The United States has slowed the spread of coronavirus, but there’s one scourge whose vitality is only increasing: fake news. We will examine the most egregious examples of how the left-wing media lies to add panic to the pandemic. Then, in an effort to combat Covid, a Democratic mayor politely asks criminals to chill, and a New York jail releases a bunch of child molesters. Meanwhile, prosperity preachers command the virus to go away, and President Trump rains fire and brimstone down on Jim Acosta during his latest ratings-busting press briefing.
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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The United States has slowed the spread of coronavirus, but there's one scourge whose virality is only increasing.
Fake news.
We will examine the most egregious examples of how the left-wing media lies to add panic to the pandemic.
Then, in an effort to combat COVID, a Democratic mayor politely asks criminals to chill, and a New York jail releases a bunch of child molesters.
Meanwhile, prosperity preachers command the virus to go away, and President Trump rains fire and brimstone down on Jim Acosta during his latest ratings-busting press briefing.
All that and so much more.
more.
I'm Michael Knowles, and this is The Michael Knowles Show.
We caught them in the act.
We caught those fake news media spreading more fake news about the coronavirus.
We will air one example in particular that would be shocking and unprecedented if we didn't just see it like six months ago.
We'll get to that in one second.
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That is ring.com slash Knowles, K-N-W-L-E-S. This is the worst fake news that I have seen on network television in, I guess, about six months.
But, you know, listen, that's a lot because there's a whole lot of fake news going through.
CBS News is trying to whip people up into a frenzy and hysteria about coronavirus generally and specifically the situation in New York.
So they decided to air footage showing the madness of a hospital in New York.
Now, coronavirus, serious problem in New York.
It's much more serious there than, I guess, anywhere else in the United States.
So why do the TV networks, why do the mainstream news media feel the need to lie to make it seem even worse than it is?
CBS News aired footage of an overcrowded hospital room in New York City that actually wasn't in New York City.
It actually wasn't in the United States.
It actually wasn't in the Western Hemisphere.
It was in Italy.
It was an editing mistake, they say.
They took immediate steps to remove it from all platforms and shows.
Here is the footage side by side.
You will hear the report from British News talking about this hospital room in Italy.
And if you can see it, you'll be able to see that it is almost shot for shot the same room that they're pretending is in New York.
This is the main hospital in Bergamo in Lombardy province.
It's one of the most advanced hospitals in Europe.
There it is.
You can see it's the exact same room and they're pretending that this is in New York.
This is not the first time we've seen this.
Do you remember, I think it was about six months ago, when ABC News made a similar mistake by airing footage that they said was the situation in Syria with Turkish gunfire raining down on the poor Kurds, and this was all Trump's fault, and he betrayed our allies, and it just looked like a scene out of an apocalyptic movie.
And then it turned out, actually, it wasn't in Syria.
Actually, it wasn't in the Middle East.
This year, it was from a Kentucky gun show in 2017.
You're right here appearing to show Turkey's military bombing Kurd civilians in a Syrian border town.
This video, obtained by ABC News, appears to show the fury of the Turkish attack on the border town of Tal Abyad two nights ago.
And it appears to show the attack on the border town because We've decided to overlay this voiceover.
Actually, though, it's from a Kentucky gun show.
And if we told you it was a Kentucky gun show, you would have believed that, too.
You'll believe whatever we tell you.
We're the news media!
Outrageous stuff.
Obviously, this is why people no longer really believe the mainstream media, but they continue to do it.
Why do they continue to do it?
Because nobody sees the correction.
Nobody saw.
Nobody, unless you are watching this show, listening to this show, reading some conservative news outlets, you would not know.
That CBS News actually was airing footage of crowded hospital rooms in Italy, which is much worse off than the United States.
You would not know that.
Unless you are watching or listening to conservative media, you would have no idea that that footage that was supposed to be from battlefields, you know, Turkey rolling the tanks in, was actually from a Kentucky gun show.
Because what happened?
In the case of the Kentucky gun show...
ABC News admits on Twitter that, you know, this was wrong.
They issue a correction.
But the original news story gets orders of magnitude more retweets and likes than the correction.
The original news story gets seen on the biggest TV shows on ABC. The correction gets seen as post number 25 of the day on Twitter.
Nobody sees the correction.
This is how they get away with it.
So the newspapers have gotten away with it for years.
You know, they run the fake story on page A1, and then they run the correction in tiny print on page Z75. So that's the mainstream media.
