Charlie Kirk is the Founder and President of Turning Point USA, the largest and fastest growing conservative student organization advocating for free speech on college and high school campuses. He’s also author of the recent NYT bestseller, The MAGA Doctrine. Joining him is Brendan Carr, one of five Commissioners on the Federal Communications Commission. He previously served as General Counsel of the agency before President Trump nominated him to this position in 2017. He has been an outspoken proponent of free speech and securing U.S. leadership in 5G. They talk about the MSM and their barrage of attacks on the right, when the last thing we need is politicization during a pandemic. They will also address Bernie Sanders’ decision to suspend his campaign. The Sean Hannity Show is on weekdays from 3 pm to 6 pm ET on iHeartRadio and Hannity.com. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
All right, Bernie is out, even though he is, well, ostensibly tied according to the latest polling.
It's still a two-man race.
And, well, oh, and Cuomo supporters want Biden to tap him for VP.
Okay.
We have so much news.
It gets so worse when you get down into the nitty-gritty of how awful New York handled all of this.
Just as, you know, they're lucky they had Donald Trump to bail them out.
Anyway, glad you're with us.
800-941 Sean, if you want to be a part of this extravaganza, you know, this is pretty arrogant.
Here we have, we now have a study out of Great Britain shows 95% of this pandemic could have been prevented had China not, you know, be not have been hiding this from the entire world with the help of the WHO.
Because even in January, they were just spewing Chinese government propaganda.
And so the president rightly yesterday says, you know, we're going to put a hold on World Health Organization funding.
Echoed that last night in an interview with me on Hannity Unfox News.
And, you know, it's like so much else with the UN and all of these organizations that we fund.
Look, we fund NATO.
We fund the overwhelming majority of it.
We're not the greatest beneficiary or the ones in greater need for NATO.
And all these other countries, they've never reached what their quota is supposed to be.
And finally, this president calls them out.
The World Health Organization, you know, as the president called it, China-centric, saying that their projections, their pronouncements, what they said was what the Chinese government wanted them to say.
And it's, and the entire world suffers.
Now the president's saying, you know what?
Why are we wasting all of this money on an organization that is not about telling us the truth?
Congress already authorized, get this, it's $122 million for the WHO this fiscal year, $122 million.
It's just like, how much do we fund the UN?
How many years have we seen anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism at the United Nations?
And why do we fund this?
Why do we pay for this?
Now you've got the arrogance comes out where you have the former director, you know, saying in an interview, hey, if you don't want more body bags, you should refrain from politicizing it.
You guys politicized it by lying to the world and contributing to the lies to the world.
There's no need to use COVID to score political points.
Now we're getting lectured by the World Health Organization that was telling us nothing but lies.
We need to behave now.
That's how we will defeat this virus.
Not with any help from you or anybody else over there.
I mean, it's just pretty pathetic.
And now their attention has been gotten because the major source of their funding is now in jeopardy.
It's unbelievable.
Look, let me tell you where we are here.
If you look at the numbers, and I think Anthony Fauci is probably right on target.
Everything that we've been thinking, if patterns hold, they seem to be holding.
And unfortunately, and even Governor Cuomo pointed out here, the deaths that we're seeing, for example, in New York, are a lagging indicator that all of the efforts that have been put forth in terms of, listen, without this travel ban of the president, and I keep going back to it.
Nobody else wants to give the guy credit for anything.
But without that travel ban, subsequent travel bans, quarantines, this would have been exponentially far worse than anyone can even imagine.
But with that said, the deaths, Cuomo was right today, seem to be the lagging indicator as you then begin to level off.
And we have, for example, as of yesterday, we have 586 new hospitalizations, but that's down from 656 the day before.
That's the leveling, hopefully before.
Patterns holding, of course, a precipitous drop in new COVID-19 positive tests.
So the number of hospitalizations leveling off and now going down.
Flags in state will be flown at half mass, he said.
Some anecdotal information.
Some hospitals are now releasing patients, more patients than they're bringing in.
The fear of not having the hospital capacity, respirators, gowns, all of that did not materialize in New York the way we thought it would.
Nobody likes to hear about anybody dying.
You know, I know that, for example, there's been a lot of talk who said what during what part of the timeline, when and where.
But even on March 2nd, Andrew Cuomo was telling New York, excuse our arrogance as New Yorkers.
I speak for the mayor also on this one.
We think we have the best health care system on the planet right here in New York.
Well, Governor Cuomo said that March 2nd.
