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April 28, 2020 - The Ben Shapiro Show

57:46

The Media Can’t Reade | Ep. 999

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	Media downplay new revelations regarding a sexual assault allegation against Joe Biden.
	Reporters keep asking Trump pretty dumb questions.
	And politicians waver on reopening.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	Shapiro, this is The Ben Shapiro Show.
	The Ben Shapiro Show is sponsored by ExpressVPN.
	Surf the web with peace of mind.
	Sign up now at expressvpn.com.
	Okay, so we've got some good news.
	We've got some bad news this morning.
	The bad news is that not much has changed in terms of our knowledge level about coronavirus.
	There is still a lot of vagueness as far as what we know and what we do not know.
	We do know that the death rates from actual infection of coronavirus are significantly lower than originally proposed.
	They're not 3%, they're not 4%, they're well under 1%.
	The question is how far under because each 0.1 is a multiple of the flu.
	So if it's 0.1, that's the same as the flu.
	0.2 is double the flu.
	0.3 is triple the flu.
	And so on.
	In all likelihood, what we're looking at is somewhere between 0.3 and 0.6, which is at least three to six times as deadly as the flu, plus this thing spreads three times as fast as the flu, which means that you're going to end up with a multiple of deaths absent social distancing.
	And that is what the models are beginning to show today, is that as people consider reopening, there will be additional deaths.
	Now, people are using this as an excuse to suggest that we have to remain shut down forever.
	But this is the reality of life.
	If we stay locked up in our homes for any reason, Rates of flu deaths will go down.
	Any communicable disease will go down.
	Rates of herpes will go down.
	Any disease that is communicated by people being in close contact with one another will go down when you are at home.
	On the other hand, things like heart disease or cancer, those are really not going to change very much, and you're not going to be able to get your treatment if you are at home.
	But the communicable diseases are always going to go down when you keep people at home.
	Car accident deaths are going to go down.
	There are just certain things that are going to go down.
	So, recognizing that disease continues to exist in our society, and that we are going to go out of our houses, That means that there will be additional deaths.
	The question is, how many additional deaths?
	So, there are new models out today trying to describe how many new deaths will be created by people going out.
	And this is hard to model because we don't know the extent to which people are actually going to social distance.
	Now, I have a lot of faith in the American people.
	I think that most people are smart and risk-averse enough to stay six feet away from each other, to wear masks in public places.
	I don't think that people are going to be going out en masse to ACDC concerts and I just don't think that's what's going to happen here.
	I'm a very 90s languager, but I think that is unlikely.
	I think most people are interested in social distancing.
	Most people recognize that the risk still remains.
	According to the CDC, state-level forecasts vary widely, reflecting differences in early epidemic phases, timing of interventions, and model-specific assumptions.
	According to the CDC, models that factor in strong contact reduction suggest new deaths will continue to occur, but will slow substantially over the next four weeks.
	Conversely, models that do not incorporate as strong contact reductions suggest that total deaths may continue to rise quickly, which of course makes perfect sense.
	The virus has not gone away.
	The only thing that's happened is that we all went in our homes.
	Now, where we meet each other is also going to make a big difference.
	If we are outside and we are somewhat far away from one another, that's going to be a lot better than if we all rush back to restaurants and baseball games.
	It's going to be a while until we are in close quarters with one another.
	I think that's going to be largely discouraged not only societally and socially, which is important, but also by government.
	One model that's frequently cited by the White House Coronavirus Task Force upped its prediction death toll again.
	This would be the IHME model, the one from University of Washington that was subject to all of this controversy because early on it suggested 100,000 to 240,000 deaths.
	And then it downgraded that to about 60,000 deaths.
	And it's been upgrading it again because their assumptions were that we were all going to stay in our houses until June 1st, which was really not going to happen.
	Now they've upgraded again and suggested that there will be 74,000 Americans dead by August if people go out and engage in some level of social distancing.
	Again, that model is not based on them inputting what they think the level of social distancing will be.
	It's based on curve fitting from other countries that are starting to end their lockdowns.
	The projection was adjusted due to longer peaks in some states and signs that people are becoming more active again.
	So it is actually just curve fitting to the data that is currently known.
	That model has become increasingly accurate over time.
	It was suggesting that there were going to be about 67,000 deaths before the lockdown started to end.
	Now that the lockdowns are starting to end, they're suggesting 74,000 deaths over the course of the next few months.
	And let's be real about this.
	Okay, let's be absolutely real about this.
	There's no scenario in which people go back out and start to socially distance and engage in meaningful economic activity where the death rates don't go up.
	That is just going to happen.
	And everybody understands that.
	Left, right, and center.
	And any politician or any member of the media who fulminates over this is lying to you.
	Any politician who suggests that they're not willing to take any measure that allows one more death to take place, it's just not true.
	Okay?
	Everybody who is making public policy is balancing a variety of interests.
	And one of the things that we balance in public policy, as I've been saying since the very outset of this, is the additional risk to Americans.
	Additional risk means additional death.
	End of story.
	So the question is, In very blunt terms, is the increased death rate from what is currently projected at 64,000 to 74,000 over the course of the next three months, is that worth reopening the American economy?
	And I think most Americans would probably say yes.
	Frankly speaking, I think most Americans would probably say yes.
	Nate Silver over at FiveThirtyEight makes this point, right?
	He's saying that anybody who's suggesting the death rate goes to zero is just not telling you the truth.
	What we are currently discussing is if there are three or four hundred deaths a day nationwide from COVID-19 in a country where 7,500 people a day typically die.
	Is that enough to shut down the entire American economy?
	The answer, obviously, is going to be no.
	We'll get to more of this in just one second.
	First, let's talk about the fact that right now it's a rough time.
	There are a lot of great companies that are doing everything they can to help us get through this trying time, and ZipRecruiter is now more important than ever.
	ZipRecruiter's focus has not changed.
	They're still doing what they've done from the beginning.
	They're helping people who need jobs find work, and they're helping growing businesses find the right people for their open roles.
	As our habits change, As the market begins to reopen, as we begin to see which businesses have been most hard hit and which businesses are going to recover fastest, it's important to have a fluid job market.
	ZipRecruiter makes that happen.
	ZipRecruiter is dedicated to helping you get hired, whether you're looking for jobs in caretaking, delivering food and goods, building medical facilities, supplying protective equipment, and so much more.
	And many more businesses are going to be reopening in the very near future in states across America.
	In fact, ZipRecruiter's app will send you up-to-date job openings so you can be one of the first to apply, which is a great advantage to you.
	If you're actively hiring, ZipRecruiter will invite candidates to apply to your most urgent roles, making it faster and easier to reach the people you need.
	By connecting people who need jobs and companies that need people, ZipRecruiter is working with all of us so we can keep moving forward.
	Let's work together.
	ZipRecruiter.com slash work together.
	That's ZipRecruiter.com slash work together.
	Honestly, they're doing something vital right now, considering the fluidity and the holdup in the labor market.
	Okay, so Governor Gavin Newsom in California, he continues to suggest that his state is weeks away from changing its stay-at-home order, but people are just not obeying this.
	And the fact is that people are going out to beaches.
	Gavin Newsom was fulminating over this last night.