This is also true on social media.
We don't want to let Twitter get off the hook here either.
Laura Ingram, a little while ago, sent out a tweet when it looked like we had this promising new drug to treat coronavirus, hydroxychloroquine.
Laura Ingram tweets out, Lenox Hill in New York, among many hospitals, already using hydroxychloroquine with very promising results.
One patient was described as Lazarus, who was seriously ill from COVID-19, already released.
What did Twitter do?
Twitter suspended her account for that.
You're not allowed to say that there's light at the end of the tunnel.
You're not allowed to say that there might be some hope among this pandemic.
Damn it, the media is trying to whip up a panic.
And Laura Ingraham is getting in their way by suggesting that we might have a decent medical treatment for it.
So they suspend her account.
They tell her that she's got to delete the tweet if she wants to get her account back.
They said it was, quote, misleading information around COVID-19.
And then guess what happened yesterday?
The FDA approved the drug to treat coronavirus.
Guess it wasn't fake news after all.
Doesn't matter.
The tweet's gone.
The story's out there.
Fake news.
Laura Ingram's gotta delete her tweet.
Now, you know, the federal government has forced Twitter's hand because the FDA has approved this drug.
But why on earth would Twitter not take the more cautious position?
Why would Twitter not say, well, look, Some evidence shows that hydroxychloroquine is working to treat coronavirus, but we don't have long clinical trials yet, so okay, we'll just let the information stand out there.
Your mileage may vary.
Judge for yourself.
No, because they are pushing a narrative here.
The narrative is panic.
The narrative is the world is ending.
The narrative is ultimately what they want.
Their specific political goal is Donald Trump is doing a terrible job.
He's bungling this.
He's killing people.
That's the ultimate narrative here.
And so Twitter is always going to err on that side.
ABC News, always going to err on that side.
We don't know where this footage is.
We just, like, found this in the street.
Someone just said, okay, let's just assume it's evidence that Trump made a terrible move in the Middle East.
Oh, it's a Kentucky gun show?
Whoopsie-daisy, no big deal.
Oh, yeah, we got this footage of a hospital room?
Yeah, that looks like New York.
Yeah, Trump's a bad guy.
Yeah, this is terrible.
Yeah, we're all going to die.
You could have Googled it, right?
You could have looked around.
You could have said, wait, why are they all speaking Italian?
I know there are a lot of Italians in New York, but I don't think there were that many Italians.
We got another bit of fake news yesterday, too.
This has to do with a hospital ship, and this one came by way of my doppelganger, Rachel Maddow, on MSNBC. We've got the footage of it.
President Trump actually just released it.
Just an absolute joy.
We'll get to it in a second.
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All right.
So, my doppelganger over on MSNBC ran a story about this hospital ship that the federal government was sending to New York to take care of people and deal with the overflow from coronavirus.
President Trump just released the clip, but he added a little negative buzzer, a little wrong answer buzzer.
Every time she told fake news, compare that story on MSNBC with the reality of what actually happened.
In terms of the happy talk we've had on this front from the federal government, there is no sign that the Navy hospital ships that the president made such a big deal of, the comfort and the mercy, there's no sign that they'll be anywhere on site helping out anywhere in the country for weeks.
The president said when he announced that those ships would be put into action against the COVID-19 epidemic, he said one of those ships would be operational in New York Harbor by next week.
That's nonsense.
It will not be there next week.
The comfort has arrived in New York and is now making its way up the river I'm on the west side, right around Houston Street, not far from where we work, and it's being led in a parade of tugs and Coast Guard vessels, helicopters circling above.
U.S. Navy hospital ship Mercy is now docked at the Port of L.A. It will serve as an overflow facility for patients who don't have COVID-19.
CBS2's Garfinstrom is live in San Pedro with a look at the arrival and what's to come.
Cara.
Suzanne, this massive ship represents hope, support for overwhelmed medical workers.
And I have to say, as it came in, it was great to see the smiles on faces here on the shore, the excitement.
Take a look.
It just represents hope, and it just really represents that Rachel Maddow is completely wrong about this.
My question for Maddow is...
And not just Matt.
I don't mean to just single out my doppelganger.
My question for all of these people in the fake news media, they end up looking so ridiculous Why not just wait?
Trump says we're going to send this hospital ship.
Why get out ahead of that and say, no, you won't.
No, you won't do that.
I mean, they do this all the time.
