As the U.S. death toll from the WuFlu hits 100, some experts are wondering whether grinding the global economy to a halt might have been something of an overreaction. We examine the scientific data and the philosophical reasons why the Left never lets a crisis go to waste. Then, President Trump officially secures the Republican nomination for president, and Joe Biden is set to sail to his own party’s nomination if he can only remember who and where he is.
Check out The Cold War: What We Saw, a new podcast written and presented by Bill Whittle at https://www.dailywire.com/coldwar. In Part 1 we peel back the layers of mystery cloaking the Terror state run by the Kremlin, and watch as America takes its first small steps onto the stage of world leadership.
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As the U.S. death toll from the Wu flu hits 100, some experts are wondering whether grinding the global economy to a halt might have been something of an overreaction.
We examine the scientific data and the philosophical reasons why the left never lets a crisis go to waste.
Then, President Trump officially secures the Republican nomination for president.
And Joe Biden is set to sail to his own party's nomination if he can only remember who and where he is.
All that and more.
I'm Michael Knowles and this is the Michael Knowles show.
Welcome back to the crisis.
We're in a crisis crisis, I think.
There are so many crises, I don't know if I can even keep all of them straight in my mind.
Here are some numbers to update you on the Wu flu pandemic.
The U.S. death toll has now reached 100.
Coincidentally, that number is the same number of people who will die today in car accidents.
I'm not advocating some particular policy over another.
I am simply giving you those two numbers to give you some perspective.
You have been watching the mainstream media shriek and wail and gnash their teeth and rip their garments and tell you that this is the end of the world.
It's been about two months since we had the first confirmed case of Wu flu, Kung flu, coronavirus in the United States.
100 people have died.
On average, 102 people will die today from car accidents.
I'll give you another number.
7,452.
That's the number of people who will die today just because.
Just because.
That's how many people die every day in the United States.
7,452.
Now, of course, is it a very bad thing if more people than that die unnecessarily because of a pandemic?
Yes, that's a very bad thing.
But why do I mention 7,452?
I mention that number because if the media talked about 7,452 deaths today, if they focused in on every story, every 24 hours a day you were hearing about this, you would think that something is terribly, terribly wrong.
And yet, that's how life goes.
Just every single day, nothing really we can do to stop it.
Here's another number to give you perspective.
A lot of people keep comparing the United States to Italy.
Because Italy had a bad response to the coronavirus.
They were sort of uniquely situated to have that virus run roughshod through the whole country.
We're told that we're 11 days behind Italy.
Italy had a confirmed case 11 days before us.
And so if you look at where Italy is, that's where we're going to be in 11 days.
Except that isn't true.
So at this point, we have 100 confirmed dead.
At this point in Italy, you know, 11 days ahead, they had 200 confirmed deads.
So they had double the number of deaths from coronavirus.
And our population is five and a half times larger.
I got yelled at on Twitter the other day because I pointed out that Italy and America are different countries.
People were so upset by that because we all have to be alarmists.
We all have to be in the crisis all of the time.
There's no limit to what we should do to stop the crisis.
Alarmists are saying we need to look and listen to the experts.
I'm a little skeptical of experts.
Most people should be skeptical of experts.
Experts tend to know a lot about their one very narrow field, and they don't know a lot about everything else.
There is one expert who is urging caution.
You probably won't hear about him very much in the mainstream media.
His name is John Ioannidis.
He's a Stanford epidemiologist.
His specialty is metascience.
Metascience is like the science of...
Looking at all those bogus scientific studies, right?
The science of science.
And he's a very respected epidemiologist.
So...
He looked at what's going on in the data here, right?
And what they're seeing is projecting the Diamond Princess mortality rate, so that was that cruise ship, onto the age structure of the U.S. population.
The death rate among people infected with COVID-19, coronavirus, would be 0.125%.
He goes on.
But since this estimate is based on extremely thin data, there were just seven deaths among the 700 infected passengers and crew, the real death rate could stretch from five times lower, 0.025%, to five times higher, 0.625%.
Adding these extra sources of uncertainty, reasonable estimates for the case fatality ratio in the general U.S. population vary from 0.05% to 1%.