So when you're saying what happened in other countries versus what happened here, we don't think it's going to be as bad as it was in other countries.
Well, that turned out to be way off pretty late in the game.
March 2nd, he was saying all of that.
And a very different New York exists today.
There is criticism in that front where if New York had acted sooner, we have a former CDC chief saying the death toll could have been reduced by 50 to 80 percent.
Dr. Thomas Frieden, former head of Center for Disease Control and Prevention, estimated in a new report that if New York adopted a stay-at-home order sooner, they did this out in California with Gavin Newsome, the state's death toll could have been reduced by 50 to 80 percent.
Flu was coming down, and then you saw this new ominous spike, and it was COVID, and it was spreading wildly in New York City before anyone knew it.
And you go back again.
How is it possible that all of the warning signs were given repeatedly?
And we now have another case.
There was a warning back in 2006 for the city of New York.
Mayor Bloomberg at least did a little bit.
They said they would be short 9,500 ventilators if there was any kind of pandemic, which, by the way, the Health Task Force in 2015 said is a foreseeable, real threat, one that we should prepare for.
If we're talking about ventilators, you're short 15,783.
How many did Cuomo buy?
None.
Why would I buy ventilators?
Because you can predict these things are happening.
That's what foreseeable pandemic.
It's going to happen.
Anyway, at least then Mayor Bloomberg bought 500.
Now, unfortunately, they didn't maintain them.
And then they auctioned off the 500 ventilators in New York.
I mean, you can't make this stuff up.
Then you look at all the waste fraud and abuse and the hundreds of millions of dollars that are being wasted.
It just, it's so painful.
You know, what did the great Thomas Paine say?
Government in its best case, but a necessary evil, its worst case, an intolerable one.
Anyway, Fauci is now on Fox this morning saying he expects the U.S. will begin to turn the corner on the coronavirus pandemic sometime next week.
And he said, but after this week, he added, the U.S. should see the beginning of a turnaround.
That's what we have seen in other countries.
That's what we're hoping desperately for happens here and happens as quickly as possible.
That then brings us to the point of, okay, how do we reopen the country?
How do we get this economy back up and running?
I could tell you right now, second quarter numbers, GDP numbers, unemployment numbers, just as at different points during this crisis and pandemic, when we hear the death toll and those contracting the virus and the number watch that has been scrolling on TV for weeks and weeks now, you're going to see numbers we have not seen since the Great Depression.
That's what it's going to be.
Now the question is, we cannot afford to stay on this level on that ground any longer and expect the economy as any opportunity to ever recover.
Americans want to work.
Americans are dying to get back to work.
And the economy, our system, our economic system is all based on this.
Now, I think there's going to be a lot of different challenges, especially in, say, a city like New York.
You have the smallest geographical area.
You have the largest population of people, 11 million people, very small island.
The odds of a rebound, which, by the way, a rebound, the odds of that, to be honest, it's not if, it's when.
You will have rebounds.
You will have hotspots that pop up here, there, and everywhere.
We got to be prepared.
How do we deal with that?
Now, one of the things that we've got to consider before all these guys in Washington now want to come up with phase four and another $1 trillion for this, another $2 trillion for that.
And I'm saying, wait a minute, we just spent $2.2 trillion.
We just spent $4 trillion opening up loans for the Fed and guaranteeing the Fed the ability to loan money as a bridge to businesses that need it in the hopes that we can get up and running as quickly as possible.
Okay, how do you thread that needle?
Well, it's not going to be hard in certain geographical areas.
It might mean life as we knew it prior to COVID-19 changes.
Probably elbowing will replace handshakes.
That would not surprise me.
People wearing gloves out in public and masks out in public until all of this passes completely, that would not surprise me either.
But certain geographical areas that have not been hit particularly hard, they can open up.
But of course, we all have to be careful.
And you can't let the doctors, I mean, there will be some doctors that say, well, no, if we shut down the, Ezekiel Emmanuel is saying this, you know, if we shut things down for a good 12 months, 18 months until we get the vaccine, America won't be America if we don't open up before then.
Now, so geographically, those decisions should be fairly straightforward and fairly easy.
Social distancing, there'll be a reset, no handshakes, elbowing, more Purel, more gloves, more masks, likely.
Cities, well, it gets more challenging.
Now, you have to balance a lot of different factors here.
You have to balance the issue of, yes, civil and constitutional rights of individuals.
You have to balance the health, safety, and security of others.
How does a city like New York open?
Well, I think one of the things is you're going to probably keep a lot of people teleworking, working from home.