Trump says, I'm going to get tax cuts.
No, you won't.
You're not going to get that through.
Trump says, I'm going to be vindicated by the Mueller probe.
No, it's Mueller time.
You're going down.
Again and again, they keep making these predictions, and the predictions are not true, and then they have egg on their face.
That's the question for a reasonable viewer.
But I guess there's an answer to it, which is that their viewers are not checking up on this stuff.
Not just Maddow, but the network news viewers and the New York Times readers and people who consume the mainstream media apparatus.
They don't need to be as precise.
They don't need to be as careful because they are the dominant media force.
So, sure...
We'll point it out.
You know, if you listen to my show, you'll hear where they go wrong.
But compared to the audience of all of network television, forget even cable, forget even all these subscriptions, just regular network television, that's the dominant audience.
And so they can get away with it.
The news is fake.
I never want to hear again that fake news is a right-wing conspiracy or a talking point.
The news is fake.
Even when they get stories right, they themselves are peddlers of fake narratives.
So even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
We've known that for a long time.
What's worse now is that it would appear that That even their models are fake too.
Let me give you a great example.
There was a good piece just published in Medium.
I'm sure they're going to delete this soon because it questions the official narrative on everybody panicking.
This is by Maria Cecchina and Wesley Pegden.
I believe they're two mathematicians.
So they were looking at just the models.
But they're not looking at the specific biology or the, you know, chemical characteristics of the virus.
They're just looking at the models that all of us are talking about and the models that led us to shut down the global economy.
And the title is A Call to Honesty in Pandemic Modeling.
They use a number of examples, but here's just one.
So Nicholas Kristof, a writer for the New York Times, decides to publish a model by a group of researchers.
And the point of this model shows that if you social distance for 14 days, remember that was the initial 14, 15 days to stop the spread, then you're going to get this huge number of total infections.
You're going to get 128 million total infections between January and October.
And that's really high and you've got to flatten the curve and this could overwhelm hospitals.
So what you need to do instead is social distance for two months.
That's what people are calling for now.
You know, Trump was initially saying we want to be open by Easter.
Then all of a sudden it was we want to be open by April 30th.
Now who knows?
Is it going to be May?
Is it going to be June?
We just don't know.
The left is pushing for this to go longer and longer because every day it goes on it reduces Trump's chances of being re-elected.
So Nicholas Kristof publishes this other model, which shows this much lower number of infections.
14 million total infections between January and October.
It looks almost entirely flat, except the authors of this piece notice one strange thing.
At the very end of the graph, the number ticks up.
And you can't tell quite how much it ticks up.
It sort of looks like it's ticking up exponentially.
But you can't quite tell because the graph cuts off in October.
What they don't show you, and what the authors of this piece, which I encourage you to read, A Call to Honesty in Pandemic Modeling, what they show you is if you extend the very same model out just another two months, then you get the exact same curve as you got the first time.
All you've done is delay how long it will be before the people get infected, but the same number of people are going to get infected.
It's not going to change at all.
But that's the kind of dishonesty we're talking about.
Because if you were just looking at these graphs that the New York Times was talking about, then you'd say, oh, wow, that's really big, and that number's really big, and that graph is really big.
And this one is small, so let's go for the small one.
But they don't tell you that when you flatten the curve or delay the curve or whatever, you're still going to get the same number of infections.
Very dishonest stuff.
It's why you have to take these things with some skepticism.
Meanwhile, we're being told by left-wing politicians, we're being told by some more neurotic people on the right, we're being told that if you ever, if you dare question what the experts are saying, that you're basically responsible for people being killed.
You've got blood on your hands.
You're not taking this seriously.
No, we're taking it much more seriously than people on the other extremes.
Right?
We're the ones who are not taking an extreme position here.
We're saying, hold on.
Let's take a look.
Maybe let's extend that graph out a little bit further.
Are you really saying we're going to avoid?
I don't think so.
Very dishonest models.
Now, So, the Democratic mayor, Sylvester Turner, Democratic mayor of Houston, is...
He's got a message for criminals.
There have been a lot of proposals during this whole shutdown to let people out of prisons, to stop arresting people for crimes, to just reduce the jail population.
The argument being that if you reduce the jail population, then it'll be easier or it'll be more difficult for coronavirus to spread within the jails.
Not sure that's totally true.
I mean, jails, you can't totally socially distance in jails, right?
Not everybody is going to be 20 feet apart in their own private apartment.
