so you think that Trump is pushing a hydroxychloroquine because he owns stock in a company that makes Plaquenil?
First of all, this thing is off patent.
Hydroxychloroquine is not on patent, which means that the maker of Plaquenil is not the company that stands to benefit most.
Second of all, how big a stake does Trump own in Sanofi?
According to Market Watch, His three family trusts have investments in a Dodge and Cox mutual fund, whose largest holding is Sanofi.
Trump's 2019 financial disclosure form lists stakes in family trusts 1, 2, and 3, valued at between $1,000 and $15,000.
So if Trump has the maximum $15,000 in each of the trusts, he holds a stake in Sanofi that's worth $1,485, and at the minimum, $99.
You're right, probably Trump, who's at the very least worth a billion dollars.
He may not be worth ten billion, he's worth at least a billion.
You're saying that that guy is recommending hydroxychloroquine because the on-brand version, now that we are off patent, that that brand version, he needs that to sell because of his $99 stake in the company?
That's what's happening here?
That's your chief explanation?
I'm sorry, it's just ridiculous.
It's just ridiculous.
But the ridiculousness of the media, they're blowing their own credibility.
They really are.
And now is not the time to blow your credibility.
Now would be the time for some responsible reportage.
Alrighty, time for a quick thing I like and then we'll get to some things that I hate.
Things that I like today.
So when you are cooped up long enough with small children, eventually you take to physically throwing them around.
And that's pretty much what has happened in my house.
I have a six-year-old and a three-year-old.
And their favorite game right now is for me to take out my phone and put on Ozzy Osbourne's Crazy Train and then proceed to air guitar with them as human beings.
Not like they air guitar with me.
Like I physically pick them up and they become the guitar.
And it's a fun thing to do.
They've really been enjoying that.
My daughter particularly likes the drum solo and she has long hair so she can really headbang along to Ozzy Osbourne.
So, in honor of the only person who has eaten a bat and not gotten COVID apparently, here is a little bit of Crazy Train by Ozzy Osbourne.
I get a lot of people who ask me about, do I listen to like hard rock music?
There are a couple good songs.
Crazy Train's a pretty great song.
I wish I had my kid's record, air guitar. .
You wait until right now, and then you pick them, like, wait for the cue.
And then right now.
Right, this is where you pick up the kids and you air guitar with them, going behind your head.
Yeah, you really go for it.
It's a pretty great song, honestly.
I don't like Ozzy Osbourne's music all that much.
I don't think there's a lot of variety.
This song is pretty fantastic.
Yeah.
Okay, so.
You know, if you're in that kind of mood, and I think everybody is, if you don't want to go Howard Beale, go Ozzy Osbourne.
Just don't eat the bats, guys.
No eating of the bats.
Regardless of color or culture, no eating of the bats.
Okay.
Other things that I like today.
I do love rich irony.
Here's the rich irony.
The founder of BDS, which is Boycotts, Investments, and Sanctions from Israel.
His name is Omar Barghouti.
He's awful.
He wants to destroy the state of Israel.
He's made this absolutely clear from the outset.
Now he says that if Israel does create the vaccine for coronavirus, that BDS supporters can take it.
Weird!
Your principles went directly out the window when it turns out that Israel made something you want to use.
Who could have predicted such a thing?
He said, according to the Jerusalem Post, if you use medical equipment from Israel, it's not a problem.
Cooperating with Israel against the virus, to begin with, that's not normalization.
The BDS announced normalization criteria long ago.
If Israel finds a cure for cancer, for example, or any other virus, there's no problem in cooperating with Israel to save millions of lives.
Up until now, we've not been in a situation where we need Israel urgently, and no one else can save us but Israel.
If that happens, saving lives is more important than anything else.
Oh, weird.
Weird how, like, all of your, Israel is very bad, we won't use any of their products, went directly out of the window as soon as you wanted to use one of their products.
Very odd how that worked.
So, I only hope that this materializes not only because everybody wants the vaccine, that'd be great, but also because it would be absolutely delicious to watch all the BDS people have to acknowledge that their garbage strategy has indeed failed.
So I think that would be quite good.
Alrighty, time for a quick thing that I hate.
Remember that time there was this guy.
His name was Judge Brett Kavanaugh.
And there was a trial in the Senate.
Well, not a trial.
It was a hearing for him.
A confirmation hearing for him in the Senate, in the Judiciary Committee.
And everything was going fairly swimmingly.
In fact, I was not particularly high on Judge Brett Kavanaugh as a Supreme Court pick.
I thought he was too wishy-washy.
I was suspicious that he was not going to be as originalist as a Justice Thomas, for example.
And then things went sideways.
And the way they went sideways is that a woman came forward named Christine Blasey Ford, and she said that some Four decades ago, that this person had allegedly attempted to rape her at a party.
And nobody came forward with any corroborating details.
She herself could not say the night.
She herself could not say where it was.
She herself improperly named the people who were there, all of whom denied having been there.
Her allies attempted to pressure some of the witnesses at this thing.