So you have less concentration in the work area.
That's part of it.
Certainly, as these new tests have now been brought on board, we got to mass produce them.
For example, an antibody test.
If you have an antibody, you're not going to contract the virus again.
If you, or temperature checks, like when I went to the UN, when I went to the Comfort, the hospital Navy ship, I had my temperature taken.
They didn't even touch me.
They just put it right in front of my forehead.
Well, people getting into big buildings might have their temperatures checked.
And if they have a high temperature, they might be sent to the hospital to get it checked out or sent to a testing center.
Now that we have five-minute testing, now that we have antibody testing, I think the key, especially in a highly concentrated area of people, small geographic area like New York, that is going to have to be part of the solution.
but it's got to be done in a way that is not going to be some big government database.
You have to protect patient privacy.
You have to encourage people to do the right thing.
If they've been in contact with anybody leading up to a point where they get a positive COVID-19 diagnosis, that they would be kind enough to reach out to those other people.
But how fast can we do it?
Well, look, today's April the 8th.
Okay, 30 days in April.
May 1st is coming.
What are we going to do on May 1st?
That is going to be the big test.
I don't think, look, Art Laffer is probably one of the most renowned economists, and he thought that the $2.2 trillion wouldn't be necessary.
I think the American people wanted to make sure those workers and hospital workers and small businesses were all taken care of and made whole.
And that, of course, followed by the business loan availability of cash, the $4 trillion by the Fed freed up.
But he's saying that if we, in fact, just had the payroll tax, $750 billion, that in and of itself probably would have naturally brought us out once we get on the other side of the health side of this.
Look, the sooner we get the health side fixed, the more options we're going to have.
But there's going to be creativity if you want to get big cities, New York, Chicago, Atlanta, wherever you happen to work, back up and running and do it in a way with the least amount of damage and dependency created towards government.
You want to be able to get back up and running and make it a V-shaped recovery, an automatic pop-up.
So the third quarter is going to be extraordinarily large and hopeful for the American people because we need that.
Our entire way standard of living is based on that.
All right, as we roll along, Sean Hannity Show 800-941, Sean.
Look, we've got a lot of good news.
There's no good news when you're in the middle of a pandemic.
So let me just set that record straight.
But what they were predicting in New York in terms of hospital beds needed, it's about 60% lower than they predicted.
The number of deaths have now been reduced yet again.
I don't even want to go through these numbers here.
I mean, at one point, they said if we didn't have mitigation efforts, if we didn't have social distancing, if we didn't have the travel bans and the quarantines and basically shutting down most of the country for this period of time, it could have been, you know, anyway, over 2.5 million people in America dying.
Then, you know, we got the scary chart.
All of this had been going on.
It still could have been as high as 250,000.
Now they keep modeling it down.
Then we were at 94,000 deaths.
Now they're predicting, and then it was 81,000 deaths.
Now it's 60,000 deaths.
I just don't think that they know at this particular point in time.
But one of the leading coronavirus models, the one that they have been using, was predicting, you know, dire things.
Now, we're seeing in New York, there's no shortage of ventilators, no shortage of medical equipment, no shortage of masks, as everybody was concerned about.
Okay, that's good news when you put it in perspective of what we thought it was going to be and what it could have been.
We want to save as many lives as possible.
Now the question is, how do we reopen the economy?
It's going to be 15 months at least till we have a vaccine, even though we broke records in terms of sequencing the virus.
Okay, it's not going to be hard in geographical areas where you don't have high concentrations of people, but most of us will probably have to accept that the new norm is going to be include partly teleworking in cities.
It's going to be accepting the fact that masks and gloves will be a part of life in the near future, social distancing.
But there are ways to do it, including temperature taking privately, anonymity, and much more.
We'll explain, anti-body testing, for example.
All right, 25 till the top of the hour.
All right, facts without fear coming up.
How to open the economy sooner than later.
All right, why are you telling me?
Apparently, Bernie in Missouri is a call I must go to.
Bernie in Missouri.
Bernie, how are you?
Senator Sanders here.
It's a pleasure to speak with you.
I'm calling from Rush Limbaugh, Southeast Missouri.
And I thought you'd want to hear from me and have a Sean Hennedy exclusive about me dropping out the race.
It's so significant.
And I realize I've come into it late in the game, but instead of 30 trillion Medicare for all, I'm thinking, how about toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and ramen noodles for all?
Instead of trillions, we're talking millions.
And I heard two packs of ramen is a luxury in Cuba.