That could be the death rate, 0.05% to 1%.
That huge range markedly affects how severe the pandemic is and what should be done.
A population-wide case fatality rate of 0.05% is lower than seasonal influenza.
If that is the true rate, locking down the world with potentially tremendous social and financial consequences may be totally irrational.
It's like an elephant being attacked by a house cat.
Frustrated and trying to avoid the cat, the elephant accidentally jumps off a cliff and dies.
So, Ionides, I don't know if I'm pronouncing his name correctly, but what he's saying is absolutely sensible.
And you're not allowed to inject reason and sense into a crisis, because the crisis has to be all emotion all of the time.
But he makes a very good point on the data.
We'll get to that in one second.
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The point that this epidemiologist from Stanford is making is we just don't have reliable data.
And so you see it among the people freaking out on the internet, you know, on the left, right, and center.
They're saying, look, we have this very small sample size, this very limited information, and we're all going to die if we don't shut down the global economy.
I don't think that there's sufficient evidence to draw that conclusion.
And we are making massively destructive decisions based on those limited data.
I'm not saying it's necessarily the wrong decision that we're making, but it is certainly the case that the decisions we're making are destructive.
Think about how many people are out of work right now.
Think about how much wealth has been completely destroyed.
Think about how many businesses are going to go under as a result of this.
Think about what the world is going to look like two or three weeks from now, once the crisis of the Wu flu has passed.
Maybe it was worth it.
Maybe it wasn't worth it.
Maybe we overreacted.
I'll give you an example of a policy that may very well be worse than the thing it's fighting.
Right now, I kid you not, in cities across America, one of the responses to the coronavirus is to let criminals out of prison.
That's true.
LA County announced that it would let 600 criminals out of jail because what you want during a time of crisis, uncertainty, and panic is more criminals on the street, right?
That makes sense.
I'm so glad we elect these guys.
They're so smart.
They totally get it.
Right now in Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Police Department will no longer be making arrests for all narcotics offenses.
A cop can watch you sell crack cocaine on the street.
You will not be arrested.
Theft from persons.
A cop can look at you, watch you rob somebody.
And say, well, my hands are tied.
I can't arrest you anymore because of a Chinese virus.
Let's see how this logic makes sense.
Because of a Chinese virus, if a police officer watches a criminal rob an old lady on the street, he can't arrest the guy.
Okay.
Retail theft.
You go and rob a store.
Can't get arrested for it.
Enjoy.
The stores are yours.
Go on in, robbers.
You will get off scot-free.
Theft from auto.
Bust in and steal a guy's radio.
That's totally fine.
Burglary.
Break into somebody's house.
Vandalism.
Bench warrants.
Stolen autos.
Cool, man.
It's going to be grand theft auto all over our streets, except in real life now.
Economic crimes, such as passing bad checks.
We're going to need bad checks because nobody's going to have any money pretty soon.
Fraud and prostitution.
That is all now effectively legal in Philadelphia as a response to a very bad flu.
Does that make sense to you?
Does that make any sense at all?
The argument, the reason they're doing this, they say, is because they don't want to overcrowd the jails.
Because I guess then there's a chance the prisoners get the woo flu.
Even though...
The infection rate, certainly the mortality rate for people who are under 60 and 70, very, very low.
They don't do that when there's a particularly bad seasonal flu, do they?
Did they do that during swine flu, which killed 15,000 Americans or more?
I don't think so.
Did they do it during the Ebola crisis?
They said, okay, we're not going to arrest people now for crimes.
I don't think so.
Alarmists always tell us that an overreaction is better than an underreaction.
They say this is true in all cases, all the time.
We have to overreact.
Is that true?
Let's say, for instance, just using the crimes that are now effectively legal in Philadelphia as an example.
Let's say, as a result of this, All these policies.
One person, one extra person survives the virus.
But then another person overdoses on heroin because you're no longer making arrests for narcotics offenses.
Person overdoses on crack, gets hooked on some horrible drug, ruins their life, or flat out dies.
Then was the policy worth it?