So regardless, they're suggesting we release all these prisoners.
And so how are we going to deal with it when all these criminals are out on the street during the pandemic?
Sylvester Turner has a solution.
He just wants those criminals to chill.
Let me just make my plea.
Until the coronavirus is resolved, criminals take a break.
Okay?
Stay home.
Okay?
Stay home.
And don't commit any crimes.
And that way, they'll stay safe and out of jail.
And police officers will stay safe and can go home to their families.
Okay?
So everybody chill.
Crooks, criminals, you chill.
Wait till the coronavirus is over.
Okay.
Man, why didn't I think of that?
Oh, it's so obvious now in retrospect.
The way that we can get criminals to stop committing crimes is we can just ask them to chill and, like, be really nice and just say, like, hey, can you not commit crimes, criminals?
That'd be great if you wouldn't.
Thanks.
Thank you.
Chill.
I don't know why we never thought of that one.
I'm picking on this guy because he had this funny press conference.
Mayors all over the country are doing the same thing.
They're saying we've got to reduce prisoners.
We've got to let them out.
I mean, at least this guy has the kind of honesty to come out and say, yeah, our only other plan is to say, hey, criminals, please don't commit crimes.
New York did him one better.
A town in New York did him one much better than that.
That town is letting child molesters out of prison because somehow letting child molesters out of prison During a shutdown and a pandemic is going to help stop the spread of the virus or something.
But generally, sexual assailants are not good at reducing the spread of disease.
That's not their forte.
But that's what this town decided to do.
Part of a statewide effort in New York.
50 prisoners, including child sex offenders, were released in Monroe County due to coronavirus concerns, whatever that means.
Even though it's completely unclear, by the way, if this jail had any confirmed cases of coronavirus.
Here's the headline.
Eight registered sex offenders have been released from Monroe County Jail as part of a statewide order coming from the Department of Corrections and Community Services.
Among the inmates known to be staying at the Holiday Inn Express that the jail just dumped all these guys off at are four registered sex offenders, three of whom are registered as level three sex offenders and are deemed by New York courts as the most likely to re-offend.
They are releasing not just criminals, not just burglars, not just arsonists, not just assailants, not even just rapists, but child rapists, and not only child rapists, the child rapists most likely to re-offend.
Hard to understand.
All three of the level three sex offenders staying at the Holiday Inn Express have been convicted for the rape of minors, every single one of them.
Hard to understand what people are thinking here.
They're not thinking about how to stop the spread of coronavirus.
Obviously, releasing dangerous child rapists has nothing to do with stopping the spread of coronavirus.
And this is really the most egregious example of a disturbing general trend in the whole coronavirus ordeal, which is the lawlessness of the pandemic.
These people are behaving lawlessly.
Politicians are using this pandemic as an excuse to do whatever they want, even if what they want will exacerbate the crisis.
I mean, you saw this, especially in that coronavirus relief package from Washington, which is where, at the very last minute, Nancy Pelosi and Democratic lawmakers shoved in a bunch of Green New Deal proposals and tied coronavirus funding to reducing airline emissions.
The Wuhan flu has nothing to do with airline emissions, yet they're using this to push their own agendas.
They're using it to let people out of prison because the left doesn't like prisons, because the left doesn't like justice.
So the left doesn't want to lock people up.
You've seen a number of even blue check marks all over Twitter who are left-wing people saying we need to empty out the prisons.
They're doing it all in the name of public health so that you don't question them.
Because if you question the public health, Advocates and supporters and experts, well then you're compromising public health.
Now, if the New York and Houston criminal justice strategies are suspect, they are outdone only by the spiritual strategies of some preachers who are simply commanding the virus to go away.
I bring you, ladies and gentlemen, the prosperity preacher, Kenneth Copeland.
In the name of Jesus.
Oh, thank you, Jesus.
Standing in the office of the prophet of God.
I execute judgment on you, COVID-19!
I execute judgment on you, Satan!
You destroyer!
You killer!
You get out!
You break your power!
You get off this nation!
I demand judgment on you!
I demand!
I demand!
I demand a vaccination to come immediately!
Yes!
We got it!
Yes, we did it!
Now, in Mr.
Copeland's defense, I will say that if that performance is not enough to scare coronavirus away, I do not know what is.
It was a fiery performance.
And...
He's not the only one doing this.
There are other preachers who are making this point.
This kind of thing is particularly seductive during times of great trial and crisis, but ultimately it's just total spiritual poison.