Oh, my gosh.
So now you're running on a new platform.
In other words, instead of Medicare for all, you're doing free health, free toilet paper, free sanitizer, and paper towels for all.
Is that what you're saying?
Toilet paper, masks, you name it, everything.
I haven't been to a Walmart or a Target in years, Sean, but my understanding is from my sources that you can get a five-pack of ramen for a dollar.
For just a buck, we can feed the American public during this time of need.
And even though I've left the race, you know, I'm getting a little old.
Maybe I was a bit over-ambitious with the Medicare for all.
Perhaps Miss Cortez could take this over.
She's a good friend of mine.
And this has worked wonders in Cuba, China, Venezuela, and Denmark.
Well, I'm sorry you dropped out of the race, but I did notice that you dropped out, but you're keeping your delegates, and you're going to try and influence, I guess, the party platform at your virtual, I guess, I don't think they're going to have a regular convention anyway.
But anyway, I just want you to know something.
There is a poll that came out today, and it shows that, you know, it's still a two-man race, except it's not you.
It's Andrew Cuomo, apparently.
And Cuomo voters, lovers in New York, wait till the world learns about Andrew Cuomo.
I have a lot to tell them.
But anyway, I expected to get screwed over by the DNC as I did last time anyway.
We know the deal, Sean.
All right.
Thank you, Bernie.
Appreciate it.
There is the oddest thing, isn't it?
I go shopping every weekend.
I do.
I just, first, I like to get out.
Yes, I'm wearing, I wore gloves the last time.
Linda's like, did you wear your gloves?
I did.
I wore gloves.
I couldn't figure out how to put the stupid mask on, though.
It was so complicated.
When you did that, I socially distance from people.
I just stay at a distance.
I'm okay.
At least as far as I know, I'm okay.
So you're normal.
Okay.
No, but the thing, look, to the credit of the grocers, and I know there are certain areas that might have had empty shelves for a while, but to the credit of the great grocers, and this is why the economy has to get up and running.
They've been able to keep the shelves full, with the exception of hand sanitizer, toilet paper, and paper towels.
Now, I'm not sure I fully comprehend why it is those are the items that people go for.
Now, for me, my item is going to be Campbell's soup, chicken noodle soup, or Lipton noodle soup, or something that, you know, you could just get something in your body.
I'll take anything at that point.
But they did have a pretty good supply of meat, even fish, and, you know, people working.
And, you know, look at, for example, we're talking about opening up the economy, and there might be this new normal.
The new normal might be, all right, especially in big cities like New York, you might have your temperature taken without them touching you.
You get the electronic temperature taker things, the thermometers, and before you get in the building, if you have a temperature, you're told to go home or go to your doctor.
And nothing, there's no database that I would find acceptable.
Some people have been spreading conspiracy theories that this is the government's way of tracking every American and putting chips in our brain.
No, I don't think so.
And we don't have to do it that way.
There's no need to do any of this.
With the antibody tests, you could certainly, once you know you had this and have been exposed to this and built up antibodies to it, you're good to go to work after, what, 14 days.
So our doctors are telling us.
The other thing is they're now going to have this five-minute test and they're doing it at, what, 50,000 tests a day.
If they can bring a lot of that testing equipment to a big city, that would help opening up some of the bigger, more concentrated areas of a city like New York.
But, you know, in the meantime, we all like the fact that we're getting our toilet paper and our hand sanitizer and our paper towels delivered and our booze.
Apparently, sales of booze up 50%.
Our Titos is being delivered and wine or beer, whatever else you like to drink.
And your groceries stores are pretty full.
Sometimes they've struggled a little bit, but they've done a really good job.
The only reason is because the truckers and the farmers and everyone up and down the supply chain have worked night and day to make that happen for us.
They've all been working.
They're all essential workers.
You know, all these guys that I see when I go to the local grocery store that are packing the shelves, a lot of them, almost all of them now have masks on and gloves on, but there's a certain risk they're putting themselves in harm's way.
And the people that help at the checkout, I always go to the automatic checkout and it goes faster.
I mean, and something goes beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, it drives me nuts.
But you get in there and get out usually pretty quick.
But they're all putting themselves in harm's way.
Restaurants that are trying to keep their employees employed.
But, you know, maybe at some point in a place like New York, you're going to have to reconfigure dining rooms just to get these guys to a point where they can maybe break even and hang on there for a while.
And in other words, where you have a distance and have certain rules, we've got to start thinking about how we can get this done, not violate people's constitutional rights, civil liberties, but look out for our fellow man.
