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May 12, 2020 - The Ben Shapiro Show

57:48

Did Trump Melt Down, Or Are The Media Melting Down? | Ep. 1009

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	Dr. Anthony Fauci testifies before the Senate in controversial fashion.
	President Trump comes under fire for telling a reporter to ask China about coronavirus damage.
	And the left's transformative vision of America begins to bear fruit.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
	This show is sponsored by ExpressVPN.
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	I want to start before I really begin the show.
	I want to just give a shout out to our advertising partners who make this show possible.
	Obviously, during down economic times, we understand that people are really sort of making sure that their bank accounts are secure, making sure that they are not spending money where it is needless to do so.
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	And we're all working together to ensure that we can move forward as this horrible situation Speaking of this horrible situation, obviously the economic fallout from coronavirus continues to be absolutely astonishingly bad.
	Over 30 million people have now lost their jobs.
	They're talking about a 10-year recovery.
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	And we don't know where the stock market is going right now.
	Frankly, it seems to a lot of people like the stock market is sort of disconnected from underlying market fundamentals, given the fact that it's actually bumped in the last month, despite the fact that there's not really a lot of good news on the horizon.
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	Okay, so the controversy of the morning is that Dr. Anthony Fauci testified before the Senate, where he explained that if people do not pay attention to the federal guidelines, maybe they will be reopening too soon, and then there will be consequences to reopening too soon.
	to 47 47 47.
	Okay, so the controversy of the morning is that Dr. Anthony Fauci testified before the Senate where he explained that if people do not pay attention to the federal guidelines, maybe they will be reopening too soon.
	And then there will be consequences to reopening too soon.
	There were several health experts testifying before the Senate Health Committee on Tuesday morning.
	Pretty much everybody was doing this via internet.
	Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the CDC, warned the Senate Health Committee on Tuesday morning, we're not out of the woods yet.
	That was the day after President Trump declared, we've met the moment and we have prevailed.
	Dr. Redfield is one of four top health officials testifying remotely by video, three of whom in some form of self-isolation after exposure to a White House official that includes Dr. Anthony Fauci and Stephen Hahn, the FDA commissioner.
	When Dr. Fauci had submitted his testimony beforehand, he was expected to tell the panel there could be needless suffering and death if the country opens prematurely.
	As opposed to what?
	Needful suffering and death?
	Nobody's interested in killing people.
	The question is, when is it appropriate to reopen?
	What are the costs and effects?
	What are exactly the risks?
	He did say in his opening statement that the idea of having a treatment or vaccine available to facilitate the reentry of college students into the fall term would be a bit of a bridge too far.
	One of the big problems here is that nobody is posing any alternative to reopening in cautious and calculated fashion.
	It just seems to be this idea out there that if you just keep saying that we need to be locked down that this amounts to some sort of strategy and that obviously is not the case.
	Fauci said the consequences could be really serious if states skip federal guidelines in order to reopen.
	He said it's not just about reopening at the right time but having the capability to respond when some infections return.
	That is a situation you would imagine that the governors are going to be best qualified to answer.
	That would be the real question.
	If you're a governor of a state and you know what exactly your state's medical capacity is, aren't you better qualified to say what your state's medical capacity is than the federal government?
	In fact, isn't the federal government getting its information on what you need from you?
	Andrew Cuomo was dictating to the federal government what kind of resources he needed.
	The federal government was listening.
	Andrew Cuomo was wrong.
	He was saying they needed 40,000 ventilators.
	They didn't need half of that, apparently.
	But what we are seeing...
	Let's put it this way.
	I think that Dr. Fauci knows more than I do about this stuff, for sure.
	I think that he is an expert on epidemiology, for sure.
	I also do not think that he is the sole repository of all risk assessment when it comes to the best public policy.
	And I also think that Dr. Fauci only gets blamed if there is an inordinate number of deaths.
	He does not get blamed if the economy is locked down.
	In other words, it is normal human, it is just The normal human tendency to stick within your area of expertise.
	In the area of epidemiology, it is true that if you want to prevent more deaths, then what you're going to do is you're going to call for extended lockdown for long periods of time until it is quote-unquote safer to go outside, until some sort of therapeutic or vaccine has been found.
	Realistically speaking, that is not a balancing of interests.
	That is just you being an expert in your field.
	If you asked an economist, what is the best for the economy?
	The economist would probably say, best for the economy?
	Take the hit and go on, right?
	And that would be a bad answer, too.
	In other words, it is the job of policymakers to balance all these competing interests.
	Dr. Fauci isn't the only voice in the room.
	The media are treating him that way because he is saying the sort of stuff that they would like to hear.
	In other words, let's lock down for a very, very long period of time.
	So Dr. Fauci, for example, suggested that it might be too much to reopen campuses in September.
	Well, that is a risk reward calculation because, again, these are a bunch of 20 year olds.
	20-year-olds are not really at risk from COVID-19.
	The level of risk to 20-year-olds is extraordinarily minimal.
	And it may actually be better for the general health for a bunch of 20-year-olds to be on campus than at home hanging out with their 60-year-old parents.
	Dr. Fauci didn't really explain why people should not go back to campus.
	Well, Dr. Fauci did talk a little bit about vaccinations.
	Here's what Dr. Fauci had to say.
	Moving on to vaccines.
	There are at least eight candidate COVID-19 vaccines in clinical development.
	The NIH has been collaborating with a number of pharmaceutical companies at various stages of development.
	I will describe one very briefly, which is not the only one, but one that we have been involved in heavily developing with Moderna.
	It's a messenger RNA platform.
	Okay, well obviously that would be a good thing.
	The federal government is talking about 40 to 50 million coronavirus tests a month by September.
	Okay, so forget about the 50 million a day that people were talking about.
	Yeah, that ain't happening.
	Or even 3 million a day.
	That ain't happening.
	That'd be 90 million a month.
	Here's Anthony Fauci talking about warning against reopening.
	And again, nobody wants to reopen in an uncalibrated fashion.
	I'm just bewildered by the media's coverage that Brian Kemp is doing something deeply wrong by reopening in somewhat calibrated fashion and Ron DeSantis is doing something totally wrong.
	But Jared Polis in Colorado isn't doing anything wrong, and Tim Walton in Minnesota isn't doing anything wrong, and Steve Bullock in Montana isn't doing anything wrong.
	Why is it that when it comes to Democratic states, they can do no wrong, but when it comes to Republican states doing exactly the same thing, then all they do is wrong?
	Anyway, here's Dr. Fauci talking about reopening.
	What I've expressed then and again is my concern that if some areas, cities, states, or what have you, jump over those various checkpoints and prematurely open up without having the capability of being able to respond effectively and efficiently, my concern is that we will start to see little spikes that might turn into outbreaks.