	He was suggesting that he is basically going to keep America locked down ad infinitum because people are going out.
	He suggested that he's going to keep this going specifically because people are going out.
	Meanwhile, as of Tuesday morning, over a million people in the United States have been infected.
	More than 56,000 have already died.
	Governor Brian Kemp says Georgia is moving forward with data and information and decisions from the local public health officials and working within the guidelines of the Great Plan the President has laid out.
	Hard-hit cities are starting to test asymptomatic people.
	L.A.
	County is going to expand coronavirus testing Tuesday to include delivery drivers, rideshare drivers, taxi drivers, even if they feel fine, according to L.A.
	Mayor Eric Garcetti.
	And that makes perfect sense.
	You want to see if people who are out there driving and asymptomatic, people who are in close contact with the stuff that you're touching and in close contact in a car with you, driving you around, that those people don't actually have COVID-19 and aren't spreading it to people who are in the back of their cars.
	Garcetti said these are folks that are on the front lines helping us get to where we need to go, helping us to have food delivered to our homes.
	Same thing is happening in Boston, where Mayor Martin Walsh said that 1,000 asymptomatic residents will undergo diagnostic and antibody testing by Friday to evaluate exposure to the virus in the city.
	Also starting on Tuesday, Georgia public health workers will start visiting randomly selected homes in two of Georgia's largest counties to conduct antibody testing through blood samples, and that program is voluntary.
	Now, whether or not the antibodies actually mean that you're immune to the vaccine, that is still up in the air.
	We don't actually know that you can just go out willy-nilly and you're fine forever.
	That is not clear at this point.
	But the antibody test will tell us how deadly the disease is.
	And they will also tell us if a hotspot starts to rise up.
	Now, the question is how far the testing has to go.
	Because right now, this has sort of become the buzzword for people who want the lockdowns to continue.
	Is they just keep shouting testing, testing, testing.
	And the question is, what does the testing actually accomplish?
	So as I've said before, all testing can really do at this point is help you locate a hotspot.
	And then presumably you can contact tracing that hotspot.
	But people have been saying, well, South Korea did it successfully.
	South Korea has a grand total of 11,000 diagnosed cases in South Korea.
	The United States has over a million.
	So this thing is spreading faster in the United States.
	It had already spread far more quickly, unless you are willing to allow the virus to basically burn down to zero again, and then we restart with contact tracing and testing, which, by the way, would take a hell of a long time, and you keep the economy shut down for months more.
	What South Korea did in the first place was great, but we're not going to get that restart.
	It's just not going to happen.
	Unless the thing burns all the way out during the summer, and then hopefully we have capacity in September.
	There's a reason other European countries are not doing what South Korea did.
	It is just not possible for the United States to do what South Korea did, absent a complete burnout.
	So I said from the beginning, we had to move from a Chinese lockdown model to a South Korean test and trace model.
	It's becoming clear, thanks to the asymptomatic nature of this disease, that's incredibly difficult.
	You might be able to do that in certain specific areas, but even in areas where you have hotspots, your first notification of the hotspot is unlikely to be asymptomatic testing.
	Your first notification of the hotspot is likely to be hospitals getting overwhelmed with people who are walking in with actual symptoms.
	Now, that doesn't mean that we can't ramp up testing, or that we shouldn't ramp up testing.
	We can and we should.
	But we cannot sit home.
	The timeline is just too immediate on this thing.
	So when you see L.A.
	Mayor Eric Garcetti saying, maybe we can scale back measures in a few weeks with baby steps.
	Let me just tell you, I live in L.A.
	People ain't waiting.
	They're not.
	They're not going to wait until June or July for Eric Garcetti to give them the go-ahead.
	The traffic on Ventura Boulevard today is in actual serious traffic.
	There have been actual traffic jams on the 10.
	People are not going to sit home and wait to go bankrupt because Eric Garcetti says that your risk has risen, if you are a young person under the age of 40, by .001 or whatever the actual stat is.
	The actual stat for people who are under the age of 40 and healthy is really close to zero.
	Those people are not going to continue to sit home because Eric Garcetti says you're supposed to stay home.
	Here's Eric Garcetti yesterday suggesting maybe we can scale back measures in a few weeks.
	My sense is probably in the next two to six weeks we'll see some baby steps forward.
	You know, it's so critical to have a few things in place.
	It's not really about a date or how few cases you have.
	It's about the infrastructure you have to handle opening up.
	So the good news is the bad news here.
	The good news is, and thank you to everybody listening, what we've been doing has worked.
	It has saved thousands of lives.
	But the bad news is that means According to the USC prevalence study, we have about 96% of us that could still get this.
	And if we opened up the wrong way, we could have by August 1st, 95% of us with COVID-19.
	Okay.
	First of all, that's not true.
	If we opened this up, it would not be 95% of us have COVID-19 by August 1st.
	And this thing was in California by January.
	The idea that over the next two months that everyone in California was going to get COVID-19 and that Americans are smarter than that Californians.
	God help us, even Californians are smarter than that.
	And let's be real, there are countervailing problems here.
	There's a new survey showing that 1 in 4 Americans say that they are losing their will to comply.
	According to a survey conducted by Kelton Global, 1 in 4 Americans say they've already reached their breaking point.
	100% say they would definitely reach that point if they're forced to stay home through mid-June.
	A hundred percent.
	In all, 1,900 U.S.
	citizens over the age of 18 were surveyed earlier this month.
	72% said they expected to reach a breaking point by mid-June if stay-at-home orders aren't lifted.
	100% of respondents said they would snap if all this lasts longer than six months.
	The survey was conducted between April 3rd and April 6th.
	At that time, 16% said they had already hit their breaking point.
	And as the money stops flowing, as people lose their jobs permanently, and they're going to food banks and they're on unemployment insurance, those numbers are going to skyrocket.
	A lot of people have not felt the actual economic fallout of this thing quite yet because of the government tiding people over.
	Young Americans are the people most likely to say they've reached the breaking point, of course, because young Americans are more active than older Americans.
	Also, young Americans typically do not have houses, so they don't have backyards that they can go out into.
	Also, young Americans are not at high risk from this thing.
	If you're under the age of 30, you ain't dying from it, unless you have a serious pre-existing condition.
	If you're under 40, you're not dying of it, unless you have a serious pre-existing condition.
	This does have implications for whether the lockdowns are even going to be possible to continue.
	So we're going to get to more of this in just one second.
	Like, what would be the most responsible way to do this?
	Also, some actual very good news out of Oxford.
	We'll get to that in just one moment.
	First, the Second Amendment is very relevant these days.
	The Supreme Court refused yesterday to step in and stop New York state laws that really infringe on the Second Amendment.
	And that means that you really have to be protective of your own ability to keep and bear arms right now before states start cracking down on this sort of stuff more.
	Also, as we see the government jumping into American life in heretofore unforeseen ways, imagine the fact that right now a Republican is president and that Republican has no interest.
	In seeing the government maximize its authority and power in the midst of the pandemic.
	That is simply not the case with so many places around the country which are forcibly shutting down gun shops for example trying to do that as quote-unquote non-essential businesses in the middle of a pandemic while releasing tons of people from jail.