And maybe that means we accept that masks and gloves are going to be a new part of life.
Teleworking is going to be a new part of life.
I think most people will enjoy that.
I think a lot, I work from home.
I love working from home when I get to do it.
Social distancing, okay, that's going to be a part of it.
But we've got to have, I like the idea too of an economic task force, especially when I'm hearing, well, we haven't even given out the $2.2 trillion.
The projections for New York this week, thank God, came in far lower than what they were saying.
No death is acceptable, but it's coming in much lower than what it could have been.
The numbers even a week, week and a half ago that they were giving us, now we're down to about less than a third of it.
You know, maybe 27% of what they were saying.
So that's hope there.
That means we can get the country up, running, and open again.
Geographically, as I've been saying, we can do it.
Why?
Without even getting the $2.2 trillion into the hands of American workers.
They deserve it.
The American people support it, but they haven't gotten that money yet.
They got to get it as fast as possible.
I know that there's been some glitches in terms of small business owners trying to get these loans that have been put aside for them and grants that have been put aside for them.
And the same happens for big business.
I think they have a whole different process in that particular case.
But the paycheck protection program, okay, well, we have months' worth of now monies to work with to take care of those people in need with the hope that at the end of that aid, we don't need to put any more money towards it.
Well, now they're already tossing around numbers that are beyond frightening again.
The 2.2 trillion and 4 trillion guarantees, that's an awful lot of money.
And some are saying, well, that's only the second inning.
Well, how many trillions do you think you're going to spend before you begin to realize that you got to have to pay that back someplace, somehow, some way?
I know Democrats are seeking to pass an additional $500 billion plus expanding food stamps in economic relief legislation this week.
I thought that's what the last bill was supposed to do.
And we've got to now find a way, turn our attention without taking our eye off the ball, turn our attention how to open up the country as expeditiously as we possibly can.
And also taking into account safety, security, and the health of our citizens.
There's a balancing act here.
Some doctors would say just shut down forever.
You can't shut down forever.
Number one, we're the United States of America.
And if we shut down forever, all of the wealth that we have will be gone.
There will be, you know, this will be beyond Medicare for all.
It'll be everything for all.
And without people producing, there won't be any all to redistribute.
What else do we have here?
Oh, poor Joe is not doing well.
Biden describes the phone call with Trump.
He told him his top items, what he thinks Trump should be doing.
Okay.
Things that he never did during the N1H1 issue.
I don't even know what to say about the media in this country, except that it is so corrupt, so dishonest, so out of control.
I mean, you have somebody, you know, a New York controller, comroller in New York City.
I'm sorry, he lost his 86-year-old mom.
And by the way, I mean this sincerely.
I don't want anyone to lose a family member.
I've said this many times.
I want cures for cancer and heart disease.
And he goes on CNN saying Donald Trump has my mom's blood on his hands.
Okay.
Howard Dean says he's boycotting MSDNC until the network stops airing Trump pressers in the middle of a national emergency and a pandemic.
I mean, they can't put it aside for five seconds, people on the left.
You know, another MSDNC contributor claiming the Trump crime cult wants to commit mass murder.
I'm like, wow, it's pretty unbelievable.
But how would you not want the president to give out valuable information on aid that is coming, for example?
Some facts without fear.
We now have the Department of Health, Human Services, they awarded General Motors a $489.4 million contract to make the ventilators.
I'm sure at some point we now have enough in New York and New Jersey.
There's still about 9,000 in the national stockpile.
Many thanks to California, Oregon, and Washington because they're sending them back east because it turns out their mitigation efforts work so well, they don't need them.
The same with masks and other things.
Leading coronavirus model dropped again, as I said.
I don't want to get into the numbers because they're so good compared to what they were.
I don't want to jinx it.
Oh, and the Pope is blaming global warming for coronavirus.
He said that the coronavirus pandemic is one of nature's responses to humans ignoring the current ecological crisis.
Okay, I don't have time for that either.
We have in some other things, we know that top Democrats called on the Department of Homeland Security to release illegal immigrants to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
Okay, we're letting prisoners out.
Illegal immigrants will just be a lawless society.
I don't think that's the answer to help solving the health crisis and the pandemic that we have.
We have the approval of the coronavirus response.
Well, by the way, in one poll, the president does dramatically better than quid pro quo Joe, who doesn't particularly seem that alert and aware of all that is happening.