	Okay, notice what he says there, because it's very important.
	What he says is he is afraid of overwhelming the healthcare system.
	That's really what he's saying there.
	What he's afraid of is that there will be a big spike and you don't have the capacity to at least test the spikes, and you don't have the capacity to handle the spikes over the healthcare system.
	He is not saying that we have to remain locked down until this thing is dead.
	And this is a major distinction, because the media are reading this as Fauci saying that we have to lock this thing down until basically the end of time, until a vaccine is developed.
	And it seems like the American people are taking it that way.
	I mean, if you read the media coverage of this, it's really intensely bad.
	Really, really bad media coverage.
	I've been honing in on this for a while because the fact is that the media, the so-called experts in our media, are not actually properly quoting even the experts in the health field.
	So you get pieces like this from the New York Times.
	Officials are under pressure to restart the economy, but many states are moving too quickly, researchers say.
	The cost may be measured in lost lives.
	In other words, people are rushing, and now they're killing people.
	You're a killing grandma.
	According to the New York Times, millions of working people and small business owners who cannot earn money while sheltering at home are facing economic ruin, so dozens of states seeking to ease the pain are coming out of lockdown.
	Most have not met even minimal criteria for doing so safely, and some are reopening even as coronavirus cases rise, inviting disaster.
	The much-feared second wave of infection may not wait until fall, many scientists say, and instead may become a storm of wavelets breaking unpredictably across the country.
	The reopenings will proceed nonetheless.
	The question now, scientists say, is whether the nation can minimize the damage by intelligently adopting new tactics.
	Evidence is mounting that masks are far more effective at stopping transmission than previously realized.
	And remember, these same experts two months ago were telling us, don't wear a mask.
	It's a complete waste of time.
	Across the nation, testing remains wholly inadequate, but home use nasal swabs and saliva tests are on the way that may provide a clearer picture of where the virus is.
	Americans are lining up for antibody tests that may reveal who has some immunity.
	Early surveys suggest more Americans may carry antibodies than initially thought.
	Employers are moving to design safer workplaces.
	But while it may still be possible to blunt the impact of reopenings, the nation is finding even this goal difficult.
	And then they talk about how people are not staying six feet apart and there may be silent carriers of the virus.
	And they talk about how some epidemiological models are worrying about the possibility of an outbreak.
	But again, the point here is not that the number of cases is going to go up.
	Everybody knows the number of cases is going to go up.
	The question is whether it overwhelms the health care system.
	And I feel like I'm repeating myself here, but that's because the media refused to get the message.
	And so you end up with people like Chris Cuomo saying idiotic things on national TV nearly every night.
	Chris Cuomo gets out there and he says, we don't have the testing and tracing in place in order to stop the virus.
	It doesn't stop the virus.
	Chris Cuomo said, none of the states that have reopened, none, has the capacity to test and trace the way they need to.
	Okay, first of all, I think that the guy who violated his own quarantine rules so that he could go visit his second house, that guy probably is not your best source on this.
	The guy who gives SOP interviews to his brother, who was involved in some of the worst policy planning for the coronavirus of anybody in America.
	Probably he's not a great source, but beyond that, beyond the fact that Chris Cuomo isn't a great source, what does it mean?
	Has the capacity to test and trace the way they need to?
	I would love to hear him describe exactly what a test and trace regimen looks like that is sufficient for reopening.
	And the answer is that nobody is providing any of that.
	Instead, there's always safe to be found in saying, we're not ready yet.
	Saying we're not ready yet, it's, look, there are inherent risks in opening up.
	We all understand this.
	But the question is, when are those risks well calibrated?
	And when are you willing to take the risks?
	Because it turns out that there are risks to inaction as well.
	So take a war analogy, which apparently people like doing these days, trying to compare the virus to a war.
	Back during the Civil War, President Lincoln had a general named George McClellan.
	George McClellan was, he liked to style himself as little Napoleon.
	And he was this kind of short dude who was very, very good at providing military training to his troops, but extraordinarily, extraordinarily reticent in using his troops to break the back of the Confederacy.
	And President Lincoln became increasingly agitated with McClellan.
	And eventually, he ended up firing McClellan.
	This actually caused enough of a controversy that in 1864, George McClellan actually ran against Abraham Lincoln for the presidency.
	But George McClellan, who was, again, this supposed great warrior, was really, really reticent to use his army.
	And so eventually, Lincoln fired him, and he put in place generals who were willing to use the army, people like Grant, and people like Sherman.
	That came with additional risks to troops, no question.
	But also, it turns out that it was kind of important to win the Civil War.
	Now, again, this isn't a war and we're trying to preserve as many lives as humanly possible.
	But it is also true that if we all cower behind the lockdown mentality without doing the capable calculation of risks, The safest thing to do is never to fight a battle.
	The safest thing to do is never to come out of lockdown, presumably.
	But it is not the safest thing in terms of having a functioning economy and having a free America and having a functioning and prosperous nation.
	And by the way, in terms of saving lives on the other end, from suicide and drug overdose and from deaths of despair and from the complete collapse of the American way of life.
	So unless somebody's providing like an absolute metric and an explanation for those metrics, I don't want to hear vague terms like the testing and tracing are simply not up to snuff from Chris Cuomo.
	He doesn't know anything about this.
	He doesn't know more than I do about this.
	And if I'm going to hear from an expert, I want to hear why the testing and tracing needs to be at a certain stage and what exactly those stages look like.
	Because if you listen to Mike DeWine, he's reopening before they have hit the 14-day consistent downturn in diagnosed cases in Ohio.
	But he says our testing and tracing has now been ramped up so that we're okay and our resources are okay.
	I trust Mike DeWine on that more than I trust Chris Cuomo, and frankly, more than I trust Anthony Fauci, because guess who's going to bear the brunt of the fallout if that thing goes wrong?
	It's going to be Mike DeWine, not Anthony Fauci.
	In a second, we're going to get to some theories of reopening and what that would look like.
	And I also want to talk about the effect of bad media coverage, because there's a poll number today that just demonstrates the wild disconnect that has been created in the American mind between what is rational to expect and what is irrational to expect at this point.
	We'll get to that in just a moment.
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	Okay, so when I say the media coverage leads to some pretty egregious public relations results and expectations that simply do not meet with reality, here's an example.
	There's a Gallup pullout.
	It shows that 68% of Americans say a vaccine is needed before returning to normal life.
	Now, I don't know what they qualify as normal life.
	Does normal life mean before you go to a ballgame?
	Okay, maybe.
	But if what you mean by normal life is like going back to work and you're waiting for a vaccine, there is the significant possibility that a vaccine will appear never.
	That there will not be a successful vaccine for this thing.