So we'll get to why that is in a moment.
Then we'll get, of course, to...
President Trump's latest ratings-busting press briefing.
And this one even featured Jim Acosta.
So, you know.
But first, if you haven't had a chance to see some of our new content called All Access Live, you should head on over to dailywire.com.
Check it out.
We will continue all of this week at 8 p.m.
Eastern, 5 p.m.
Pacific.
It's been a lot of fun.
I don't even consider it a show.
You just kind of turn the camera on.
We hang out.
We know that we're all going crazy these days.
Friends of mine have been suggesting we do Zoom happy hours or Zoom dinner or Skype this or Facebook, FaceTime that rather.
So I like to think that we were kind of the originators of this trend with our all-access show.
The show is intended for our all-access members, but in times of isolation, we want to open it up to all of our members.
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If you're around at 8 p.m.
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Pacific tonight, check it out at dailywire.com.
Head on over there right now anyway, dailywire.com slash subscribe.
We've got a lot more.
So Kenneth Copeland and others are commanding the virus to go away.
They're commanding a vaccine to come around.
And most Christians will find this sort of thing fairly foreign.
You know, this is not how Christianity works.
You don't just command physical well-being and then it Immediately happens.
You're not just...
According to this theology, which is called prosperity theology, you're not just building up treasure in heaven here in your spiritual life.
You're also building up literal, physical treasure in the here and now, which is rather contrary to more traditional understandings of Christianity.
But Copeland is pushing this.
He's one of the Great examples of the prosperity theology, which is entertaining very often, but it is spiritually very misguided.
And he doesn't just declare that there's going to be a vaccine.
Copeland is now also declaring that America finally is officially healed of coronavirus.
You will destroy through COVID-19.
No more!
No more!
Is finished.
It is over.
And the United States of America is healed and well.
Thank you.
Well, that's a relief.
That is sure a load off my mind.
My favorite part of the whole clip is the Ed McMahon guy on the side, whoever the sidekick is.
Just like, yes, amen.
Yeah, okay, sure.
Yeah, you bet.
All right.
Okay, let's do it.
And Copeland obviously is leading the show.
There's no need to wait until April 30th now.
There's no need to wait until June 10th in some places because America's officially healed.
I don't only want to pick on Mr.
Copeland.
Copeland is not the only one claiming a religious shortcut through the epidemic.
There's another preacher, E.W. Jackson, who says that he cannot get coronavirus because he talked to God about it.
Have the coronavirus.
I'm not going to get the coronavirus.
I'm not going to give anybody the coronavirus because I can't get it because I've talked to God about it and I've taken my vaccine and my vaccine is Psalm 91.
I am free from that mess.
All right.
Simple enough.
You just, that's how you know you're not going to get it.
There's no way to get it.
This theology is very corrosive.
You know, I hate picking on people who even vaguely profess a faith in God because we're in such an atheistic culture that I kind of want to bring everybody in.
I kind of want to rally the troops.
But this particular theology, prosperity theology, is really poisonous.
I don't want to say that all the prosperity people have bad intentions.
Some of them might have perfectly fine intentions.
But you know what they say about the road to hell and good intentions is It's just very, very wrong.
You know, we see in Acts, in Romans, in 2 Corinthians, in Colossians, in the letter to the Hebrews, on and on, we see the apostle and the apostles talking about how they rejoice in their sufferings, in how they will have sufferings, how they have had many sufferings, and how they're so joyful because of their sufferings, because those sufferings unite them in a way to Christ on the cross.
St.
Paul says he rejoices in his afflictions to make up that which is lacking in the cross of Christ for the sake of his church.
That is a much more traditional understanding of the role of suffering and prosperity in Christianity.
In Matthew, Christ says,"...if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever will lose his life for my sake will find it." That's totally the opposite of the prosperity theology.
The prosperity theology is, on one hand, anti-scriptural, but the reason I'm picking on it now, while a lot of people are suffering, and there are millions and millions of people out of work, and suicides are increasing, and drug addiction is increasing, and we're in this economic devastation, even if people are not in a particularly viral devastation, is, on a very practical level, this theology is very discouraging during times of trial.
At a very basic level, what the theology says is that your material prosperity is tied to your faith.
So, if you have a lot of faith, then you can expect material prosperity.
And, therefore, if you don't have a lot of material prosperity, what does that say about your faith?