	You know who agrees with me are the folks over at Bravo Company.
	Bravo Company was started in the garage of a veteran of the U.S.
	Marine Corps in Heartland, Wisconsin.
	The people at Bravo Company Manufacturing support the right of responsible private individuals to have the access and ability to employ the same tools as civilian law enforcement as a means of defending ourselves, our loved ones, our communities, and our freedoms should a threatening situation ever arise.
	BCM assumes that when a rifle leaves their shop, it will be used in a life or death situation by a responsible citizen, law enforcement officer, or a soldier overseas Quality is of top value to them.
	Every component of a BCM rifle is assembled, hand assembled, and tested.
	To learn more about Bravo Company Manufacturing, head on over to BravoCompanyMFG.com.
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	Awesome folks, amazing products.
	BravoCompanyMFG.com or YouTube.com slash BravoCompanyUSA.
	Okay, so here's a bit of good news.
	Speaking of the tests, the tests are ramping up.
	We're seeing a couple of ways in which the tests are ramping up.
	The White House was promoting yesterday this new plan to ramp up testing.
	They released a White House blueprint.
	That blueprint is sort of vague as to what exactly they hope will be the level of testing that is available as states reopen.
	They suggest that states, local, tribal governments have to develop testing plans and rapid response programs and maximize the use of all available testing platforms.
	They said that they are working with private groups across the nation to ramp up testing, and that is in fact happening.
	You're starting to see major chain stores developing the possibility for point-of-contact tests, which is really, really good.
	President Trump met with the heads of major retailers yesterday, pharmacy chains, testing labs, including Walmart and CVS Health, and the White House released what it called a blueprint of its testing plans.
	President Trump said in a Rose Garden press conference, we're deploying the full power and strength of the federal government to help state cities and help local governments get this horrible plague over with.
	Admiral Brett Giroir?
	The administration official overseeing coronavirus testing efforts said the federal government would be able to supply every state with supplies and tests they need to dramatically increase the number of tests.
	Really what they mean is they're going to be able to increase the number of tests such that each state will have enough tests for 2% of the population.
	Meanwhile, Quest Diagnostics has announced that they are going to begin selling COVID-19 antibody tests.
	Now, we still don't know whether the antibody actually protects or provides serious immunity, but Quest Diagnostics is offering a new antibody test for $119 or potentially less if you have insurance.
	Quest says this test checks for a type of antibody called immunoglobulin G.
	That is the result of past or recent exposure to COVID-19, also known as coronavirus.
	The human body produces antibodies as part of the immune response to the virus.
	It usually takes 10 to 18 days to produce enough antibodies to be detected in the blood.
	So the test can help determine if you have been previously exposed.
	It can check whether your body has produced enough antibodies, whether or not you were exposed.
	Jay Wolgamoth, who is the Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer for Quest, says, with the introduction of this test in service, Quest is making it easy for people to access quality testing for antibodies to the virus, which caused COVID-19.
	So all of this is useful.
	All of this is good.
	None of it is going to prevent people from going out and working.
	So here's the good news.
	Here's an actual piece of good news.
	There's an Oxford group that says that they may, in fact, be able to produce millions of doses of vaccine.
	They're testing a vaccine right now.
	They may be able to produce millions of doses of vaccine, they're hoping, by September, which would be unbelievable.
	That would be a triumph of the human spirit and of the human ingenuity if we are able to produce a human-available vaccine by September.
	We were told 12 to 18 months.
	That would mean that was actually six months, which is just insanely fast.
	According to the New York Times, in the worldwide race for a vaccine to stop coronavirus, the laboratory sprinting fastest is at Oxford.
	Most other teams have had to start with small clinical trials of a few hundred participants to demonstrate safety.
	Scientists at the University's Jenner Institute had a head start on a vaccine, having proved in previous trials that similar inoculations, including one last year against an earlier coronavirus, were harmless to humans.
	This has enabled them to leap ahead and schedule tests of their new coronavirus vaccine involving more than 6,000 people by the end of next month.
	Hoping to show not only that it is safe, but also that it works, which would be like, again, that'd be miraculous.
	That'd be miraculous.
	And by the way, if there's a vaccine and that thing is available by like the end of May, what you are talking about would be the fastest recovery in the history of human economics, right?
	If a vaccine were available and the vaccine were made available broadly to the American people, by the end of the summer, people would start investing again.
	The money would come back online.
	All the jobs would come back.
	People would be ready to spend.
	We've all been locked down for over a month.
	Some of us for more than that.
	Many of us are going to be likely locked down for several more weeks.
	The Oxford scientists now say that with an emergency approval from regulators, the first few million doses of their vaccine could be available by September, at least several months ahead of any other announced efforts if it proves to be effective.
	And now they have promising news suggesting it might.
	So this is like the best news that we have heard in weeks and weeks and weeks, right?
	I've said before, if there's a deus ex machina that changes everything, obviously this would be that, except it'd be it.
	It would be a science ex machina, right?
	Scientists at the National Institute of Health's Rocky Mountain Laboratory in Montana last month inoculated six rhesus macaque monkeys with single doses of the Oxford vaccine.
	The animals were then exposed to heavy quantities of the virus causing the pandemic, exposure that had consistently sickened other monkeys in the lab.
	More than 28 days later, all six were healthy, said Vincent Munster, the researcher conducting the test.
	He said the rhesus macaque is pretty much the closest thing we have to humans.
	He said he expected to share it with other scientists this week, this paper, and submit it to a peer-reviewed journal.
	Now, immunity in monkeys is not a guarantee a vaccine would provide the same degree of protection for humans.
	A Chinese company that recently started a clinical trial with 144 participants has also said its vaccine was effective in rhesus macaques.
	But with dozens of efforts now underway to find a vaccine, the monkey results are the latest indicator that Oxford's accelerated venture is emerging as a bellwether.
	It's a very, very fast clinical program, said Emilia Emini, Director of the Vaccine Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is providing financial support to many competing efforts.
	By the way, I've seen some conspiracy, crazy conspiracy theorists who are angry at Bill and Melinda Gates because they back vaccines.
	Shut the f up.
	Like, seriously, what's wrong with you people?
	What's wrong with you people?
	We've got thousands of people dying every day around the world, including thousands in the United States, and you're pissed off at the people who are spending millions of their own dollars to develop a vaccine?
	Find a hobby.
	Go learn to knit or something.
	My god.
	Which potential vaccine will emerge from the scramble is most successful is impossible to know until clinical trial data becomes available.
	More than one vaccine might be needed in any case.
	Some may work more effectively than others in groups like children or older people.
	Having more than one variety would be a good thing.
	But the Oxford trial will provide lessons about the nature of the coronavirus, so we will find out.
	It's hard not to get your hopes up when you read news like that, but you know what?
	It's okay.
	Get your hopes up.
	Just don't do anything irresponsible.
	Get your hopes up, and then we'll move on to the next hope if that doesn't work, right?
	Hydroxychloroquine didn't work.
	That was a hope.
	Didn't work.
	There's this drug from Gilead Sciences.
	We're still waiting.
	Maybe that won't work.
	It's okay to get your hopes up.
	It just isn't okay to be irresponsible, obviously.