Even if you're making this kind of cold utilitarian calculation of just the sheer number of people who are going to live or who are going to die, you haven't saved a life in that hypothetical, right?
Let's use another example.
Let's say that as a result of this policy, one person survives the virus, goes on to live another three or four years, mostly healthy, but a girl falls into prostitution because you're no longer making arrests for prostitution.
So it's easier for pimps to prey on them and the number goes up.
Ruins her life.
Was that worth it?
I'm not saying it is or it isn't.
I'm not even at this moment advocating one policy or another.
Though I certainly have thoughts on some policies like this dumb jailbreak decision in Philadelphia and Los Angeles and other places too.
I'm simply asking, are we sure that an overreaction is always a good idea?
You let all the criminals out of prison, what could go wrong there?
Maybe it would have been better not to do that.
Maybe it would have been better not to close down every single business.
Maybe, I don't know, I'm raising uncomfortable questions.
It seems very clear though to me that an overreaction is not always better than Orange County right now, I saw a new regulation going around the internet.
I believe it's legitimate.
I heard it from a pretty legitimate source, that you can be punished with fines or jail time.
If you are caught walking outside in certain places in Orange County, California, with people who are not in your household.
So I'm in my apartment, you know, got sweet little Elisa there.
We want to go on a walk.
That's okay.
If I want to meet a friend who doesn't live with me for a walk, I could go to jail.
Does that make a lot of sense?
Doesn't make sense to me.
Is that legal?
I'm skeptical.
Crisis always serves the left.
This is something that even well-meaning conservatives have forgotten during this coronavirus thing.
Conservatives need to keep a cool head here because otherwise the left will transform our society, transform our politics before we even know what happened.
The left thrives on panic and crisis.
That is why they are always trying to gin them up.
A great example, the last crisis, before this crisis, is the environmental crisis.
That's what they called it.
Initially it was global cooling, then it was global warming, then it was climate change.
Now it has become climate crisis, which is really the sweet spot for the left.
And the climate crisis says, kind of sounds a little bit similar to what we're hearing now, that the whole world is going to end in 12 years, or 10 years, or 8 years, or 6 months, if we don't Take dramatic action that radically transforms our society that just coincidentally and conveniently gives the left everything they've wanted for a hundred years.
If we don't pass the Green New Deal and pay out reparations for slavery, then the sun monster is going to kill us.
It's a crisis.
The environment's going to fall apart.
What do reparations for slavery have to do with the environment?
No idea.
No time to ask questions.
How dare you ask a question?
We're in a crisis.
Just pass it.
We gotta pass the bill so we can find out what's in the bill.
That's what they told us during Obamacare, too.
Crisis.
Crisis does not serve conservative ends, ever.
We'll get to why in a second.
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How about the water crisis?
Remember that one?
There's a water crisis, and so we need massive government intrusion into our lives.
You don't hear about that one as much anymore.
That was more popular maybe five or ten years ago.
Hopefully the crisis got better.
What about the overpopulation crisis?
Remember that one?
That's a real deep cut.
That one comes back from the 70s.
They were still talking about it, though, in the 80s or the 90s.
That there are too many people, so that's why you've got to go along with the left's agenda on sex, abortion, everything.
You have to, on government interference and those things, you have to do it because we've got an overpopulation crisis.
You remember in the 70s they talked about the population bomb, that if we didn't have all these radical leftist policies, really inhuman policies...
Especially in terms of abortion.
If we didn't have that, then within 10 or 20 years, there'd be mass starvation all over the world.
What happened?
The world population doubled and were richer and fatter than ever before.
Looks like we survived that crisis.
I'm real glad we didn't listen to all the alarmists during that crisis.
There's one now on college campuses, you hear this all the time, the campus rape crisis.
We are told that one in four or one in five women On college campuses are raped.
They will be raped.
That number, that's a shocking, terrifying statistic, right?
Then you've got to think about it for a second.
If that statistic is true, then Harvard Yard is a more dangerous place for young women than downtown Aleppo.
You can saunter around the outskirts of Baghdad late at night.
You'd be much safer than if you walk through old campus at Yale.
Does anybody really believe that?
No, of course not.