That did not stop Alyssa Milano.
Star of the magnificent, unparalleled TV show, Charmed.
It did not stop Alyssa Milano from showing up and wearing Handmaid's Tale outfits and sitting behind Brett Kavanaugh because hashtag me too, ladies.
Hashtag me too.
And when people like Alyssa Milano were asked specifically about this thing called due process, where you have to provide evidence of an allegation to make us take it a little bit more seriously than the mere allegation itself, it was This is because you just don't believe all women.
If only you believed all women.
If only you weren't a vicious sexist trying to cudgel all women into being child-bearing sows, then you would have just accepted at face value any accusation made about any man anywhere.
Well, speaking of hypocrisy, it turns out that there is a woman who has now come forward and she's accused the former vice president of the United States of asexual assault.
So this woman, his name is Tara Reid, not the actress, different person.
She was an intern for Biden's office, and she alleges that Biden basically pushed her up against a wall and then tried to go under her skirt and actually touched her genitals forcibly.
And then when she told him not, then he sort of backed off.
Well, Alyssa Milano is a big backer of Joe Biden, and she did a radio show yesterday in which she explained why she had not spoken out about the sexual assault allegation.
It turns out that Believe All Women goes completely by the wayside as soon as it's somebody that she likes.
So here is Alyssa Milano explaining why she was not going to give any credence to the allegations.
The obvious answer is she's not giving credence to the allegations because she doesn't like the allegations.
I believe that even though we should believe women, and that is an important thing, and what that statement really means is like, you know, for so long, the go-to has been not to believe them.
So really, we have to sort of societally change that mindset to believing women.
But that does not mean at the expense of not, you know, giving men their due process.
Um, what now?
Wait, wait, did she just stumble over due process?
It's like she was walking along the road and...
There was a due process right there and boom, she just stumbled right upon it.
Who could have suggested long ago the due process would have been a good idea?
Well, not Alyssa Milano, right?
She actually continued to say, investigate situations.
It's got to be fair in both directions.
So I've been very vocal about Biden and my support for him.
I've known him for a long time.
I did my due diligence because part of it was that.
The article that sort of stood out to me was that Time's Up decided not to take the case.
Well, so what if Time's Up decided not to take the case?
Does that mean that the woman is lying?
What interest does she have in lying?
We were told that Christine Blasey Ford had no interest in making things up, that there was no possibility she was misremembering, that there was no possibility at all that memories from 40 years ago are vague or confusing or anything like that.
It was crystal clear in her memory and other allegations which required lawyers to basically convince people to go out and say things.
There's another allegation where a woman had to meet six times with her lawyer in order to accuse Brett Kavanaugh of something.
That was perfectly good evidence that Brett Kavanaugh was indeed a rapist.
She says, I don't just feel comfortable throwing away a decent man I've known for 15 years in this time of complete chaos without there being a thorough investigation.
I'm sure that the mainstream media would be jumping all over this as well if, you know, if they found more evidence.
So I'm just staying quiet about it.
I sent the Me Too tweet over two years ago.
I never thought it would be something that was going to destroy innocent men, right?
We don't want that to happen either.
So we have to find this balance in the Believe Women movement and also giving men their due process.
Realizing that we're destroying lives if we publicly don't go through the right steps in order to find out if an accusation is credible or not.
Okay, in September 2018, here's what she had to say, Alyssa Milano.
Let me be as clear as possible.
I believe Christine Blasey Ford.
I demand our senators vote to reject Brett Kavanaugh as the next justice on the Supreme Court.
Every person who refuses to loudly and openly reject Brett Kavanaugh's nomination is telling every generation of Americans that an alleged abuser's career is more valuable than a survivor's humanity.
The highest court in our land is no place for an alleged sexual offender to sit.
How about the White House?
How about the White House?
Is that a good place for an alleged sexual offender to sit?
And also, it seems to me that if this is the standard for Brad Kavanaugh, it should be the standard for you.
But apparently not.
Shocker.
Shock of shocks, Alyssa Milano is a giant hypocrite, and the Me Too standards only apply to people that we don't like.
Everybody else we do like.
At that point, we just call them trailer trash.
People who, if you drag a $100 bill through a trailer park, then you pick up people like this, which is what James Carville suggested about the alleged victims of Bill Clinton.
So yes, me too, and due process.
Alyssa Milano rediscovering due process.
Pretty delicious.
Alrighty, we'll be back here a little bit later today with two additional hours of content and all your updates.
Also, all access live tonight, so I'll be hanging out with you for an hour, taking all your questions.
Maybe 45 minutes, because I don't want to hang out with you that long, but at the very least, we'll hang out for 45 minutes before my screaming children come in and invade the place.
Otherwise, we'll 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.
Alyssa Milano believes all women, except for the women accusing her friends of sexual assault.
We will examine how the MeToo movement died yesterday, and what lessons we can learn from its demise on everything from politics to the coronavirus.
Then, more good news out of New York, more bad news for the fake news media, and a Bernie bro endorsement for President Trump.
▲
Export Selection