	In the meantime, how exactly are we going to go about reopening?
	Well, the good news is, again, I'm very comforted.
	There are a lot of people who are very upset that President Trump is president at a time like this.
	One of the reasons I'm comforted that President Trump is president is not because of the crazy stuff he says during press conferences.
	Frankly, that's Trump, and you know he's going to do it and stop, like, really.
	Does the sun rise in the morning?
	Is the sky blue?
	Does President Trump say crazy crap at press conferences?
	These are all things that are just natural facts of life.
	But what is not a natural fact of life is the fact that the federal government is not using this pandemic in order to seize ultimate power.
	That is a good thing.
	That is a very good thing.
	That is why it is a good thing that the Attorney General, William Barr, put out a letter today Telling people that they need to actually take into account the Constitution as they pursue these lockdown strategies.
	He says, as the Department of Justice explained recently in guidance to states and localities taking steps to battle the pandemic, even in times of emergency, when reasonable and temporary restrictions are placed on rights, the First Amendment and federal statutory law prohibit discrimination against religious institutions and religious believers.
	The legal restrictions on state and local authority are not limited to discrimination against religious institutions and religious believers.
	The Constitution also forbids discrimination against disfavored speech and undue interference with the national economy.
	If a state or local ordinance crosses the line from an appropriate exercise of authority to stop the spread of COVID-19 into an overbearing infringement of constitutional and statutory protections, the DOJ may have an obligation to address that overreach in federal court.
	That's a very good thing.
	It's a very good thing that people are concerned about that sort of overreach.
	In just a second, we're going to talk about whether people are being responsible because answer is mostly they are.
	Mostly they are.
	And then we're going to talk about overreach in the media, which continues to undercut their credibility when they talk about issues like COVID-19.
	It turns out that credibility is a thing that once it is lost, cannot be regained very easily.
	So if you lose credibility because you are a political hack, and then you spend all of your time talking about COVID-19, people are going to take it as though you're a political hack talking about COVID-19.
	At least if you purport to be objective, right?
	Those of us who acknowledge we are not objective, at least we're honest about our own biases.
	This is one of the problems for the media.
	They rarely do this.
	Okay, so in a second, we'll get to more of that.
	But first, I want to talk to you about a fantastic new podcast.
	Right now, business risk-takers, they're the ones who are going to be helping the economy recover.
	And if you're interested in business and risk-taking and making good decisions in business, and also how dramatic all this stuff can be, you really should check out the brand new weekly podcast from Wondery.
	It's called Business Wars.
	Each season digs deep into some of the greatest corporate rivalries of all time.
	Think Facebook versus Snapchat, or Nike versus Adidas.
	On each episode, we give you an inside look at what inspired entrepreneurs to take risks that drove their companies to new heights, or into the ground, alternatively.
	Go check it out right now.
	Go check out Wondery's new podcast, Business Wars.
	Make sure to subscribe to Business Wars or other great podcasts from Wondery on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening right now.
	As you say, states are moving to ease these lockdowns.
	They should be moving to ease these lockdowns.
	And the only question is, what are the strategies that ought to be used?
	When you see people fulminating from their perches in New York, their secure perches in the media, right?
	They get to do what I do.
	I said this yesterday.
	We are privileged.
	We are privileged.
	We get to sit in our houses and have a job and continue to work.
	Many people do not.
	When they sit in their houses and they fulminate against people working, it really is kind of gross.
	And thus, it is pretty amazing to watch more and more people on the left doing this sort of stuff.
	The fact is that there are a couple different strategies that have to take place.
	While we wait for the testing regime to ramp up to the point where presumably we are not just identifying hotspots, but also being able to identify people like right at the moment of contact.
	While that all ramps up, people are going to have to get back to work because the center cannot hold.
	This is just not going to work.
	There is a study out of Israel suggesting that perhaps the best strategy here is not testing and contact tracing in a country of 330 million people with incredible population density and with a million already diagnosed cases.
	Perhaps the best strategy is to focus on the vulnerable.
	There's a paper Amnon Shishua and Shai Shalev-Schwartz, they're both professors at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and they say that the idea would be to identify the vulnerable, age cut-offs and comorbidities, have them observe strict social distancing for their own protection while receiving assistance from the state.
	The weakness of the approach is whether it is at all practical to observe a differential social distancing regime, and whether the toll of strict social distancing is too much to bear over an extended period of time.
	But here's the reality.
	Either we're all going to do it, or some of us are going to do it.
	Better some of us than all of us, particularly those who are most vulnerable.
	By the way, this is something that we do with vulnerable populations on a regular basis.
	If you're immunocompromised, then we make provisions for you regularly.
	If you're immunocompromised, we don't suggest that your life is going to look just like people who are not immunocompromised.
	Anybody who's immunocompromised will tell you all the precautions that they take on a daily basis in order to protect themselves.
	So, tranching people by population and recognizing the risk factors by population, that would be the key.
	That's why you need the antibody test, so you can figure out exactly who is most vulnerable.
	It's why you need broader testing, and you need better reporting of medical conditions underlying this thing, so people can get back to work.
	All of this is important.
	And meanwhile, I think you can trust the American people to be smart in how they re-approach this whole thing.
	Not just because the testing is getting better as we ramp up our capacity to test.
	There are new saliva tests, according to the Washington Post, that are going to be rolled out in very short order, which obviously is good news.
	But also the American people, as I mentioned yesterday, they are generally being responsible.
	According to the Associated Press, with staff wearing masks, checking customers' temperatures, using disposable paper placemats, some of the nation's restaurants reopened for dine-in service on Monday as states loosen more coronavirus restrictions.
	Many eateries remain closed amid safety concerns and community backlash.
	Restaurants in Georgia, Tennessee, Anchorage, Alaska welcome diners back, albeit for a different dining experience than before.
	In Louisiana, the governor said restaurants will be allowed to seat people outside starting on Friday.
	Which, by the way, would be a good idea.
	Seating people outside is a good thing.
	If I had a restaurant, I would be looking to set up tables in the parking lot.
	Seriously.
	Because the open air is a much better environment than a closed restaurant.
	Chris Haithas, who manages 87 Waffle House restaurants, he says we're ecstatic to have them back.
	A lot of people, I think, want to get back to the new normal, which will be social distancing and all that, but they'll be able to eat inside the restaurant.
	The new normal includes employees wearing masks, booths closed to keep customers apart, and traditional plastic placemat menus replaced by paper menus so they are discardable, so people are not touching the same surfaces over and over.
	There are 39 different requirements in the state of Georgia that restaurants have to follow, including observing a limit of 10 customers per 500 square feet, and ensuring that all employees wear face coverings.
	All of this is good.
	All of this is responsible.
	All of it is.
	Meanwhile...
	There are still people who seem wedded to the idea of the lockdowns for a variety of political reasons.
	On the one hand, you have people who are wedded to the lockdowns because they want to see a government spending increase.
	And on the other hand, you see people who want the lockdowns because they actually think that it's a leverage point for workers against employers, which is perfectly insane in a world where employers are going under by the bushel.
	Rashida Tlaib.
	Who is one of the members of the squad, just terrible, the congresswoman from Michigan, who when she's not spouting idiotic anti-Semitic propaganda, is saying really dumb things about the economy.