	In fact, there are new reports out today, the NIH is suggesting it might need more than one round of vaccine.
	They might need multiple vaccines.
	And now Americans are also fibbing about this.
	So 68% of Americans are saying they need a vaccine before they return to normal life.
	But Gallup is finding that more people now say they're going to visit others in their homes.
	16% of Americans reported they visited somebody else's home or apartment in the last 24 hours alone, which is an uptick since March.
	The avoidance of small gatherings has decreased mostly among independents and Republicans.
	It's down 10 percentage points among independents and down 7 percentage points among Republicans.
	Which, by the way, I mean, that's a bigger change among independents than among Republicans.
	So for all the talk about partisanship, the reality is that most Americans are just not willing to continue to avoid other human beings because this is not natural to human beings.
	Normally, I've talked about this before, but normally in times of crisis, you go and you seek out other human beings for commonality.
	You go to church, right?
	You find other people you can find solidarity in.
	During 9-11, people sought out crowds to be in.
	Because not only does there feel like inherent safety in numbers, also we're all grieving together and mourning together.
	This is really, really difficult because you're being told that the only way to prevent further tragedy is basically to stay away from other human beings as far as possible, which is really deeply unnatural.
	But here's the problem.
	If 68% of Americans are saying that they do not Feel like returning to normal life until there's a vaccine.
	We're never returning to normal life, gang.
	I mean, it could be 12 to 18 months at the inside, right?
	Not at the outside, at the inside.
	And let's be real about this.
	Blue states are reopening too.
	So while the media is trying to divide this into blue states versus red state, L.A.
	is set to reopen its beaches on Wednesday, according to a tweet from the county.
	New rules will be in place.
	Physical activities, like running, swimming, and surfing, will be allowed.
	Sedentary activity, like sunbathing and picnicking, will be prohibited.
	I don't even know what the hell that means.
	Like, seriously, I don't know what that means.
	Have these people ever been to a beach?
	What do they think people do on a beach?
	Like, if my kids go into the water and then they get out of the water, do they think that my kids are going to run straight from the car into the water and then straight back into my car?
	That's not how any of this works.
	How about this?
	How about you enforce rules that make sense, like social distancing rules?
	Like, you guys are too close together.
	Move five feet apart.
	It's a big beach.
	How about that?
	Masks or face coverings must be worn unless you're in the water, which makes perfectly zero sense when you are more than six feet away from people.
	Again, the media are so irresponsible about this stuff.
	So they were making a big deal yesterday in the media about the fact that over at the White House, people were supposed to be wearing masks.
	And so the members of the media were all wearing masks, but they were also socially distancing, which again, this is like wearing a mask in your own car when you're by yourself.
	You don't have to do that, guys.
	If you are 10 feet away from another person, you don't have to wear a mask if you're outdoors.
	This is ridiculous.
	But there's so much bad information and misinterpretation of information, it's really rather wild.
	It's really quite insane.
	And the American people are taking in the bad information, and they are also mis-evaluating their own risk because of this, and mis-evaluating the likelihood of a vaccine arriving any time in the near future.
	According to Bloomberg, several vaccines will likely be needed to combat the coronavirus and immunize groups of people in America and abroad, according to the U.S.
	National Institute of Health Director Francis Collins.
	Collins is a physician and geneticist who leads the agency overseeing the U.S.
	research response to the pandemic.
	He said, "My expectation is, and I'm a bit of an optimist, we don't find out there's only one of these vaccines that work, but rather two or three of them come through the trials looking as though they're safe and effective.
	They'll have somewhat different characteristics of where they work best, so we might need to do some matching then of which vaccine goes to which particular population." So according to Collins, the plan, which is a very optimistic one, is to begin to have doses this fall, first with 10 million, then maybe 100 million by late fall, maybe 300 million by January.
	But is that a realistic assessment of the situation?
	Who the hell knows?
	And also, are we all going to stay locked in our houses until January?
	Is that the actual plan here?
	And if it is, then you better give me a damn guarantee that there's going to be a vaccine by January because you're talking about destroying the entire world economy.
	Like literally the entire world economy not existing by January.
	Every small business in America is already going under.
	In fact, people are getting so desperate for speeding up a vaccine that scientists are debating whether to try a so-called human challenge trial.
	Normally, you give somebody a vaccine and then you wait for somebody to sort of naturally acquire the disease to see if the vaccine worked.
	Now what they're talking about is we give you the vaccine and then we deliberately infect you with coronavirus to see if the vaccine works.
	And there's some scientists who are suggesting that maybe we need to do this in order to speed everything up.
	They may very well be right.
	Okay, there's another possibility here, and that possibility is That we need to tranche populations.
	Again, the fact that we are treating all populations as equally susceptible to death, that we are treating all populations as equally susceptible to having severe health problems from COVID-19 is just foolishness.
	Now, again, there will be some people who are young who get very sick from this.
	Statistical probability does not mean that people who are on the wrong side of the statistical probability aren't affected.
	They are.
	If 2 in 1, if 2 in 10,000 people die from COVID-19, that means that 9,998 people don't die from COVID-19, but it means that 2 people do, right?
	So, I mean, if somebody, you'll hear anecdotal evidence, and this is one of the, again, my bugaboos in the media, they will say things like, it's true that people above the age of 80 are dying en masse from this thing, and it's really dangerous for those above 80, but People who are 30 are dying too.
	That doesn't help me in any way.
	Make a statistical calculation.
	It doesn't help me calculate risks.
	At all.
	Andrew Oswald.
	That's a very good piece.
	Over in the Irish Times, Andrew Oswald is a professor of economics and behavioral science at University of Warwick.
	And he says that his strategy would be allow the young people to restart their lives and the economy.
	He says the young are far, far safer than older people.
	This is because for biological reasons, young humans have a much stronger immune response to almost all viral attacks on the body, including to a COVID-19 attack.
	And we forced our youth inside as though they were at serious risk, like the old, when they're not.
	In the UK, the fatality rate among those in their early 20s, for example, is 2 in 10,000.
	Among those aged in their 60s, it's 80 times that.
	See, now this would be a useful stat.
	Or if you told young people, okay, here's the deal.
	Older people are highly likely to be damaged by this, as in like 160 out of every 10,000 people who are above the age of 60 are going to die of this.
	But you, it's 2 in 10,000.
	Let's put it this way.
	If somebody said to you, here is your choice today.
	Your choice is, I'm going to give you a giant, giant vat of marbles.
	It is 10,000 marbles.
	Two of those marbles are going to be black, 9,998 of those marbles are going to be white.
	Here is your choice.
	You can either put your hand into that vat and pick a marble, or you can lose your entire income.
	Not just this year, but you can do it for like a couple of years.
	Minimum.
	Right?