But it's a crisis.
Don't ask these questions.
We need to deprive people of their due process rights.
That's one response to the crisis on campus.
They have, instead of putting rape, which is a very serious crime, through the criminal justice system, which is set up to deal with serious crimes, they have campus tribunals with professors acting as judges and jury and executioner, at least figuratively.
I don't know, maybe I'm not going to do that.
maybe literally too.
They set that up.
And if you took two moments to think about the crisis, the statistic, you'd say, wait a second, you're telling me we need to get rid of our due process rights in America, the rights of the accused, run roughshod over those people's rights, Because you're saying that Harvard Yard is more dangerous than Karachi?
Is that true?
They have to push you past the point of reason in order to get you to buy into their radical conclusions.
Crisis always serves the left because crisis means that everything is broken.
It's not just like a little inconvenience.
It's not just a little problem.
A little problem is actually a good place for conservatives.
Because conservatives are in the business of conserving.
We like to fix things.
Fix things up a little bit, but not totally destroy them or totally change them.
We want to preserve.
We want to conserve the tradition.
Now, obviously, over time, things wear down.
They need repair.
They can be improved.
But that's where a conservative thrives.
If you're in a crisis...
Everything is broken.
You've got to start from scratch.
You've got to fundamentally transform America, to quote Barack Obama.
This is very advantageous to the left.
This is intrinsically not conservative.
It means there's nothing really worth preserving.
Things have gone so horribly wrong.
So what's going on in this crisis?
What are people saying?
When you get past the tweets, when you get past the mainstream media, what are people really saying about this?
this?
Well, people are saying that President Trump is doing a good job.
You don't need to just listen to the Republicans.
You don't need to just listen to the conservatives.
Even some of the most left-wing Democratic governors in America who are working with Trump on this crisis, on this pandemic, it's probably the more precise word to use, are saying that he's doing a very good job.
It's pretty shocking if all you watch is CNN, but if you're looking at people who have actually interacted with this administration, you realize there's actually been some responsibility, accountability, efficiency.
Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York came out and he said, you know, the Trump administration doing a great job.
This government cannot meet this crisis without the resources and capacity of the federal government.
I spoke to the President this morning again.
He is ready, willing, and able to help.
I've been speaking with members of his staff late last night, early this morning.
We need their help, especially on the hospital capacity issue.
I think the President was 100% sincere in saying that he wanted to work together.
I know a team when they're on it, and I know a team when they're not on it.
His team is on it.
They've been responsive late at night, early in the morning, and they've thus far been doing everything that they can do, and I want to say thank you.
And I want to say that I appreciate it.
Thank you.
I appreciate it.
Man, that's a different tune than we've been hearing from some Democratic officials for the last three years who say that Trump is Hitler and he's terrible and he's a Russian stooge and we've got to throw him out of office and he's a racist and a bigot.
Well, the people who are working with him, even high-ranking Democratic governors of very left-wing states, are saying he's actually doing an excellent job here.
It's not just Andy Cuomo.
Because you might say, well, Andy Cuomo has probably known Trump for a while.
They're both New Yorkers, known each other a long time.
No, it's not just Andy Cuomo.
Gavin Newsom, Democratic governor of California, said almost exactly the same thing.
We had a private conversation, but he said we're going to do the right thing, and you have my support, all of our support, logistically and otherwise.
So before he made those statements publicly, I had a private conversation with him around 4.30 West Coast time, and he said everything.
That I could have hoped for.
And we had a very long conversation.
And every single thing he said, they followed through on.
So, I'm just not interested in finding daylight on those statements, because every single thing his administration, and it starts at the top, including the vice president, has been consistent with the expectation that we repatriate these passengers and has been consistent with the expectation that we repatriate these passengers and we do it in a way that does justice to the spirit that defines the best of our country and the state Sounds pretty good.
They've been very supportive.
They've followed up on all of their promises.
Looks like the Trump administration is doing a good job.
I think now, we talked about yesterday, how the left is trying to just use this crisis in a very Just basically political partisan hack way to attack Donald Trump all the time.
When you hear that, I don't think you need to send them, those people, the updates from the coronavirus task force.