	She suggests that workers are supposed to push back against reopening.
	Really?
	They don't have jobs.
	They're not workers right now.
	They're unemployed people.
	They're gonna push back against reopening?
	Rashida Tlaib has it easy.
	She's got a job paid for by the taxpayer.
	A lot of people, they don't have jobs.
	And employers are going under.
	And she's suggesting that now's a great time for a work strike.
	Genius stuff here from Rashida Tlaib.
	If you are afraid to go to work, do not go to work.
	And I know this is hard, but you have every right to make sure your life is put first and to fight back.
	I don't care if it's labor organizing this late in the game or if it's demanding that your life is not treated as if it's disposable, but I want you not to be afraid to go to work.
	I want you to organize with your other their coworkers and demand better demand that your life again is put first and that your health is put first.
	So I would push back no matter what these decisions and these other folks and these task force that are being put together, uh, your gut feeling, follow that.
	Good luck.
	I mean, seriously, good luck.
	If you're young and you're healthy, and your business reopens, and you don't have any serious risk, and you're not living with an older person, and these lockdowns are lifted, and your place of business says, listen, your job is not something you can do from home, right?
	You work in manufacturing.
	You have to be at the factory.
	You're like, you know what?
	I'm a little nervous today.
	There are now 30 million people out of work and many of them will fill that job.
	That doesn't mean that employers shouldn't keep things safe.
	Employers have the most interest in keeping things safe.
	Look at Tyson Foods, which is shutting down factories because of coronavirus.
	I don't know what the hell she's talking about.
	The Rashida Tlaib types or the Paul Krugman types.
	Paul Krugman has an idiotic column today suggesting that people should stop worrying about the deficit at a time when we are blowing out $7 trillion in spending.
	He says the only fiscal thing to fear is deficit fear itself.
	Deficits don't matter anymore.
	I'm old enough to remember when Paul Krugman thought that modern monetary theory was a bunch of claptrap.
	Modern monetary theory is the idea we can just spend endlessly because people will just continue buying our bonds because the American economy is still powerful.
	Now he is he's out there basically embracing modern monetary theory.
	He suggests that deficit vultures are hypocrites and that we shouldn't be worried about the effects of COVID-19 on debt.
	He says it's true.
	We're headed for some eye-popping numbers.
	Last week, the CBO released preliminary economic and budget projections for the next two years, which were both shocking and unsurprising.
	Soaring unemployment will cause federal revenues to plunge and lead to a surge in spending on safety net programs like unemployment insurance, Medicaid, and food stamps.
	Add in the large relief packages Congress has passed, and the Budget Office projects a deficit that will temporarily rise to levels we haven't seen since World War II.
	It expects federal debt to rise to 108%, from 79% of GDP, which sounds scary.
	But the government will be able to borrow that money at incredibly low interest rates.
	In fact, real interest rates, rates on government bonds protected against inflation, are negative right now.
	So the burden of the additional debt as measured by the rise in federal interest payments will be negligible.
	So don't worry about it, guys.
	We'll always be able to pay it back.
	We won't have to inflate our way out.
	Mm-hmm.
	Sure, Paul.
	Sure.
	As appetite for American debt wanes because we have the government intervening in our economy and deepening a depression, I'm sure that people will continue to buy that debt.
	I'm sure.
	It'll be totally fine.
	No problem whatsoever.
	Okay, in just a second, we're going to get to the media in all of this because We try here on the show to bring you as much of... Listen, you know my political viewpoint.
	You do.
	But I'm trying to be as objective as I can about the data.
	This is not true for many members of the media who have undercut their own credibility.
	And then they're surprised when people don't believe them about COVID-19 after they destroy their own credibility on a variety of other issues.
	We're going to get to that in just one second.
	It's really dangerous.
	This is a time when you actually need to be able to trust people who theoretically know what they are talking about or who are at least conveying information from people who know what they are talking about.
	And yet trust in media are at an all-time low.
	And that makes perfect sense.
	We'll explain why in just one second.
	First, Let us talk about the fact that it's easy at times like this to turn into a beach bum.
	You're sitting at home, letting that beard grow out, getting all fat, never taking off the sweatpants, and you haven't brushed your teeth in years.
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	Those teeth are falling out.
	Well, perhaps you should start with the teeth.
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	It's a friendly reminder when it's time for a refresh and to stay committed to your oral health.
	Shipping is free.
	And once you develop the habit, then it'll just continue.
	And the great news is, again, you never have to think about it again.
	It just arrives at your door.
	If you go to getquip.com slash Shapiro right now, you get your first refill free.
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	Go check them out right now.
	Okay, in just a second, we're going to get to the lack of credibility in the media, which is a surrogate problem for the United States.
	Trying to find sources of information that are good.
	We'll get to that in just one second.
	First, being locked in right now, that means that you might be crying salty tears, but you can refill all the salty tears you need right here with two capabilities.
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	So President Trump continues to be in this ongoing war with the media.
	And I'm not sure that it's in his best interest, but I'm absolutely positive that the media largely deserve it.
	The media have been focused on virtually all the wrong issues here.
	They do not bring you any sort of well-calibrated information.
	Instead, it seems to be largely hysterics.
	If you read to paragraph 19 in a New York Times article, you get to the hard data very often.
	But if you just watch cable news, All you get is a bunch of screaming, talking heads telling you that either it's the end of the world on the one hand, or not to worry about it, it's the flu on the other.
	All of this is ridiculous.
	It's ridiculous.
	You know, well-calibrated public policy would be the way to go about all of this.
	Recognizing the risks, being transparent with the American people, that's not what you get from the media.
	Particularly the media covering the White House.
	The media covering the White House, we should stop, honestly, we should stop all televised press briefings.
	We should.
	They're a waste of time.
	They're a complete waste of time.
	Because, or if you're going to hold these televised press briefings in a time of pandemic, the president shouldn't show up.
	It should be Birx.
	It should be Fauci.
	It should be the people who know what they're talking about, Redfield.
	And it shouldn't be the political reporters on the White House beat.
	It should be the health reporters on the White House beat.
	It should be the people over at the Washington Post who run Health 202.
	It shouldn't be the political reporters who are busy writing democracy dies in darkness, Trump is a bad mean man articles.
	It should be the health reporters over at the New York Times.
	It should be the people over at Politico, who actually write health policy.
	On the right, it should be Avik Roy over at FREOP.
	It should be people who actually pay attention to health policy right now, asking specific questions that convey information to the American people.
	That's not what we get, however.
	Instead, we get Jim Acosta posturing for the purposes of loving Jim Acosta, because Jim Acosta loves him like nobody loves anybody.
	Jim Acosta, ladies, find you a man who loves you like Jim Acosta loves Jim Acosta.
	But Jim Acosta apparently has a new friend in this regard.
	This friend is Olivia Nuzzi.
	I'm not sure how her last name is pronounced.
	She's a New York Magazine correspondent.
	Yesterday, she was at the White House, and she asked this question to President Trump, which is insanely useless, and obviously directed at just getting Trump to blow up, so then the media can have a headline about how Trump blows up, which is completely not only useless, but counterproductive at this point in time, when you know people are still out there dying, and we're trying to figure out the best way to reopen the economy.