	You can watch your entire way of life disintegrate.
	Or, you can pick a marble.
	How many people would actually pick the marble?
	The vast majority of young people would pick the marble.
	If you're older, you probably would not pick the marble, because again, the odds are better that you're gonna pick the wrong marble, and if it's the black marble, then you die, right?
	That is the actual statistical calculation.
	It is an amazing thing that so many members of the media are unwilling to give people the tranched information on health risks here.
	And I just don't understand why, when Anthony Fauci testifies, when Dr. Birx testifies, when they do this sort of stuff, the first thing they don't say is, let me explain the risk factors for each particular population.
	Why is that not like the first thing that we talk about?
	And the answer is because, in some ways, the vagueness, the miasmatic sense that we are all equally at risk, that is the largest factor stumping for the lockdowns.
	The largest factor stumping for the lockdowns is this belief that you or your friends are equally likely to die as an 80-year-old, or if you're less likely to die, it's only marginally so, not exponentially so.
	Not hugely so.
	According to this piece in the Irish Times, the key advantages of a rolling age release strategy, which would begin with youngest adult age groups and then work gradually up the age range, are it recognizes we cannot wait indefinitely to reopen the economy.
	It's fair because it targets and helps the group currently hit hardest financially because we'll actually pay people to stay home if you're older.
	It is the safest way to have an exit strategy until a vaccine is available.
	By the way, it is also true that the jobs most likely to require you to be there are probably the jobs that are most likely to need young bodies.
	In other words, if you are 60 and you are working, there's a good chance that you're working on your computer and that you're not in manual labor because you're 60, right?
	The reality is that if you are in a physical labor-intensive industry, it is highly likely that you are disproportionately young because younger people are capable of lifting heavier objects.
	They're capable of driving longer hours.
	They're capable of driving trucks for longer, right?
	This columnist suggests the young are going to be the most troublesome and the hardest to keep inside anyway.
	Like, this policy is geared towards something that looks like reality.
	You know what isn't?
	These interminable statements that we're just gonna remain in lockdown indefinitely.
	That's not going to work.
	As I've said before, vagary is the enemy of obedience.
	If you are vague about your rules, people are not going to obey them.
	If you are pretty specific about your rules and what you expect people to do, people at least know what to expect.
	And if they know what to expect, then they can obey the rules.
	But this idea that we're just going to hold out indefinitely and we'll kind of let you know when it's kind of safe, but then we'll rip you if it's not safe, none of that is effective.
	It's not effective policymaking.
	In just a second, we'll get to what would be effective policymaking.
	Beyond simply tranching out young populations, namely protecting the nursing homes as I've been talking about.
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	Meanwhile, as I say, one of the keys to actually crafting an effective policy here would be protecting the nursing homes, which is, of course, exactly what so many failed to do.
	And the fact is that if you look at the population in nursing homes, a good piece by Chris Pope at cityjournal.org, looking at the effect of nursing homes, it basically says, in 2016, nursing homes housed 1.3 million Americans, 39% aged 85 or over, 800,000 more lived in assisted living facilities, over 2 million Americans living in nursing homes or assisted living as of 2016.
	Nursing home residents are extremely vulnerable to coronavirus due to multiple comorbidities.
	72% have hypertension, 38% heart disease, 32% diabetes.
	Even under normal circumstances, this population faces disproportionately high mortality risks.
	In 2016, nursing home residents made up 0.4% of the U.S.
	population.
	They accounted for 19% of deaths.
	And that wouldn't be COVID.
	That's just like death.
	Death comes for older people who have comorbidities.
	A reality of life.
	But the vulnerability of nursing home residents is simply not due to demographics of age and illness.
	Nursing homes have long been particularly susceptible to infectious disease.
	In 2016, 45% of nursing homes had infection control deficiencies.
	As many as 380,000 people die every year of infections in long-term care facilities.
	So what should be priority number one?
	Cleaning out the nursing homes.
	Ensuring the nursing home staff is tested.
	These would be all the things that we actually need to do.
	You do that and you can start talking about reopening.
	And again, the fact that this has turned into a partisan issue is truly astonishing because Europe is moving toward reopening.
	Europe doesn't have American partisan politics to blame.
	Italy is moving toward reopening.
	Germany is moving toward reopening.
	The Netherlands is moving toward reopening.
	Britain is moving toward reopening in very, very significant fashion.
	Is that because of Trump?
	Is that because of the evil Republicans?
	By the way, you know who else is talking about reopening?
	Democrats!
	Connecticut's governor, who is a Democrat, says, yeah, I think it's time for us to reopen.
	I mean, most of our deaths are happening in nursing homes and let's protect the nursing homes and let's move toward reopening.
	Is this because the evil Connecticut governor is an evil, evil Republican?
	Or do we just ignore him in our coronavirus critical coverage because he is not a Republican?
	I am confident.
	We've doubled the amount of testing in the last week.
	We're going to double it again in the next week.
	We're able to go after every single first responder, everybody in our nursing homes.
	We're testing the door to the electric boat factories.
	Everybody going in and out knows that they've been tested and safe.
	So, this is all... May 20th was oriented around making sure we have the protective gear in place, we have the testing in place, and the track and trace.
	We're ready to go, I think.
	By the way, you know who else is ready to go?
	I mean, I know.
	Hero of the Republic, Andrew Cuomo.
	He says, listen, we're turning toward reopening too.
	One week ago, he was saying, my mom's life isn't worth a single reopening.
	And now he's like, oh yeah, by the way, we're on the other side of the mountain.
	We kind of have to reopen.
	Yeah, no bleep, Sherlock.
	So you tell me, Chris, right?
	Talk to your brother.
	Is the testing and tracing available in New York?
	Are they ready to go in New York?
	You tell me.
	Or is it only that you say that everything is insufficient when it's a Republican opening up his state?
	Now the decline has gotten to a point where we are just about where we started the journey.
	So to turn to reopening, because we have abated the worst by what we've done, and now we can intelligently turn towards reopening.
	And that's May 15th, that's this Friday, and local regions all across the state should start to prepare for it, and people as well.
	Okay, so again, amazing, amazing.
	Only Democrats get away with this sort of stuff.
	Republicans do not.
	So here's a perfect example.
	So the Trump administration has been ripped up and down.
	The Trump administration got people their ventilators.
	The Trump administration gave governors what they need.
	I will say that it is a dereliction of political duty for the Trump campaign not to have cut an ad just showing Democrats over and over and over again saying, we got what we needed from the White House.
	Every single major Democrat has said this.
	The governor of California has said it.
	The governor of New York has said it.
	The governor of New Jersey has said it.
	Every major governor in every blue state has said when we asked the federal government for something, we got what we needed.