I guess you just didn't believe hard enough.
I guess you just didn't pray good enough.
You just don't have enough faith, and that's why you're suffering.
That is not at all the message of the gospel.
That is not at all the example of Christ or the apostles.
And so in periods like this, when everybody is losing their wealth, when everybody is losing their job, when people are losing their family members, to hear that sort of thing is really spiritually discouraging.
and it really, really can hollow out people's faith.
It can really steal people's faith from them.
So perfectly fine to enjoy the entertainment of these clips going around Twitter, but I certainly would not take them seriously.
Now, the only thing more entertaining than commanding the virus simply to go away and commanding, declaring that all of America is completely healed, the only thing more entertaining than that, of course, are Trump's daily press briefings, which are just phenomenal.
They are the best thing on TV.
That's why the ratings are higher than pretty much anything else on TV.
President Trump came out, he gave another good one yesterday.
There were a few important updates in this, but more of it is the media reaction because they really showed their hand even more clearly than usual.
So President Trump opens up and he's talking about the current strategy of extending this, you know, through the end of April or perhaps even further.
And what President Trump is touting here, looking on the bright side, is that yes, we may have to shut down a little bit longer, but that strategy could save us one million lives.
I announced that we would be extending our social distance guidelines through the end of April.
This is based on modeling that shows the peak Notice the focus there, on one million.
Notice that he brings up, it's one million lives.
I repeat myself, one million lives.
This confirms the strategy that I mentioned yesterday.
Trump is now using the press's own scare numbers against them.
Trump is now using the press's own scare numbers as a defense against their attacks, because they're backing him into this impossible corner.
On Sunday, he mentioned that 2.2 million Americans could die from the virus if they don't act quickly.
Now, the number is one million Americans could be saved.
Why the discrepancy?
The discrepancy there is to give himself some breathing room and to reset expectations here.
2.2 million Americans could have died.
Now we're saying we're going to save, like, what happens to the 1.2 million Americans in the middle?
What the press wants to do is use the scare numbers to shut down the economy, 2.2 million.
But then, once the economy's shut down, every single death, every hospitalization, every sniffle is going to be used as evidence that Trump is some callous monster and nobody should have died at all.
The real number should have been zero.
Now, of course, we know that's not how it works.
We know that 37,000, in many cases, tens of thousands of more people die each year from the flu.
We know that 38,000 people die each year from car accidents.
We know that 70,000 people die each year from drug overdoses, right?
These huge numbers that media doesn't talk about.
Numbers actually which might get worse because of this shutdown.
And yet, we're so uncomfortable with the concept of death.
Especially natural death.
That we don't want to acknowledge it.
So now every single person who dies is evidence that Trump did something wrong.
But of course that's not evidence of that.
People die.
You know the fact that 35,000 people die from the flu is not evidence that the government screwed something up.
Natural death occurs.
Mortality is real.
No one here gets out alive.
Not from this particular world anyway.
And yet, the press is banking on the fact that we won't pay attention to that.
So Trump is resetting expectations here.
I think it's very smart because right now, the more reliable projections, it would seem, suggest that it's not going to be 2 million people who die.
It's not going to be 1 million people who die.
It's going to be closer to, I don't know, 100,000?
Look, that's a horrible number.
Nobody wants 100,000 people to die.
But it's certainly a much better situation than a million or two million people dying.
And when you compare it even to drug overdoses per year, it's not all that much more.
You know, death is a very sad thing.
Trump says later on in this press conference, a lot of very sad things happen in this country and in this world.
Then President Trump calls up his friends from corporate America and introduces them and has them give a couple words.
The media are furious about this.
They don't like it when he brings up his friends from the business community.
But the strategy is brilliant and there's a lot of evidence that it's working.
Joining us this afternoon are CEOs of the great American companies that are fulfilling their patriotic duty by producing or donating medical equipment to help meet our most urgent needs.
What they're doing is incredible.
And these are great companies.
Darius Domchek of Honeywell.
You know that.
And Darius has been somebody that I've dealt with in the past.
And he's a great leader of a great company.
Deborah Waller of Jockey International.
A friend of mine, Mike Lindell of MyPillow.
Boy, do you sell those pillows?
That's unbelievable what you do.
David Taylor of Procter& Gamble.
And Greg Hayes of United Technologies Corporation.
And I just want to tell all of you that America is very grateful Okay, why does he do this?
Why does he go on this interlude?