But anyway, this particular poll, I saw it in the Washington Examiner, asked who would be a better leader during the coronavirus outbreak.
Trump by an eight-point margin, 44 to 36 to Joe Biden.
That's interesting.
By the way, if you smoke marijuana, it could make your lungs more susceptible to COVID-19.
Just a thought.
A key, let's see, Boris Johnson spends a second night in the ICU.
Oxygen.
He's not been intubated yet.
Now Michigan State University is listing the acceptable names for the Chinese virus.
And what is acceptable?
Like, for example, you can't say Wuhan coronavirus.
No, you can't.
COVID-19.
That's acceptable.
Not Wuhan coronavirus, not the Chinese virus.
The school is encouraging all students to sign a pledge entitled, Hate Has No Home Here.
They gave other alternatives, SARS-CoV-2, or COVID-19.
Names that no other names are acceptable according to them.
I will work to make sure hate has no home here.
University of Texas at Austin, the dean argued the term Chinese virus is inspiring hateful acts against Asian American students on campus.
University of Wisconsin administrators condemning a series of anti-China chalk messages that appeared on campus.
University of California telling students it is inappropriate for them to use the term Chinese virus.
Dr. Burks, by the way, China's lack of transparency with the WHO did delay the ability to deal with this pandemic.
She's right.
Representative Presley is saying the next coronavirus stimulus bill should money should go to illegal immigrants, the homeless, and to prisoners.
I mean, this is what Washington does.
This is who they are.
This defines them.
And as Donald Trump builds the hospitals and provides all the masks and all the gowns and all the gloves and all the personnel even for New York, this is what other people are talking about.
Italy, Spain, their ICU pressures have declined.
Good news there because again, you're looking for a leveling followed by a dramatic, precipitous decline.
That's the pattern.
We want that pattern to hold here and maybe even go more quickly than it has in other places.
Three in four Americans think Donald Trump should wear a protective mask.
France suffered their worst day, the world's highest daily coronavirus death toll.
Avan Cuomo, I think, was right in saying that that is a lagging indicator.
Unfortunately, not a good indicator, but it means that you're coming around on the other end of it, hopefully, through mitigation efforts.
All right, we have a lot to get to today, including Dr. Oz.
We'll check in with him.
Bill O'Reilly weighs in all things O'Reilly today.
All right, we'll get to the medical side of what's happening, the latest updates, and how do we medically open up the economy, especially in a small geographic area like, say, New York City with a high concentration of people and do it safely, but still open up the economy.
Dr. Oz, Bill O'Reilly, much more.
Straight ahead.
Oh, wait, I have 40 more seconds.
My clock is off.
Sorry.
Okay, good.
So this gives me the perfect opportunity to do something, which is I need to send a shout out to Rose Tennant today.
She actually sent us lunch because she's so grateful that we're coming in and doing the show in the midst of the pandemic.
So she sent everybody who's working here on the live stream.
She knows that I buy you guys lunch every day, right?
Seriously, can we just say thanks to Rose for five seconds?
She's awesome.
We all love Rose.
She's amazing.
Big shout out to Rose.
Big shout out to Rose.
Dr. Oz, when we come back, Bill O'Reilly coming up.
Charlie Kirk stops by as we continue.
Straight ahead.
All right, hour two, Sean Hannity show, write down our toll-free telephone number.
It's 800-941.
Sean, you want to be a part of the program?
We've been watching the IMHE projections decline precipitously.
Remember, they did lay out a scenario.
Had the United States not instituted a travel ban if the United States had not had multiple travel bans and one after another and then the quarantining followed by the mitigation efforts.
They projected that the death toll could have been as high as two and a half million plus Americans.
Scary, by any measure, very scary.
Then they were putting out the charts in the briefing room during the task force briefings that they have every day saying it could be as high as 240 to 50,000 Americans that die.
That was only a week and a half ago.
Yesterday, that was below 100,000, 81,000.
Now they're saying just over 60,000.
I'm not sure if we're there yet.
And certainly there's a lot more work to do, but it's better than what the earlier projections were by a long shot.
The number of hospitalizations, beds they thought that would be needed, 60 plus percent below what they had projected.
Same with ICU beds.
Intubation levels are 80% less than what was projected.
Anyway, now the question is, all right, so these numbers are better.
How do we get America?
It's April the 8th.
May 1st is coming quickly.
How do we open the country, the economy?
In other words, get people back to work.
There are probably going to be a lot of changes moving forward.
Elbowing will probably replace a lot of handshaking.
Teleworking will be a new reality in small geographic areas with large concentrations of people.