	How the Trump campaign has not put out a video just demonstrating the gap between the media coverage and what the governors are saying is absolutely beyond me.
	It is political dereliction of duty.
	It's unbelievable.
	It's just it's unthinkable that they haven't done this yet.
	Truly.
	But Jared Kushner yesterday, he is correct.
	He said, if you needed a ventilator, you got one.
	Remember when Jared Kushner was ripped up and down for suggesting that maybe people were exaggerating the number of ventilators that they needed?
	Remember he suggested, by the way, we're a backup system and states should actually primarily be looking for ventilators on their own, but we're here to help.
	And they got ripped up and down.
	Very evil, Jared Kushner.
	Evil, evil, evil, Jared Kushner.
	Guess what?
	The ventilators were there.
	In fact, now we're talking about a surplus in this country of tens of thousands of ventilators because all the media could shout about for months on end was the need for ventilators, which by the way, are about 10% effective once you're in the ICU.
	Here is Jared Kushner yesterday.
	We all came together.
	We worked very closely with New York.
	We sent them 4,400 ventilators.
	We've sent them money.
	We've sent them resources.
	We've sent them people.
	We've sent them masks.
	The goal here was just to make sure that we can get all the resources we needed to the front line to make sure the people who were in danger from the virus got what they needed.
	And thankfully, in New York and throughout the country, anyone who needed a ventilator got a ventilator, and we've been able to bring good results to the country.
	OK, that is correct.
	But the media have an agenda, and the agenda is Trump is evil and Trump is wrong.
	So yesterday, President Trump talked about meeting the moment.
	He said, we've met the moment, we've prevailed.
	Okay, well, again, I would have been very hesitant on a political level ever to declare victory in the middle of a pandemic, right?
	That's just not something that you want to do.
	And I don't think Trump was fully doing that, but that's certainly how the media covered it, because they were always going to cover it that way.
	But when President Trump says that we gave people what they needed, he is right.
	So here's President Trump yesterday.
	In every generation, through every challenge and hardship and danger, America has risen to the task.
	We have met the moment, and we have prevailed.
	Americans do whatever it takes to find solutions, pioneer breakthroughs, and harness the energies we need to achieve a total victory.
	Day after day, we're making tremendous strides.
	With the dedication of our doctors and nurses, these are incredible people.
	These are brave people.
	These are warriors.
	He is right about all of that.
	Now, that was covered by the media as though he was saying a mission accomplished manner across the White House.
	He never said anything like that.
	As you'll see in just a second, the media do have an agenda here.
	And their agenda is to rip Trump no matter what he does, no matter what he says.
	I mean, it really is astonishing.
	There are plenty of times when Trump says stuff where I'll criticize him and I'll say, that was incredibly dumb.
	He certainly should not have said that.
	There are times when he'll say something that's vulgar and vile.
	He certainly shouldn't have said that.
	Today, President Trump is on Twitter and he's talking about Joe Scarborough being a murderer or something idiotic and ridiculous like that.
	That was not yesterday.
	Yesterday, the media decided for no reason at all that Trump was in the middle of a meltdown.
	No, what's happening is that our media are melting down right now because they are not giving you proper information.
	They are only focused solely and completely on how can they use this as a club to beat Trump with.
	I mean, really, when I say solely and completely, I mean the political media.
	I, again, want to make a distinction.
	There are people who actually report on health policy.
	And many of those people are very good.
	I will say it again, the Washington Post healthcare page, their health policy 202 page, it's very good.
	The Wall Street Journal, same thing.
	There are health reporters at various outlets that are actually doing a good job.
	And then there's the political media, and the political media absolutely suck.
	The people who are the White House reporters, they are just garbage.
	The people who are on TV, and all they are interested in doing is getting their momentary clip, that moment of fame where they took on the president like Sam Donaldson in the old days, or Dan Rather in the old days, standing up and lecturing Ronald Reagan.
	No, you just look like a douchebag.
	Seriously.
	And that's not on the president.
	I'll give you a perfect example of this yesterday.
	This posturing nonsense.
	Get to that in just a second.
	First, we are home more than usual these days, but it's still hard to keep a close eye on things.
	More deliveries can mean more boxes left unattended and more opportunities for packages to go missing.
	Plus, I gotta tell you, living in LA, there is more and more criminality these days.
	My good friend, Dave Rubin, he had his mailbox robbed yesterday.
	Somebody literally just walked up to his mailbox, opened up his mailbox, and took his stuff.
	He has that on video because of Ring, and now he has submitted it to the police.
	My friend, the other day, his house was robbed.
	His video, from Ring.com, directly to the police.
	Hopefully the police will do their job and track these people down.
	As mayors are releasing criminals into public areas and not arresting them and keeping them in jail, crime rates are going up.
	And that means that you really need to make sure you know what is going on inside and outside your house.
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	All right, in just a second.
	We are going to be getting to the insanity of the media because they were claiming yesterday that Trump melted down at a press conference.
	He did not.
	The media melted down and they exposed, honestly, they exposed themselves in tremendous ways.
	They exposed themselves like a porn star at a Las Vegas convention.
	It was amazing.
	We'll get to that in a second.
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	there.
	You are listening to the largest, fastest growing conservative podcast and radio show in the nation.
	So this is all insanity.
	Again, the media have lost their mind.
	So, here was the moment yesterday that made all the rounds.
	Trump meltdown was trending on Twitter.
	So, let me show you the so-called meltdown.
	So, President Trump is asked a question by a CBS reporter named Y. Zhe Zhang.
	Okay, and the question is utterly stupid.
	It's an idiotic question.
	A truly idiotic question.
	It's a typical gotcha, Mr. President, why are you so mean, bad, and ugly question, right?
	Mr. President, when did you stop beating your wife question?
	And this is the question that you get when the political reporters are in charge.
	Again, I have suggested that the White House stop doing press conferences with President Trump.
	Basically entirely.
	Not because Trump is wildly mishandling them, although sometimes he does.
	The real reason is because the political media are not giving the American public the information they need.
	It's so funny, the political media are like, we shouldn't show Trump on TV because he's giving misinformation.
	What about the fact that your entire agenda is completely directed toward the politics of the situation and making political hay?
	As opposed to, you know, the actual question that Americans want answered like, How safe are we going to be?
	What are the risk calculations?
	And are we going to die?
	Those seem like those would be more relevant considerations.
	So how about you get your economic team up there and your health team up there and you have the economic and health teams from the newspapers ask the questions?
	Because these people are asking the dumbest questions ever.
	I mean, seriously, I've interviewed a lot of the same people who are being brought up to these press conferences, right?
	I've interviewed Burks.
	I've interviewed Mike Pence.
	I've interviewed Scott Gottlieb.
	I've interviewed like a bevy of public health experts.