I don't think you need to send them even the statistics.
Send them those clips.
Send them to maybe the two most prominent Democratic governors in America saying that the Trump administration is doing a good job, which I think up until this point, certainly they have been doing an excellent job.
Now, There are some proposals on the table that are maybe not as excellent as what we've seen heretofore from the Trump administration.
We'll get to those in a second.
We'll get to some of the polling on what Americans think about it, and we will get to the 2020 race.
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All right.
There's a lot that the Trump administration could do.
It's on the table right now.
There's even a chance that we might all be on the Yang Gang now.
There's a proposal for a sort of proto-universal basic income, free money from the government.
What could go wrong?
We'll get to all of that.
First, I have got to say goodbye to Facebook and YouTube.
Head on over right now to dailywire.com slash subscribe.
Very important.
We actually just launched a new show.
It's called All Access Live over at dailywire.com.
It's Ben, Daily Wire God King, Jeremy Boring.
They kicked it off Monday evening.
Jeremy and I did one last night, so you can go check that out.
We're going to be doing episodes for the rest of this week at 8 p.m.
Eastern, 5 p.m.
Pacific.
I really like it.
It's pretty much just hanging out.
The thing I like most about it, it's a perfect example of the market working for us.
You know, at any other time in history, history, we probably would not have had the technology that we do now that would be able to just go straight back into your homes as you are sitting on your couches and just speak to you during this time of crisis when we're all quarantined.
That's all access live.
Go check it out.
It's initially for our All Access members, but that's what we want to do ultimately.
But right now, it's for all you guys.
So head on over to dailywire.com.
We'll be right back with a lot more.
All right.
So what do Americans think about this response?
Last month, 77% of Americans expressed confidence in the government's handling of the virus.
That was before all the quarantines, before all the restaurants and bars were closed, before everybody was thrown out of work because of overzealous mayors and governors and those sorts of people.
77% expressed confidence in the government's handling of the virus.
That number has dropped substantially.
The current level is 61% of Americans who say that they are very or somewhat confident in the government's response.
24% say they're very confident.
37% say that they're somewhat confident.
The drop is entirely Democrats.
And it's, by the way, we should look at the wording of this question.
How confident are you in the government's response?
That includes the federal government, Trump, but also the state and local government.
For me, in Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti is the mayor, Gavin Newsom is the governor.
So, if I were asked that question, I would say, well, I'm not confident in the local government's response.
I am confident in the federal government's response, but that's not really included in the question.
The drop is entirely Democrats.
Less than half of Democrats express confidence in the government's ability to handle an outbreak.
Republicans remain as confident.
So what the polling reflects is that what we're seeing right now is a leftist freakout.
Not only in terms of policy, but even in the reaction to the policy.
Conservatives feel basically the same way that we felt a month ago.
Most people think the Trump administration is doing a good job here.
Democratic governors of the two most prominent left-wing states think that the Trump administration is doing a good job here.
All things seem to be under control.
So why the freakout?
The answer here is the media.
You remember Mara Gay.
Mara Gay is the New York Times editorial board member who was on MSNBC the other day with Brian Williams and she confused her arithmetic by six orders of magnitude when talking about Mike Bloomberg.
You remember that?
Somebody tweeted recently that actually with the money he spent, he could have given every American a million dollars.
I've got it.
Let's put it up on the screen.
When I read it tonight on social media, it kind of all became clear.
Bloomberg spent $500 million on ads, U.S. population $327 million.
Don't tell us if you're ahead of us on the math.
He could have given each American $1 million and have had lunch money left over.
It's an incredible way of putting it.
It's an incredible way of putting it.
It's true.
It's disturbing.
Oh, it's true.
It's disturbing.
It's amazing.
Wait a second.
It's just not right.
It's wrong by six orders of magnitude.
Okay.
That Mara Gay, who then didn't apologize for saying that, she actually then wrote a column about how if you criticize her for...
Getting her math extraordinarily wrong.
Then you're a racist.
That's a member of the New York Times editorial board.
Didn't take any responsibility.
Anyway, she's back and she is exemplifying the media dishonesty in this crisis against President Trump.