You know, he even goes on, heaps some more praise on these business guys.
The left-wingers are ragging on Trump for bringing them up there.
They only want to hear from doctors.
Maybe they'll settle for hearing from Trump and some of his appointees, but really the left just wants to hear from the public health dictators.
But it is tactically brilliant to have these business leaders up there because it creates a powerful incentive for them to help out the country during this time of crisis.
Now, I suspect many of them would help out anyway.
But if you know that the president of the United States is going to bring you up there on international television and say, hey, thanks so much, CEO of Honeywell, for all the good that you're doing, that is going to help out the company.
That's going to give Americans more confidence in your company.
That's going to give Americans and people around the world more affection for your company.
And it's not just some kind of cheap PR stunt.
They're actually doing the work.
These companies are actually going out and helping people and producing medical equipment that we need urgently at hospitals.
So it's a smart thing to do.
I think it's the right thing to do.
It shows genuine gratitude and it creates an incentive for more businesses to help out.
Now, if the media weren't mad enough about Trump bringing up generally business leaders to come speak, you can only imagine What they did, what they said, how they reacted when the CEO of MyPillow, Mike Lindell, got up there to speak.
CNN was so furious, they actually cut away from it.
Even though these press briefings are getting better ratings than anything else on television right now, even though the press briefings are giving you actual urgent news, That moves markets and moves the way that we react in terms of public health.
They cut away because they hate the MyPillow guy so much that they couldn't watch it.
Here's Wolf Blitzer.
Okay, well, MyPillow is a U.S. vertically integrated company which has been forced to adjust to the changing business.
All right, we're going to continue to monitor the White House briefing and get the latest information on the president.
They couldn't stand it.
Oliver Darcy on CNN cut, rather referred to CNN cutting away from Mike Lindell.
He tweets out, quote, CNN cuts away from the White House coronavirus briefing when Trump invites the MyPillow guy up to the podium to talk.
They always refer to him as the MyPillow guy.
That's the only way.
They never...
Mike Lindell, not the CEO, not the founder.
Nope, just the MyPillow guy.
Jamie O'Grady, writer for the New York Times.
Are you effing kidding me?
Then all caps.
He has the MyPillow guy on to sell his garbage product during a pandemic briefing.
Three question marks, three exclamation points.
By the way, I've heard MyPillow is like a really nice pillow.
So I don't think it's a garbage product.
I think it's a pretty popular product.
NBC's David Gurra.
Fun fact, if the MyPillow guy, Michael Lindell, appears at a briefing, it is no longer a briefing.
Well, you know, it's too bad they didn't listen to him.
Because if they had listened to him and what he had to say, they'd have learned that Mike Lindell is doing more to help the country out during this pandemic than all of them combined.
Everyone at CNN, all the blue check marks on Twitter, this guy is doing more than all of them.
MyPillow is a U.S. vertically integrated company which has been forced to adjust to the changing business environment as a result of the pandemic.
MyPillow is uniquely positioned as a U.S. company that functions as a manufacturer, logistics management distributor, and direct-to-consumer.
Given our current business lines, we are experiencing the effects of this pandemic firsthand.
But my pillow is done.
We've established an internal task force which is monitoring future needs of companies across the country as a result of this pandemic.
And given our position, we've begun to research and develop new protocols to address the current and future needs of U.S. businesses across multiple sectors.
How companies are going to prepare themselves when they once again open up and And changes to their current operations in order to adjust to future threats and pandemics.
MyPillow has designated some of its call center to help U.S. companies navigate the many issues that resulted from this pandemic.
We've dedicated 75% of my manufacturing to produce cotton face masks.
In three days I was up to 10,000 a day.
By Friday I want to be up to 50,000 a day.
I'm proud to manufacture our products in the United States and I'm even more proud to be able to serve our nation in this great time of need.
50,000 face masks a day.
The guy's turned over 75% of his production to making face masks.
That's pretty good stuff.
First of all, that's useful information.
That's good to know that a company can pivot like that.
It's useful information that his products are made in America now that we're trying to move our supply chain out of other countries.
And it's useful to know that we've got just one guy, just one guy with one company making 50,000 face masks a day.
But the reason that left-wing journalists hate Mike Lindell is not just because they don't like pillows.
I'm sure they like pillows just fine.
It's not even just that Lindell is a conservative and likes Donald Trump, though certainly that's a big part of it.
The ultimate reason is that Mike Lindell is unabashed about his devotion to Christ.