	And if you actually watch the interviews on the Sunday specials or listen to them, what you'll hear is me asking extremely specific questions about what is the nature of the testing?
	What are the success rates?
	What can we expect from them?
	What level of prevalence do they have to have?
	What is the herd immunity that we need to reach?
	These are the questions that we need to know.
	What is the timeline for the rollout of vaccines?
	Those are the questions we need to know.
	Instead, we get this kind of posturing bull bleep Why is this a global competition to you if every day Americans are still losing their lives and we're still seeing more cases every day?
	Why Zhejiang?
	And then posture as a victim.
	So here is the exchange between Trump and why Zhejiang that led to a blow up.
	Why is this a global competition to you if every day Americans are still losing their lives and we're still seeing more cases every day?
	Well, they're losing their lives.
	OK, before we get to Trump's answer, that question is so bad and so ridiculous and so stupid.
	The reason it's bad and stupid and ridiculous is because Trump, before this, he claims that the United States is now testing more than any other country.
	Now, on a raw basis, that's true.
	On a per capita basis, it's approaching the truth, I think.
	Last I checked.
	Okay, now.
	Why is he comparing how we're doing to other countries?
	Because you guys keep saying that we are lagging based on other countries.
	And so he has been responding to that.
	So her question is, why do you keep comparing us to other countries when Americans are dying?
	Because it's sort of relevant to determine our success levels in testing to compare us to other countries.
	Because our test levels are never going to be sufficient to meet 50 million a day.
	So it seems more reasonable to compare us to how are other countries who are successful doing.
	It's a perfectly reasonable, it's a dumbass question and a perfectly reasonable thing for the President of the United States to compare how we're doing to other countries.
	It's what we do every single day.
	It's what Worldometers does, what Johns Hopkins does.
	When we look at deaths per 100,000, what do you think we're doing?
	What do you think we're doing?
	Okay, so it's an idiotic question and here was Trump's answer.
	Well, they're losing their lives everywhere in the world, and maybe that's a question you should ask China.
	Sir, why are you saying that to me, specifically, that I should ask China?
	I'm telling you, I'm not saying it specifically to anybody.
	I'm saying it to anybody that would ask a nasty question like that.
	That's not a nasty question.
	Please go ahead.
	Next, please.
	You called on me.
	I did, and you didn't respond, and now I'm calling on the young lady in the back.
	Please.
	I just wanted to let my colleague finish, but can I ask you a question?
	Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much.
	Appreciate it.
	Thank you very much.
	Okay, that's not a meltdown, because what happened there is that he then called on another reporter who raised her hand.
	And she ceded her time back to the woman who was busy screaming at Trump, basically.
	By the way, taking off her mask just so she could get on camera.
	That's what she does.
	Look at us, we're masked up just because we are so virtuous.
	But you know what?
	This is my big moment on camera.
	I'm taking off the mask so you can see that I'm Chinese, and that's why you're asking the question.
	Okay, so question.
	Did Trump know she was Chinese or not?
	Of Chinese extraction or not?
	She's American, I assume.
	She's of Chinese extraction, is my understanding.
	So, if no one knew that she was of Asian extraction or Chinese extraction before she removed the mask, then it's not racist for him to say it.
	By the way, it's not racist for him to say it anyway.
	He's been saying for months, ask China about the levels of death.
	Ask China about the levels.
	Of course we should ask China about the levels of death.
	This is China's damned fault.
	China is still manipulating the WHO to keep Taiwan out of hearings on this stuff.
	China still won't answer straight questions as to how this thing escaped Wuhan.
	They still won't allow an investigation as to how this thing started.
	Trump has been saying, talk to China for a long time.
	So just because this reporter happens to be, I assume, of Chinese extraction, I don't even know, right?
	She makes that the issue.
	He doesn't.
	But then she's like, why are you asking me that?
	Are you saying that because I'm Chinese?
	Okay, this is the most garbage, stupid form of media.
	Naturally, the entire media jump on this.
	So Brian Stelter, just journalism-ing up the wazoo, right?
	Media watchdog Brian Stelter, he says, this is rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr I think what we saw in that exchange with Wei Zhejiang is something that has racial overtones.
	It is racist to look at an Asian-American White House correspondent and say, ask China.
	This isn't happening in a vacuum.
	This is part of a pattern of behavior from the president that goes back many years.
	So he doesn't have the benefit of the doubt that someone might have if, for the first time ever in their life, they made a comment like that to a reporter.
	That wasn't the first time in his life he made that comment.
	He talks about China at every single press conference.
	Didn't we have a controversy like a month and a half ago where he kept calling it the Chinese virus?
	Right?
	Have we all hit our heads and experienced short-term memory loss?
	I understand that we now live in the world of Interstellar.
	We're on like the water planet and every minute is seven years long and all of this.
	But it was like four weeks ago when we had an entire national controversy over Trump saying Chinese virus.
	Was he doing that for the benefit of Wai Shih-Sheng?
	Ridiculous!
	Ridiculous!
	He doesn't get the benefit of the doubt.
	And then you get Rachel Maddow.
	Something is wrong with Trump.
	Something's wrong with... Clearly something is broken in Trump.
	Or maybe you always thought something was broken, and now you have your confirmation bias, Rachel Maddow.
	Ridiculous.
	Ridiculous.
	What great journalism in our media does.
	First, they tell us that we can't leave our houses without a vaccine.
	Then they refuse to give us statistics on the seroprevalence test so we know what the actual risk factors are by population.
	Then they suggest that everybody who's a Republican governor is bad, even if Democratic governors are doing the exact same thing.
	And then they suggest that if President Trump tells a reporter to ask China about deaths abroad, that that's because the reporter is Chinese.
	What the hell is wrong with these people?
	And then you wonder why American trust in the media is at an all-time low?
	I wonder.
	I cannot imagine why.
	Rachel Maddow.
	The president right now, in the midst of this crisis, is visibly struggling.
	There is something wrong or he's just not doing okay.
	I don't know.
	But the president apparently just is not able to keep it together right now in his public appearances.
	What is wrong with the president today?
	Um, we don't know.
	I mean, something's wrong.
	I mean, whether or not you, you know, like the president or not, whether you enjoy his public affect or not on a regular basis, it's clear that there's something wrong.
	Oh, is that clear?
	Is that clear?
	Or is it that there's something wrong with the media?
	Trump has been Trump this whole time.
	I'm old enough to remember when the media used to ask questions that were not entirely geared toward, Mr. Trump, you're very bad, orange, and large.
	Why?
	Why are your hands so tiny, Mr. President?
	Are you just angry at me because I'm Chinese, Mr. President?
	Our genius.
	How dare, how dare Trump?
	How dare he?
	How dare he?
	It's just absurd.