So Mara Gay tweets this about President Trump.
Quote, Trump told governors this morning they are on their own.
Respirators, ventilators, all of the equipment.
Try getting it yourselves, Mr.
Trump told the governors during the conference call, a recording of which was shared with the New York Times.
That sounds pretty bad, doesn't it?
He's saying you're on your own.
Wow, what an irresponsible, feckless federal government.
They can't even get the equipment.
They're saying you're on your own.
We can't do anything, right?
Except that's not what happened.
The very next line, which Maraghe left out, quote, We will be backing you, but try getting it yourselves.
Point of sales, much better, much more direct if you can get it yourself.
That completely changes what the first sentence means.
And Maragay knows this.
The New York Times know this.
So they take out the part that shows what the government response actually is, and they take the first line, twist its meaning completely, and make it seem like Trump is pushing all of the responsibility onto the states.
When Trump is telling them, respirators, ventilators, try getting it for yourselves, If you say, try getting it for yourselves because we're not going to get it for you, that means something very different than try getting it for yourselves.
We'll back you, but it'll be more direct and simple and quick if you get it yourselves.
Those are completely different meanings.
Maraghe, it would seem intentionally, twisted that.
I don't know how it couldn't have been intentional.
The New York Times had the recording.
Presumably, Maraghe read the article, so she just tweeted something out.
That was false.
That was a lie.
It was a lie.
Trump did say those words, but the words meant something completely different when you leave out the crucial part of the statement.
That's what we're hearing from the media.
That's why I'm saying, if you're looking at the media right now and you're panicking and you're freaking out, just don't.
It's dumb.
Don't.
Tune it out.
You're going to listen to Mara Gay?
She's going to tell you the truth?
I don't think so.
If you want to whip yourself up into hysterics, then go watch the lying mainstream media.
But if you don't, if you want a more realistic view of what's going on, then you've got to look elsewhere.
So what's the Trump administration's new response?
Now things are getting a little bit dicey.
Steve Mnuchin, Treasury Secretary, gave a press conference yesterday in which he talked about a new...
Policy for relief that the federal government is considering.
This came to them from Mitt Romney.
So, just to give you a little preview of how great this is going to be.
Wonderful, conservative, reasonable.
Came from Mitt Romney.
The policy is to send direct checks to everybody.
Free money.
Here is Steve Mnuchin announcing the policy.
When you say a stimulus package for American workers, do you mean direct payments to Americans, or are you talking about a payroll tax holiday?
Although the President likes the idea of the payroll tax holiday, I will tell you what we've heard from many people, and the President has said we can consider this.
The payroll tax holiday would get people money over the next six to eight months.
We're looking at sending checks to Americans immediately.
And what we've heard from hardworking Americans, many companies have now shut down, whether it's bars or restaurants.
Americans need cash now, and the president wants to get cash now.
And I mean now, in the next two weeks.
How much?
I will be previewing that with the Republicans.
There's some numbers out there.
They may be a little bit bigger than what's in the press.
Go ahead.
Maybe even bigger than what's in the press.
What's in the press is $1,000.
So it might be bigger, what, $1,500, $2,000, $2,500, who knows?
One man in particular in this country is particularly excited by all this.
What did you say about Mitt Romney?
That he's joined the Yang Gang.
We're getting a lot of new members.
Certainly under the worst circumstances anyone can imagine.
He's joined the Yang Gang.
We're all on the Yang Gang now, man.
One of the most radical Democratic candidates for president.
Looks like his proposal is being endorsed by Mitt Romney.
That's no surprise.
Mitt Romney is one of the most radical Democratic candidates for president.
Oh, wait, hold on.
He was a Republican.
Sort of.
Maybe.
But it is disappointing to see the Trump administration talk about this.
I guess we're all on the Yang Gang, but it's a bad idea.
Why is it a bad idea?
Well, let's give the policy its due.
If the policy were simply...
The government giving people short-term direct relief one time without any other consequences, whatever, that's fine.
Is it going to work?
I'm not convinced it would work.
I don't have any major problem with that.