	Nothing I like better than a bunch of posturing crap from the media.
	If an American president loses more Americans over the course of six weeks than died in the entirety of the Vietnam War, does he deserve to be re-elected?
	So, yeah, we've lost a lot of people.
	But if you look at what original projections were, 2.2 million.
	We're probably heading to 60,000, 70,000.
	It's far too many.
	One person is too many for this.
	Yeah, is Trump handling that question better than, frankly, I would handle that question?
	What a despicable question.
	First of all, the Vietnam War was a war that we got into by choice politically.
	Second of all, the federal government was lying throughout the Vietnam War about what exactly was going on.
	Thirdly, the media were lying about what was going on during the Vietnam War.
	Fourthly, a war is not like a pandemic.
	War is not contagious.
	The notion that the president is responsible for anything other than the decisions that the president makes during the pandemic is insane.
	If this many people die from, so let's be real about this.
	If coronavirus were what?
	One third is deadly?
	Would anybody be talking right now about, do you deserve to be president because people are dying of the flu?
	It's more deadly, and so it has greater consequences.
	But does that mean that Trump is the one who is upping the death count?
	How about Andrew Cuomo?
	Does he deserve to be governor in a state that's lost 15,000 people?
	Bill de Blasio, does he deserve to be mayor in a city that's lost 12,000 people?
	And what the hell is that question?
	What a stupid, asinine, ridiculous question.
	Ari Fleischer, by the way, called out Olivia Nuzzi about the question, because it's a ridiculous posturing question that is designed to get her on TV, and it did.
	And she immediately responded, shut the F up, which is just great journalism-ing.
	Massive, massive journalism-ing.
	You wonder why the American people don't trust your takes on this stuff, guys?
	You wonder why they are relegated to looking at YouTube for videos of doctors who they think are going to confirm what they already thought?
	This is why.
	Because you're not focused on bringing the American people the truth.
	You're focused on a gotcha game with Trump.
	Meanwhile, protecting Joe Biden.
	I mean, the warm relationship between the Democratic Party and the media has never been in more fine fettle than it is right now.
	Listen to Nancy Pelosi and Stephanie Ruhle basically giving each other a mutual massage on MSNBC yesterday.
	Thank you.
	Thank you so much.
	Thank you for this additional $320 billion.
	American business needs it.
	I appreciate all that everyone in our government is doing right now to help us in this trying time.
	Thanks for your time this morning.
	Well, thank you for your, um, objective view of it all, because that's all very helpful.
	It's all very helpful.
	Thank you so much for your attention.
	It's important.
	Thank you.
	Just unbelievable.
	Just, you know, Buy our dinner or something.
	I mean, this is really, it's just, it's insane.
	So the media continued to just be awful at their jobs.
	Speaking of awful at their jobs, this is all reinforced by the fact that they are political hacks, like insane political hacks.
	So this becomes most obvious when you look at the media coverage of Joe Biden's accuser.
	So there's now more evidence against Joe Biden that he sexually assaulted a woman than there ever was against Brett Kavanaugh.
	Like a lot more evidence.
	Okay, Tara Reade is a woman who came forward to suggest that Joe Biden, basically when she was a staffer in his office, Got her into a lonely hallway and then proceeded to sexually assault her, picking up her skirt and then penetrating her with his fingers.
	I mean, like, really bad stuff.
	Now it turns out that not only is there tape of her mother calling into Larry King and asking questions about how staffers are supposed to report bad things, but also some of her neighbors, two separate neighbors, have come forward to say that the woman had told them about the incident shortly after it occurred.
	One is her brother, Colin Moulton, and also a friend who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution.
	And now two more sources have come forward to corroborate certain details about Reed's claims.
	One of them, according to Business Insider, a former neighbor of Reed's, has told Insider for the first time on the record that Reed disclosed details about the alleged assault to her in the mid-1990s.
	The woman's name is Linda LaCasse.
	She lives next door to Reid in the mid-90s.
	She said this happened.
	I know it did because I remember talking about it.
	The other source is a woman named Lorraine Sanchez, who worked with Reid in the office of a California state senator in the mid-90s.
	And she told Insider she recalls Reid complaining at the time that her former boss in Washington, D.C.
	had sexually harassed her and that she had been fired after raising concerns.
	Now listen, none of this means that Biden is necessarily guilty.
	Maybe it didn't go like the woman said it went.
	Maybe the woman misperceived somehow, although it's difficult to imagine how you misperceive being sexually assaulted.
	Right?
	Maybe there's some disconnect, okay?
	Perhaps that is true.
	I mean, there's no evidence other than what this woman had to say, and the fact that she had contemporaneous accounts of it to people does not mean it went down the way that she thinks that it went down, right?
	I mean, this is what innocence until proven guilty means, and I hold that standard for Brett Kavanaugh, and I hold that standard for Joe Biden, too.
	But Joe Biden doesn't hold that standard for Brett Kavanaugh, so Joe Biden doesn't get to hold that standard for Joe Biden, either.
	But what's incredible is the media differential, the media coverage of this stuff.
	So much insane journalisming.
	Like, incredible levels of journalisming.
	Here's the Washington Post headline yesterday about this.
	Covering this for basically the first time.
	The Washington Post headline on Twitter read, quote, Is that even English?
	in allegations against Biden amplify efforts to question his behavior.
	Is that even English?
	Is that even English?
	I mean, shouldn't the actual headline be two more women come forward and confirm that Biden's sexual assault accuser told them about sexual assault in mid 90s?
	Like, is Isn't that the headline?
	You know, a headline in English?
	What does that even mean?
	Developments in allegations against Biden amplify efforts to question his behavior.
	What are the allegations?
	What were they about?
	What was the topic?
	Who's amplified?
	That's Swahili.
	You're not even speaking English at this point.
	What the media will do in order to protect Democrats is insane.
	Insane.
	Development and allegations against Biden.
	So I assume they mean by that two additional people saying that this woman told them about it.
	Amplify efforts to question his behavior.
	Meaning that people are now going to question his behavior.
	So, notice that is the Andrew Clavin rule, and it's exactly correct.
	When a Republican does something bad, the story is the Republican does something bad.
	When a Democrat does something bad, the story is the Republicans are attacking Democrats for doing something bad.
	And that's the actual headline.
	Right?
	The headline that was put out by the Washington Post changed, I assume, after I tweeted about it.
	Because the actual headline originally was just a Republican's pounce headline.
	Now I have to go look for it because I'm loading the link from last night and actually changed the headline.
	Okay, the headline now is Trump allies highlight new claims regarding allegations against Biden.
	Ah, the Trump allies.
	I'm sorry, they didn't change it.
	Trump allies highlighting new claims regarding allegations against Biden.
	That's the key here, is that Trump allies are focusing on this.
	Again, what is newsy about the fact that Republicans are reporting on bad things Democrats did?
	That's like arguing that after After Mark Foley, the Republican congressperson, was nailing pages in the mail pages in the House back in 2006.
	The story is Democrats focus on Mark Foley accusations.
	That's the headline, not Congresswoman nailing mail pages in the House of Representatives.