I would assume masks and gloves will be a part of life longer than we really prefer.
Social distancing.
How do you reopen a restaurant in New York City at this particular point?
Anyway, Dr. Oz is with us.
First, we'll get a medical update on what he's hearing and seeing.
And, you know, I think actually it was a game changer.
Dr. Wallace's comments to you about the safety of hydroxychloroquine.
I don't hear as many people, doctors on TV that are hosts that are not doctors saying that it's dangerous.
It's irresponsible.
It's reckless.
It's going to kill people.
I don't hear that anymore.
It had an impact.
And I'm glad that the rheumatologists are coming forward and speaking about their experience because they're the ones who have been using this medication.
And listen, it's one thing to argue about whether it works or not.
That takes lots of clinical trials, lots of efforts, lots of figuring out when you give it with sick patients, healthy patients.
You give it with other medications with it.
That's all important.
But if you're fearful that you'll die if you take the pill, that has a chilling effect on the discussion that doctors have with their patients.
And those are the kinds of discussions that are most important.
So when the rumor started that it was incredibly dangerous for diabetics or for blindness or for cardiac arrhythmias, and I started reading about it as well, it got concerning.
But this guy actually, where I was talking to him about a whole separate idea, which is was he finding any patients with COVID-19 in his practice?
That's because he's a rheumatologist.
He's taking care of these lupus patients and they're all taking hydroxychloroquine.
I was curious.
If it's preventing them from getting sick, maybe it has a benefit to doctors and nurses working on the front lines.
And he said, let me interrupt you for a second.
And he brought up this fact that it was safe.
So he wrote that letter that you've read kindly here on the show.
And I think a lot of people woke up to the fact that they should talk to people who actually prescribe it.
And they're saying, you know, we don't even have guidelines for it because it's been so safe over the last 65 years of prescribing.
Why did the CDC remove hydroxychloroquine from its list of coronavirus treatment options?
I have no idea.
I just saw that before I came on.
I mean, it wasn't like it was recommending you gave hydroxychloroquine.
It was just acknowledging that it was being prescribed by doctors.
But I'm sure there's lots of discussions going on behind the scenes about the incredible heat on whatever the president says.
And I don't know if it should have ever been on there in the first place, frankly, because it hasn't been proven to be effective.
But you think it might be in what I want to understand what you're trying to do here, Dr. Oz, because this is amazing to me, is that you are you are now investigating.
I think NYU is doing a similar study as you are doing one with the hospital in New York you're affiliated with, which is Columbia, right, Presbyterian?
It is, yes.
Okay.
And that is that, okay, are people that have been taking hydroxychloroquine for lupus or rheumatoid arthritis, is it acting, does it have a prophylactic impact preventing people from contracting the virus?
And you're looking for lupus patients that are taking hydroxychloroquine, rheumatoid arthritis patients, and you haven't found one yet that is taking hydroxychloroquine that did also contract COVID-19.
That's our finding to date.
I've asked for people to write in.
We've gotten a tweet and an email of people who say that they think they're COVID-19 positive and we're taking hydroxychloroquine.
But again, I've got 300,000 people that I can ask that question to, and we'll see how many of them had the illness.
It's also possible, by the way, they may have gotten the virus but not gotten sick.
Maybe the medication may ameliorate the ailment.
We have no idea, but we should use the tools that we have available.
21st century technology includes large data, right?
They use it to sell you stuff, right?
They use it to fill your Amazon orders.
So we know how to do deep dives into data and figure out if there's anything there.
So the question we ought to be asking is, these 300,000 people who have been using hydroxychloroquine pretty commonly, are they having any complications?
That's one question.
But the other question is, you know, are you actually coming down with this COVID-19 virus illness?
And if you're not, that's a clue.
And if you are, we move on to the next question.
Well, you do, or maybe it's a very tiny number and a very small percentage.
I mean, either or would be better than what we have, correct?
Yes, it would be.
The hope is that you can find out from an already taking place experiment that no one had to pay for and no one has to wait for whether or not it's happening naturally.
That's what the Chinese did.
The Chinese very astutely looked in their own patient population at this hospital in Wuhan that did the randomized trial, and they noticed that the patients there who came in with lupus were not developing COVID-19.
And then the patients who had COVID-19, none of them had lupus.
Now, that could be a coincidence because most people don't have lupus.
But it's an interesting observation.
That prompted them to start looking at hydroxychloroquine in a randomized trial.