	Okay, meanwhile, the same media who are asking serious questions of Trump, like, why are you so mean, bad, and orange, refuse to ask any serious questions of anyone inside the Obama team about what they are now calling Obamagate.
	So, President Trump, yesterday, was asked about what Obama did, because he used the term Obamagate on Twitter.
	And he says, listen, everybody knows what Obama did, right?
	Now, here's the thing.
	Everybody didn't know what Obama did.
	Anyway, here is President Trump yesterday talking about how everybody knows.
	I'm going to explain what Obama did momentarily, and it ain't great.
	I'll explain in just one second, but here is President Trump yesterday.
	Obamagate.
	It's been going on for a long time.
	It's been going on from before I even got elected, and it's a disgrace that it happened.
	And if you look at what's gone on, and if you look at now, all of this information that's being released, and from what I understand, that's only the beginning.
	What is the crime exactly that you're accusing him of?
	You know what the crime is.
	The crime is very obvious to everybody.
	All you have to do is read the newspapers, except yours.
	Okay, so the crime is not obvious to everybody, and it's not obvious exactly that Obama committed a crime.
	Here is what did happen with the Mike Flynn stuff.
	And the fact that the media have generally been unwilling to cover it is pretty astonishing.
	Actually, I'm going to give credit where credit is due.
	One person who actually asked the right question today was George Stephanopoulos.
	I know, shocks me too.
	George Stephanopoulos over at ABC News.
	He had Joe Biden on his program.
	Do we have this clip?
	And Joe Biden was specifically asked about whether he was in the loop on all the Mike Flynn stuff.
	And he says, no, I never knew about any of the Mike Flynn stuff.
	We know he was in an Oval Office meeting where Barack Obama specifically asked Sally Yates to her surprise about how things were going with all the Michael Flynn stuff.
	So Biden was, in fact, in the loop.
	Here he was basically pretending he was not in the loop.
	This is an untrue statement from Joe Biden.
	And good for Stephanopoulos for asking it.
	I know nothing about those moves to investigate Michael Flynn, number one.
	Number two, this is all about diversion.
	You say you didn't know anything about it, but you were reported to be at a January 5th, 2017 meeting where you and the president were briefed on the FBI's plan to question Michael Flynn over those conversations he had with the Russian ambassador, Kislyak.
	No, I thought you asked me whether or not I had anything to do with him being prosecuted.
	Okay.
	I'm sorry.
	I was aware that there was, that they asked for an investigation.
	But that's all I know about it, and I don't think anything else.
	Oh, is that all?
	So you just misheard the question.
	Okay, well, it seems like it's kind of asking for an investigation when you know more than the DOJ, the acting director of the DOJ, Sally Gates, and that you bring it up in front of Sally Gates and James Comey.
	So here's the timeline here.
	This is what Trump is talking about.
	And serious questions should be asked here because Barack Obama goes out and he says things like the Trump administration is undermining the rule of law and then you get this posturing letter from 2,000 DOJ officials, what we call low-level DOJ officials, calling for Bill Barr's resignation.
	Here's exactly what happened.
	Here's the timeline.
	Flynn, first of all, Obama claimed that Flynn was charged with perjury.
	He was never charged with perjury.
	He was charged with lying to the FBI in the course of an investigation, which is a separate and far lesser offense, particularly given the fact that his alleged lie was immaterial to any underlying crime, which is something the FBI basically acknowledges at this point.
	In fact, as Americans have found out over the past couple of weeks, Flynn wasn't supposed to be the subject of any investigation at all.
	The FBI had decided to close an investigation into Flynn January 2017, maybe January 4th, 2017, even after the supposedly nefarious calls between Flynn and the Russian ambassador, Sergei Kislyak.
	In fact, the FBI had the transcripts of the calls.
	They knew that nothing inappropriate was said on the calls.
	That's when disgraced former FBI agent Peter Strzok, that's the same guy who pledged his lover, Lisa Page, that there would be an insurance policy against Trump, intervened and suggested that the investigation be kept open.
	The very next day, during an Oval Office meeting, President Obama himself asked the FBI Director James Comey about the Flynn-Kislyak communications.
	And then Comey upped the ante.
	He avoided following normal FBI White House protocols in order to interview Flynn.
	His deputy, Andrew McCabe, avoided informing Flynn of his rights.
	Still, the FBI agents who conducted the interview said they didn't actually think that Flynn was lying during the interview.
	As it turns out, there were notes between FBI officials at the time asking, what's our goal?
	Truth and mission?
	Or to get him to lie so we can prosecute him and get him fired?
	Flynn would later plead guilty to one count of lying to the FBI, at least in part because the FBI was threatening his son with prosecution.
	In other words, he took the plea deal because he didn't want his son to go to jail.
	This should be a massive scandal.
	And members of the Obama administration should be under the gun for it.
	Because the reality is that they perverted the rules of law in order to confirm what they thought was happening.
	Now, best case scenario here is that they were convinced that there was something nefarious going on inside the Trump campaign, and they were basically winking and nodding at the Carter Page FISA warrant and at the attempt to bend the rule of law regarding Michael Flynn.
	The more sinister idea is that they really knew there was nothing there with Trump and Russia, but they were willing to sort of create the impression that there was by really exaggerating.
	Now, I always tend to attribute to stupidity things rather than malice, right?
	If I'm given the choice between malice and stupidity, I always go with stupidity, but At a certain point, the stupidity becomes malicious.
	Once you're bending the rules in order to confirm your priors about an evidence-less charge that the Trump campaign was colluding with Russia, and you're bending the rules, that does undermine faith in law enforcement.
	And the fact that the Democrats are suggesting that Bill Barr is the problem here is truly an astonishing, astonishing development.
	Okay, time for some things that I hate.
	All right, so let's talk about local policy because it is truly insane what local policy has wrought.
	As I mentioned, I have two good friends who, in the course of the last 48 hours, have been the victims of crime in Los Angeles.
	Nobody will be caught, nobody will be prosecuted.
	The police have basically told them that, you know, we don't even have bail anymore here.
	So, if we jail these people, they'll be out on the streets within 24 hours.
	How much do criminals know this?
	Here's how much criminals know this.
	The L.A.
	County Sheriff released video yesterday of inmates infecting themselves in jail, trying to infect themselves in jail with COVID-19 so they could achieve release.
	They thought it would force their release.
	21 ended up infected.
	According to the L.A.
	County Sheriff, inmates at a jail in Castaic were sharing a water bottle, then rubbing the same mask on their faces to purposely infect themselves with COVID-19 because they understand that the easy way out of jail is to get COVID-19.
	And so they're looking for release so they can go out and be criminals again because of the stupidity of the policy that suggests, well, you know, they're criminals, so I probably should just let them out of here.