	It's just incredible.
	It's incredible.
	And by the way, the media coverage differential took them like a month to even report on the accusation.
	You think they would have waited a month to report on any accusation about any Republican?
	Of course not.
	Meanwhile, you've got Joe's VP candidates running around trying to garner attention.
	Three females, by the way.
	Kamala Harris and Amy Klobuchar.
	Actually, four.
	And Elizabeth Warren and Stacey Abrams, right?
	All four females.
	And Gretchen Whitmer.
	So five different females going around, doing press to try and attract Joe Biden's attention.
	I mean, Stacey Abrams is so desperate at this point that she basically broke into Biden's kitchen and boiled a rabbit.
	I'm not going to be ignored, Joe!
	But not one of them has been asked about the Tara Reid allegations.
	And particularly Kamala Harris, who was the leader in the Brett Kavanaugh's serial rapist routine.
	She's not been asked a single question about this.
	So here she was yesterday, Kamala Harris saying, Joe always talks plain, love me some Joe Biden.
	Five seconds ago, she was saying that she believes Joe Biden's accusers.
	Here's Kamala Harris.
	He is saying that there should be an equitable allocation of recovery funds.
	What does that mean?
	That's a fancy way for saying what Joe always talks, plain talk.
	He speaks straight.
	And what he's saying is that I want to make sure every community gets enough so that they end up being equal.
	So that's a real different point than equal share.
	He's talking about equitable, meaning at the result will be everyone ends up being equal.
	Okay, and here is Kamala Harris like a few months ago talking about Joe Biden's accusers who say that he was sniffing their hair and massaging them.
	I believe them and I respect them being able to tell their story and having the courage to do it.
	Do you believe that the Vice President should enter this race?
	Oh, he's going to have to make that decision for himself.
	I wouldn't tell him what to do.
	It's just unbelievable.
	It's just amazing.
	And now she's flipped, and, oh, Joe always talks plain.
	He's a really good guy.
	The media, when they are not busy, blaming Trump for Vietnam-era-level numbers on a pandemic, which, again, not comparable.
	Not comparable.
	A war is not like a pandemic.
	When they're not busy doing that routine, you know, and just trying to play this tete-a-tete game with Trump where they just yell at each other and then both of them make headlines.
	When they're not busy doing that, they're busy trying to cover for Joe Biden and pretend that none of this ever happened.
	But don't worry, guys.
	Journalism-ing is going to continue as at will.
	The self-congratulatory nature of the journalists are just, it's just, it's so off-putting.
	Just a few days ago, the New York Times put out an opinion piece that suggested it was a column by Ginia Belafonte profiling a coronavirus victim named Joe Joyce.
	It included a passage in which Joyce's daughter suggested her dad went on a cruise after seeing on Hannity and Fox News the outbreak was under control.
	Sean Hannity covered this because Hannity suggested correctly That at the time, a lot of people were saying that the virus was under control, including Bill de Blasio and Andrew Cuomo.
	And more than that, the timeline just doesn't match up.
	They cited comments from Sean Hannity that does not match up with the timeline.
	He went on the cruise before Hannity said a lot of the things he was quoted as saying.
	So Sean wrote a letter to the New York Times and said, I want a retraction.
	And here was the New York Times' reply.
	In response to your request for an apology and retraction, our answer is no.
	That was the entire reply.
	And look how brave we are, standing up to that evil Sean Hannity.
	Slow clap, guys.
	Slow clap.
	Amazing.
	And meanwhile, Andy Lack, who is one of the editors, he's the chairman of NBC News and MSNBC, he wrote a piece over at NBC News called, Journalism is under attack from coronavirus and the White House, but we are winning.
	We are winning.
	Wow.
	He says, President Trump came into office railing against many of the foundations of our democratic institutions, including a free press.
	40 months into his administration, coverage of the coronavirus outbreak is the latest sign that contrary to conventional wisdom, he hasn't laid a glove on serious journalism.
	His attacks, most recently against excellent reporters like Jonathan Karl, Yamiche Alcindor, Peter Alexander, and Paula Reid, put the bully in bully pulpit, but they haven't shaken the soul of the First Amendment.
	Wow, wow.
	Don't, don't stretch your arms.
	Don't, don't dislocate yourself.
	Patting yourself on the back there, Andy Lack, as faith in media drops to record lows.
	Well done all the way across the board.
	You wonder why people don't trust you?
	There are plenty of reasons why people don't trust the media.
	And they are all good reasons.
	That doesn't mean the media is always not telling, that the media is always lying, or that all information out of the media is bad.
	That's not true.
	But People have a right to question your motives and your methods of reporting when you act the way you act with regard to everything from coverage of the White House to coverage of Joe Biden.
	Alright, time for a thing I like and then some things that I hate.
	So, things that I like.
	Over the weekend, had the opportunity to watch with my parents.
	We did a little bit of a movie night.
	A movie called The Current War.
	I don't know what the original version looked like.
	This is the director's cut.
	The director's cut is very good.
	It's a good movie.
	It has about 60% on Rotten Tomatoes.
	The original has about 30%.
	I'm not sure why it's only at 60%.
	The movie is compelling.
	The performances are really good, particularly Benedict Cumberbatch as Thomas Edison.
	Michael Shannon, who is one of my quirky favorites, plays one of the other electricity magnates, George Westinghouse.
	The movie's really good.
	It's really interesting, and it's about a period in time when industry was in competition and sort of the dirty tricks that were played by Edison.
	Edison was a ruthless, ruthless dude, and he was very ruthless about going after his competitors and trying to run them out of business using the most scurrilous strategies possible.
	The movie doesn't go easy on Edison, but it also paints a really well-rounded picture of him.
	Here's a little bit of the preview.
	Did I mention that his system's lethal?
	His current kills people.
	He's playing dirty.
	You can't, too.
	You can't see the real force that moves things, and it's not ACDC, it's not currents.
	It's currency.
	This is costing us a fortune!
	Westinghouse stole from me!
	My motor.
	That is our future.
	Get up, get up, get up!
	You're fired.
	There's never gonna be anything named Tesla ever again.
	Okay, it's actually, it's definitely worth the watch.
	It's an enjoyable, interesting movie.
	I really don't understand why it didn't get better reviews.
	Go check it out right now, The Current War.
	It's available on Amazon Prime.
	You can order it a little bit early.
	Okay, time for some things that I hate.
	If you think that Hollywood is not biased, all you have to do is take a look at the fact that immediately after leaving office, the Obamas got a deal from Netflix.
	Remember when the Bushes got a deal from Netflix?
	I remember that.
	No?
	No?
	Remember when they did a really nice documentary about Laura Bush and the troubles she had to suffer?
	Or about George W. Bush and the situations he's had to suffer through?
	Remember all of that?
	Remember when they just threw contracts, just real, real contracts at Republicans leaving office?
	I remember that.
	No, I don't remember any of that.
	Instead, the Obamas leave office and immediately they're ingested into the Hollywood system.
	Because one thing you have to know about Hollywood, and I know Hollywood fairly well.
	I wrote a 400-page book on it, and I know tons of people at the top levels of the industry.
	Not to drop any names, because I won't, because then they would be unemployed tomorrow if people knew that they knew me.