It would probably be better if it were on the state and local level rather than at the federal level because people are just more responsive there.
It'd be better if we could figure out exactly who the money should go to because, look, we've all taken a hit during this coronavirus, but some people don't need the money.
Some people really do need the money.
Some people can afford to miss two weeks of work.
Some people can't afford to miss two days of work.
So you want the money to be targeted to the people who need it because there is real relief that has to come from this...
Awful virus that came out of China.
We should send China the invoice, no question about that.
But if it were just in a vacuum, I could almost understand it.
If the only stimulus they were considering was giving people this direct money, I could maybe understand that.
That's not the only stimulus they're considering.
They're considering a whole lot more as well.
You've got every major lobbying group now going, descending on Capitol Hill to try to get some of that money.
It's a bad idea because it will set a precedent.
This is the precedent for the universal basic income.
Yang is thrilled about it.
The supporters of the universal basic income are thrilled about it.
And the universal basic income is awful.
It's a terrible idea.
There's no argument for it.
It's inhuman.
It's a way to ensnare you and get you trapped and dependent on the federal government, not even a more local government, which is at least easier to shake yourself out of.
At least there you can move.
At least there, these are laboratories of democracy, each of our state governments.
But this would be a federal program.
Do we really think you're going to mail somebody $1,000, $2,000, I don't know, $3,000 in this one-time check for relief?
Do we really think it's going to be one time?
What if the coronavirus goes into July?
They're only going to get one check.
$3,000 even is not going to last you through July.
What if it goes away because viruses die in the heat and then the summer is fine and then it comes back again in the fall?
Are we going to get another $1,000, $2,000, $3,000 check?
Are we going to get another trillion dollar bailout program?
We'll need one.
Look, we need one.
The economy is collapsing because of these dumb policies.
Some policies are smart, some policies pretty dumb.
Trouble with a crisis is you can't really sift the smart ones from the dumb ones.
I don't think so.
I don't think so.
If a Republican conservative administration does this, you've got to be much, much more careful about this.
And the states are really happy that the federal government's been supporting them.
Maybe we need to support the states.
And if you want direct relief, and by the way, people need direct relief.
Okay, people, you can't just go in and say, hey, nobody can work for two months.
All right, you're on your own.
Right?
You can't do that.
That's wrong too.
You need some way to make them whole.
But A massive, bloated, inevitably corrupt program from the federal government that's going to set the stage for a massive new welfare program.
Probably not the way to do it.
Alright, the Chinese government is not making this any easier on us in this crisis.
I can't tell if they're parroting American leftist propaganda or if the American leftists are parroting Chinese propaganda.
It's a real chicken or egg situation.
But China is jumping on the identity politics bandwagon.
They are now saying that it is racist to refer to this virus as a Chinese virus, to call it the Wuhan virus or the Wu flu or the Kung flu or the Jap flu or the sweet and sour sicken or lung pao sicken.
Or there are a lot of, obviously there are a lot of nicknames for this, but China doesn't have a problem with any of those names in particular.
China has a problem generally with pointing out that the virus came from China.
The news service China, Xinhua News, which is a mouthpiece for the Chinese Communist Party, they tweeted out, quote, racism is not the right tool to cover your own incompetence.
Racism.
If you call it the Chinese virus, the Wuhan virus, if you point out where it came from, you're a racist.
China is obviously stoking divisions that are already in the United States.
Worth remembering for our useful idiot friends who parrot propaganda from communist governments.
These totalitarian regimes have been doing this for a long time.
So during the, especially during the 1960s, the Soviet Union was fanning the flames of racial division because the America experts in the Soviet Union know a whole lot about our political divisions.
Same thing in China.
The Chinese Communist government knows a lot about our political divisions.
They are fanning the flame and useful idiots in the United States are parroting that propaganda.
Don't parrot that.
If you call the Wu flu or the Wuhan virus or any of those terms, if you call that racist, you are parroting the propaganda of one of the most evil regimes on the face of the earth.
Dr.
Fauci gives us another update.
Fauci is the He's the kind of public face of public health here in the coronavirus epidemic.
He was asked, is this President Trump's fault?