He is totally open and evangelical in his Christianity.
Now I wrote something off the cuff if I can read this.
God gave us grace on November 8, 2016 to change the course we were on.
God had been taken out of our schools and lives.
A nation had turned his back on God.
And I encourage you to use this time at home to get back in the Word.
Read our Bibles and spend time with our families.
Our president gave us so much hope where just a few short months ago, we had the best economy, the lowest unemployment and wages going up.
It was amazing.
With our great president, vice president and this administration and all the great people in this country praying daily, we will get through this and get back to a place that's stronger and safer than ever.
What a great message that is.
Okay, and Lindell is a pretty inspiring guy.
What most people don't know about him is he's a former crack addict.
This guy had huge drug problems.
His life was in complete shambles.
And then he got his life together.
One imagines through the grace of God and is one of the most successful guys in the country and is giving press briefings with the president.
He's helping out his fellow Americans and making a lot of face masks.
That's a wonderful thing.
You know, compare this to the prosperity theology that we were just listening to.
Well, Mike Lindell is not saying, I had so much faith and that's why we got a great stock market and the economy was great and I got all this money.
No, he was saying actually the opposite.
He was like, man, well, in his personal story, his life was in shambles and then he was saved by amazing grace.
And when it comes to the economy, he was like, God gave us grace.
We, you know, he is tying it in with what has happened politically or economically.
But he's not saying it's because, like, we finally had enough faith and so God rewarded us.
No, no, no.
God gave us grace.
He gave us mercy.
And he will have mercy on us still and we've got to do our part and live our faith and the fruit of that faith.
So, really, really nice message.
Obviously, CNN... CNN didn't hear that message.
They have to close their ears and say la la la whenever anybody mentions any sort of political or heaven forfend religious truth.
Then, of course, to close out the conference.
There was the obligatory Trump Smackdown of CNN, this time spurred by no less than CNN's very own Ron Burgundy, Jim Acosta himself.
What do you say to Americans who are upset with you over the way you downplayed this crisis over the last couple of months?
We have it very much under control in this country.
The coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. It's going to disappear.
It's like a miracle.
It will disappear.
March 4th, we have a very small number of people in this country infected.
March 10th, we're prepared.
We're doing a great job with it.
It will go away.
Just stay calm.
It will go away.
What do you say to Americans who believe that you got this wrong?
And I do want them to stay calm.
And we are doing a great job.
If you look at those individual statements, they're all true.
Stay calm.
It will go away.
You know it is going away.
And it will go away.
And we're going to have a great victory.
And it's people like you and CNN that say things like that.
That it's why people just don't want to listen to CNN anymore.
You could ask a normal question.
The statements I made are, I want to keep the country calm.
I don't want panic in the country.
I could cause panic much better than even you.
I could do much.
I would make you look like a minor league player.
But you know what?
I don't want to do that.
I want to have our country be calm and strong and fight and win.
And it will go away.
I love that comment he says there.
I mean, I love the smackdown of Jim Acosta.
It's always hilarious.
But I love that comment at the end.
He goes, you know, instead of asking a nasty question, instead of trying to spread panic, look, I could spread panic.
I could spread panic a whole lot better than you, but I'm not doing that.
You know, we have the power to do this at our fingertips.
We've got our social media accounts.
We talk to friends and family.
We go on FaceTime and Skype.
We have the ability either to...
Keep a cool head.
Be rational.
Take in all of the information.
Not panic.
Not lose our minds.
Not scream and wail and rend our garments.
Or we can do that.
Or we can generate panic.
The choice is ours.
But Trump is saying, look, I'm not going to do that.
I'm going to try to help the country.
And Jim Acosta is saying...
I don't know.
That's my impression of Jim Acosta.
Look at me.
Look at me.
I'm Jim Acosta, as Andrew Klavan says.
You know, those are the two choices.
And that's a choice that not just the mainstream media have to make, but that each of us can make as well.
Don't forget, as we're trying to stop the spread of the virus, that only you can stop the spread of fake news.
All right.
That is our show.
Come back tomorrow.
I'm sure we'll have a whole lot more.
In the meantime, I'm Michael Knowles.
This is The Michael Knowles Show.
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Hey everyone, it's Andrew Klavan, host of The Andrew Klavan Show.
The MyPillow guy talks capitalism, Trump, and God, and the left chokes on its own violent hatred.
Who speaks for the American people and for American pillows?