	Seriously, I've met with top members of Hollywood, people whose names you would know.
	I meet with them off the books at local restaurants back when that was allowed, wearing sunglasses and hats.
	Because no one must ever know that conservatives exist in Hollywood.
	This must remain a massive secret.
	Well, if you don't believe that, Netflix is about to drop a documentary about the former first lady, Michelle Obama.
	And it's produced by Barack and Michelle Obama, which is not the most self-aggrandizing thing ever.
	It's maybe like the second most self-aggrandizing thing ever.
	How did that pitch meeting go exactly?
	Christian Toto from Hollywood in Toto points this out.
	How did that pitch meeting go?
	They're sitting around at Obama Productions, and they're like, what should we produce next?
	And the intern goes, how about a documentary about the Obamas?
	Everyone's like, that's a great idea!
	We love those guys!
	Becoming, which is directed by Nadia Halgren, will take viewers behind the scenes as Michelle Obama travels to 34 cities on the tour for her book.
	It will be released on May 6th.
	This makes the second hagiography about a Democratic mainstay in the last three months.
	They had Hillary Clinton, they did this celebratory documentary about Hillary Clinton on Netflix.
	Then you had the Taylor Swift documentary, which wasn't about a Democratic mainstay, but it turned her into a political activist.
	We mocked the bleep out of that trailer because it was really a very silly trailer.
	Miss Americana, is that what it was called?
	And now they have a new one, Becoming.
	It's the latest film since the former president and his wife signed a landmark deal with the streaming service in 2018.
	The pair, who run Higher Ground Productions, were involved in Crip Camp, the Nicole Noonhan and James LeBrecht-directed film about a summer camp for teens with disabilities.
	Their first film, American Factory, won the Best Documentary Feature Oscar because, of course, it had Obama's imprimatur on it.
	When I say that I know people in Hollywood, that was to say, I have sort of lost my train of thought, that was to say that in Hollywood, not only are they biased, but for Hollywood, D.C.
	Democrats are celebrities.
	The way that it works in the rest of the United States is if you're in Hollywood, you're a celebrity.
	In Hollywood, the celebrities to people in Hollywood are people like the Obamas.
	Obama was, in fact, the first celebrity president.
	I've said this before, that Barack Obama is basically the weird, bizarro, world polar negative, polarized photo of Donald Trump.
	Donald Trump was a celebrity who became president.
	Barack Obama was a president who was a celebrity.
	He was a celebrity president.
	When people say that we're fundamentally unserious because Donald Trump is president, let me point out that we elected a first-term Democratic senator from Chicago who had never done anything.
	Anything.
	He made a speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.
	He wrote a book.
	That's it.
	Those are all the accomplishments.
	And we elected that guy president because he was made a celebrity.
	And regardless of what you think about Barack Obama, As president, the fact is he was a celebrity president.
	The man spent an enormous amount of time hobnobbing with celebrities, far more than Donald Trump does, because celebrities would want to be in his company a lot more, because he's palatable and worshipped.
	So that is great news.
	So Becoming is going to be directed by Nadia Halgren, a filmmaker and cinematographer from the Bronx.
	She's best known as the DP on Oscar-nominated and Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning Trouble the Water and CNN's When We Rise, Michelle Obama's mission to educate girls around the world.
	Oh, so remember, CNN also did a Hey Geographic documentary about Michelle Obama.
	By the way, the remaking of Michelle Obama is one of the most astonishing transformations in modern American political history.
	It really is incredible.
	In 2008, this was a lady who was going around saying that this is the first time she'd been proud of her country.
	Remember, she was really radical in 2008.
	Like, super radical.
	She was perceived as Hillary Clinton circa 1992 in 2008.
	Now, she's Oprah Winfrey.
	And that is really thanks to the hard work of the people in Hollywood.
	Michelle Obama said, those months I spent traveling, meeting and connecting with people in cities across the globe, drove home the idea that what we share in common is deep and real and can't be messed with.
	In groups large and small, young and old, unique and united, we came together and shared stories, filling those spaces with our joys, worries and dreams.
	We processed the past and imagined a better future.
	In talking about the idea of becoming, many of us dared to say our hopes out loud.
	I treasure the memories and that sense of connection now more than ever as we struggle together to weather this pandemic, as we care for our loved ones, tend to our communities, try to keep up with work and school while coping with huge amounts of lost confusion and uncertainty.
	humanity.
	And then she said that people would find respite in the film.
	She says that the DP understands that the director understands the meaning of community, power of community.
	Her work is magically able to depict it.
	Oh, how beautiful, how beautiful.
	And of course, all of the stills from the film are people crying with Michelle Obama as she gives them hugs.
	Now, you know who was good at giving hugs and who was a nice lady?
	Laura Bush.
	And they never did any of this stuff.
	Laura Bush, I remember when I was at UCLA, the Anderson Business School was protested because Laura Bush was supposed to speak at commencement.
	They've never made a documentary about Laura Bush, who, by the way, is a class act.
	And the only thing they've ever said about Nancy Reagan is that she's a nasty cuss.
	The only thing that Hollywood will ever make about a Republican woman is this ridiculous series called Mrs. America.
	Mrs. America on, on... What is it?
	FX?
	This ridiculous series about Phyllis Schlafly who's supposed to be just the worst person in the world where you have Cate Blanchett doing her brittle Cate Blanchett routine because obviously the greatest villainous in the world is a woman who stood up against the radicals who are pushing the Equal Rights Amendment back in 1976.
	By the way, a story that America desperately needs right now in 2020 is a biopic of Phyllis Schlafly.
	The clamor was enormous.
	People were just dying to see it.
	At least you can make the case that a Michelle Obama documentary is based on the success of her book, right?
	The Coming has been a massive bestseller.
	At least you can say there's demand for it.
	Was there tremendous demand in Hollywood to greenlight a story about Phyllis Schlafly in the Equal Rights Amendment?
	Hollywood is ridiculous.
	Just as I said earlier, the media are not trusted by America.
	Hollywood is not trusted by America.
	And frankly, I think there are going to be a lot of people across the country who are not particularly shedding a lot of tears for the people in Hollywood who are going to be losing a lot of money during this pandemic as theaters close down.
	The political bias in Hollywood is ridiculous.
	It is insane.
	And it does radicalize the culture wars.
	The Republicans feel like they've lost the high ground of culture, and that means that Republicans feel relegated to the realm of politics.
	So if we're going to pour all of our energies into politics, man, then we are going to punch there.
	Then we are going to punch there.
	That is the basic philosophy of a lot of people on the right.
	It's why Trump is so popular, because he's a culture warrior, not really because he's a politician.
	Because he does fight back against the perception that the commanding heights of culture and decency are carried by the same left.
	They'll greenlight any film that rips into the right and praises the left.
	Alrighty, we'll be back here tomorrow with much, much more, or two hours later today.
	Also, tonight, 5 p.m.
	Eastern, 5 p.m.
	Pacific, 8 p.m.
	Eastern, I'll be doing our All Access.
	I don't know how to pitch that other than to say I'll be wearing a t-shirt.
	So, go check that out tonight.
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	You'll enjoy them, so go check that out.
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