Is the lack of testing President Trump's fault?
He says, absolutely not.
He says it's nobody's fault, but certainly not the President's fault.
So when you hear left-wingers blaming Trump, saying that the testing, there aren't any tests, you point them to Dr.
Fauci.
All right, Dr.
Fauci has a lot of credibility, has been around in public health for decades and decades.
And he said, yes, it's too bad that we don't have a lot of testing, but it's not the president's fault.
It's part of the system.
Before we go, I've got to get to a little bit of 2020 news.
Last night, President Trump officially clinched the Republican nomination for president.
Poor Bill Weld, his primary challenger.
He's done.
He's finished.
Obviously, Trump was going to get it, though.
There is something worth noting here.
Turnout has been very, very high.
The Trump campaign actually posted a video about how high the turnout has been.
President Trump cruises to victory with a record-breaking Republican turnout.
Trump got more total votes than Obama got as an incumbent.
Republican turnout operation in Texas is extraordinary.
Complete domination.
Receiving more primary votes than any sitting president.
We're winning.
We're winning all over.
We have record turnout for an incumbent president.
The Republican Party has never been unified like it is now.
Turnout was also huge for Donald Trump.
President Trump celebrating a record-breaking victory.
It's not even a party or something.
More than President Obama had by a wide margin.
Let's realize how good Donald Trump's political operation is.
To all Americans tonight, I'm with you, the American people.
I am with you, I will fight for you, and I will win for you.
And we are going to keep America great.
Keep America great.
There it is.
I mean, this is a big number.
We've been talking about it since New Hampshire.
The Democrats are expecting record high turnout in 2020.
And yet, the turnout's been lower than it was in 2016, very often in states all around the country.
Whereas President Trump, who is guaranteed to get the nomination...
turnout has been double that of Barack Obama when he was looking at reelection, of George W. Bush when he was looking at reelection.
It's been double that.
So what does that tell us?
It tells us there is still a lot of enthusiasm for Trump.
And if the numbers hold on the government's response to coronavirus, then it looks like those, those turnout numbers will hold in November, unless the economy completely tanks.
And that's a real open question right now.
On the other side of the aisle, Joe Biden just clinched the Democratic nomination for president.
He clobbered, I mean, he didn't clinch it, but he clinched it.
He's still got to go and get all of the delegates, but he clinched it.
He won Florida, Arizona, and Illinois.
He now has 1,147 delegates to Bernie's 861.
Bernie does not have a path to victory right now.
The only reason Bernie is staying in this race is in case Joe collapses.
I don't mean that electorally.
I mean that physically.
Joe Biden does not seem to be particularly vigorous.
He was giving a campaign speech the other night, and at the end of it, he just stood there like he didn't know where to go.
He didn't know what should happen next.
And his wife actually had to come out and try to drag him off the stage.
Thank you all.
Thank you all for listening.
Oh.
Thanks.
Okay.
So what is that?
I mean, we don't know what it is.
Maybe they were filming a commercial.
Maybe he was giving a small speech.
It's been floating around the internet outside of context.
But whatever he's doing there, I hope he's not in front of a large crowd because it's totally quiet.
But even if he's just standing there in front of a camera giving a message, he looks like a zombie.
He looks like he's going to go, thank you.
Thank you all for listening.
Thank you.
And then he's sort of standing there, oddly, and his wife kind of walks out looking nervous, and she's like, ah, okay, Joe, and then she gives him a hug, and he looks, oh, hey, you're there, huh, okay.
Okay, all right, well, bye.
That's not a candidate who looks like he's about to run away with the presidency.
And so Bernie's staying in the race to try to take it from him.
It's going to be a much more exciting election now than we thought it would be when the economy was going gangbusters.
I thought Trump would win 57 states.
Now another crisis, or maybe the reaction to the crisis, is throwing that re-election victory into great question.
I guess we'll have to wait and see how the rest of it shakes out and hope that President Trump doesn't overreact to the overreaction, which would put us in even more peril.
All right, that's our show.
Come back tomorrow.
In the meantime, I'm Michael Knowles.
This is The Michael Knowles Show.
show.
See you then.
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