	Just genius stuff from our local government.
	So here are the rules.
	If you go to the beach and you are six feet away from somebody else, but you're not wearing a mask, then presumably they will arrest you or fine you.
	If you are in jail because you committed some sort of serious crime, you just broke into somebody's house, Then you will be released even if you don't have COVID-19 because we can't have bail right now.
	We don't want more people in jail.
	You explain to me how a law-abiding citizen doing something reasonable like being at a beach 10 feet away from somebody else and not wearing a mask, which is perfectly reasonable, how that is more of a problem than actual criminals in Los Angeles being criminals and then basically being let off by the cops.
	At the behest of the political actors, by the way, if you think the cops want to let these criminals off, you're dead wrong.
	The cops do not want to do any of that.
	It's just incredible.
	It truly is.
	Meanwhile, good news.
	The New York Times is pushing some solutions for America's cities.
	They're saying we got a problem with the cities because obviously these places are overcrowded.
	They are hotbeds for infestations.
	Bedbug infestations, for example, was a big issue in New York a couple of years ago.
	They are bedbugs for, they are hotspots for infection and epidemics.
	And so there have been a lot of expectations that people are going to move out of big cities now, which, by the way, would be good for the country.
	It'd be good for the country if these cities would become a little bit less centralized.
	But New York, obviously, the New York Times wants to save New York.
	Their suggestion on how to save New York, it's truly incredible.
	They say the biggest problem is that in New York, there are some areas that are nice and some areas that are not nice.
	They say this pandemic has prompted some affluent Americans to wonder whether cities are broken for them.
	It has suspended the charms of urban life while accentuating the risks, reviving a hoary American tradition of regarding cities with fear and loathing as such pools of disease, an image that all too easily aligns with prejudices about poverty and race and crime.
	So if you're worried that New York has a lot of disease, it's because you're a racist now.
	It's not because New York City actually has tons of disease and is the epicenter of this epidemic, like literally on planet Earth.
	No, the real problem here is that you're a racist if you're worried about levels of disease in New York and you're thinking about moving out of town.
	Even New York's governor, Andrew Cuomo, has described New York City's density as responsible for its suffering.
	That's not racism.
	That's the truth.
	Population density has a major impact on epidemic spread, obviously.
	So the New York Times has an idea.
	They say the problem is that the crisis has prompted a flurry of fantasies about abandoning cities altogether, rooted in the idea that we'd all be a little better off at least a little further apart.
	Social distancing is the salvation of society.
	This is dangerously misguided.
	Our cities are broken because affluent Americans have been segregating themselves from the poor, and our best hope for building a fairer, stronger nation is to break down these barriers.
	So, in other words, because there are places of differential spread in New York City, the best thing to do would be to have a uniform spread inside New York City.
	And that way, everybody feels like they are in the same boat.
	How that solves an epidemic spread is beyond me.
	I'm not sure why that would actually solve the problem.
	But they say that the big problem in New York is of course that there is basically de facto self-segregation in New York City by housing price, that if you live on Fifth Avenue, that's not the same thing as living in Crown Heights, which obviously is true.
	What is their suggestion?
	How do they solve the problem of New York City?
	The problem of New York City is not solved by For example, ensuring that every student has the ability to go to a good school.
	The problem of New York City is solved by forcing the building of affordable housing in the richest areas of the city.
	Which is a genius idea that was tried in Detroit and completely wrecked the city of Detroit because everybody who had the money then left.
	Because it turns out that people don't actually want to live next to an affordable housing area where perhaps there are higher levels of crime or drug use, for example.
	This is not to suggest that all the poor people in New York City are engaged in crime or drug use.
	It is to suggest that areas that have high crime and high drug use Also happen to be very poverty stricken.
	And if you take entire tenements and you move them from one area into another area, that will increase the life quality of people who have moved from the poor area into the richer area.
	But it also means that some of the people who are living in the poor area who were some of the criminals, right?
	Some of those criminals will be moving along with you, presumably.
	And it turns out that people don't really want to do that or living in those areas.
	The reason they're living in the higher income areas is because they would like to live in the higher income areas.
	By the way, also affordable housing, how are you going to incentivize that?
	When New York City tried this with rent control, they basically destroyed the capacity to build housing in New York City.
	According to the New York Times, Yet, we can use this crisis as basically the idea.
	Yeah.
	The haves depend on each other, the rich need labor, the poor need capital, and the city needs both.
	Building more diverse neighborhoods, disconnecting public institutions from private wealth, will ultimately enrich the lives of all Americans.
	Good luck with this.
	Good luck with this.
	If you're worried about Americans in New York City buying second homes and leaving the city, definitely what you should probably do is pick up a, you should probably put public housing to, like a, like a, an actual Publicly built housing.
	You should probably put national housing, essentially.
	You should put tenements directly next to those Fifth Avenue walk-ups.
	That's probably the best.
	The rich people definitely won't leave.
	They'll just stick around.
	And they'll continue to pay exorbitant taxes in order to do so.
	Great idea, guys.
	Just wonderful, wonderful idea.
	The New York Times, never failing to astonish.
	Okay, time for a quick thing that I like.
	So, I had the opportunity to read a novel over the weekend.
	It's a novel about free birth of Israel, Israel.
	It's about the lead up to the declaration of the independence of the state of Israel.
	It takes place in the period 1937 to 1939, and it's about the Jewish settlers who are moving from Europe into the land of Israel, about the British mandate that was very pro-Arab and very anti-Jewish.
	It was about the shutdown of immigration from Europe into British Mandate Palestine.
	At the behest of Arab officials.
	And, I mean, it is pretty astonishing.
	For folks who don't know the history, it is a good, interesting history book that is pretty well-rounded.
	Thieves in the Night by Arthur Kessler.
	Worth the read.
	Arthur Kessler, of course, is more famous for his great book, Darkness at Noon, about communism.
	But this is a very, very interesting book with a kind of fascinating perspective on the Arab-Israeli conflict.
	Go check it out.
	Thieves in the Night by Arthur Kessler.
	It's still available, although it's not really in print right now.
	Okay, we'll be back in a little bit.
	Later today with two additional hours of content.
	Otherwise, we will see you here tomorrow.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
	The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Colton Haas.
	Directed by Mike Joyner.
	Executive producer Jeremy Boring.
	Supervising producer Mathis Glover and Robert Sterling.
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	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.
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	The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire production.
	Copyright Daily Wire 2020.
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	But American leftists keep defending the Chinese Communist Party because no less than their whole political program rides on it.
	Then, a New York Times writer wants you to pay for raising her own children.
	A judge issues a major ruling on transgenderism before the case even begins.
	And Slate Magazine comes up with a new term for monogamy.
	All that and more.

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