And that's why the French doctor, Didier Rolt, also was pursuing it because he heard the Chinese were getting success.
So he said, we're desperate here.
We don't have answers.
And we've got to try whatever we have.
So an advisor to Joe Biden and his candidacy, his name is Dr. Zeke Emmanuel, is saying that, in fact, Americans could be dealing with these strict social distancing measures for 18 months until there is a vaccine.
Well, the economy will collapse.
It's unsustainable at that point.
How is it possible?
You know, Dr. Fauci is saying next week we begin to decline, hopefully, if the numbers hold, that the patterns hold.
Okay, let's assume that's the case.
I would assume reopening the country geographically, those areas that are not having high incidences, will be pretty easy.
But cities like New York are going to be extraordinarily challenging.
Would that include, for example, antibody testing, temperature taking?
How do you do it without violating civil liberties and constitutional rights and maintain patient privacy?
The five-minute test by Abbott, that would be a part of it.
Teleworking has to be a part of it.
Wearing masks and gloves might be a part of everyday life for a while, social distancing among with it.
But then what do you do with restaurants that they'll never survive if they're closed down for 18 months?
It's impossible.
Well, I think the way we get through this is case finding, contact tracing, and quarantining.
Let's go through this.
First off, you pointed out the testing.
We have to find people when they get sick, and we have to let them know that they're sick.
They want to know anyway.
And that'll allow us to figure out what's really happening.
The biggest failure that we have experienced, because it was not in any of our simulations, any of our modeling, was the idea that we wouldn't actually know who was ill.
I mean, how can you expect leaders to lead if we don't give them any clues on what direction to head in?
So you have a bunch of folks, very capable people, I think, in many different levels of government, who had no idea what was happening because it was sneaking up on them.
So if with the appropriate testing, we'll find the cases.
Then, this is the part that you're bringing up that's very sensitive.
And I think the listeners here, we ought to hear all their opinions.
We're going to have to find their contacts.
Now, they can do it.
We can help them do it.
We can do it through technology.
We can do it the old-fashioned way.
But just trusting people to tell folks that they may have been in contact with and being in contact is specifically, let's just say, 10 minutes or more closer than six feet, right?
If you've been in contact, let's say you had a meal with somebody that was closer than six feet away from you, then you had an interaction that could have led to a virus being transmitted.
So if you test positive, you're going to have to call that person up or someone's going to have to notify that person that they have to go into quarantine.
And that has been very uncomfortable to talk about, but we're going to have to find some way of doing that.
As Americans, we should do it ourselves.
But do I trust everyone else to do it for themselves?
I don't know.
And if they don't do it, you're going to see ups and downs continually for the next few months.
Well, you said to me, a rebound is not a matter of if, it's when and how bad.
And political leaders are going to be cowered by that.
Because here's the equation.
If you don't shut down the city, state, country, people are going to die.
And someone will die.
And then your question is, well, how many, you know, you don't want to do that calculus.
That's difficult.
Instead, we want to have a very smart plan that helps people find their contacts.
Ideally, they do it themselves.
And hey, say, listen, you've got to quarantine yourself for two weeks.
I'm just worried I infected you.
You won't know it for a week.
We don't want you spreading viruses everywhere.
So how do we do this so that you don't lose your livelihood?
How do I make it easy for you to do the right thing?
Those are all the questions.
What do you got to ask?
What do you think of these big tall buildings in New York where, for example, both my radio show and TV show are?
What do you think about taking people's temperatures prior to them going in a building?
Would that be helpful in terms of mitigation?
What about people that have some type of indication that they have the antibodies?
I don't think we have to worry that much about them as long as I assume a certain period of time has passed or the five-minute test that people can have if you're concerned that they might have contracted it.
And doing it in a way that maintains people's health privacy and doesn't create any kind of database and doesn't violate any civil liberties or constitutional rights, because I think that will be a massive issue for people.
It should be a big issue.
That makes Americans Americans.
And if you don't want people in the streets fighting each other, we're going to have to find something that most people find acceptable.
I'm thinking that if we could help people identify who they've been in contact with that was sick potentially or vice versa, that they would act on it.
If that becomes our new culture, listen, we ask people not to hug and shake hands.
They don't.
This is as important a part of it.
Now, there's a financial issue here.
If you're the only breadwinner for your family and you have a little fever and you're coughing and you've been feeling tired, By the way, those are all classic symptoms of COVID-19.
Are you going to take yourself out of the workforce and be gone for two weeks?
So, these are the kinds of issues we got to help people deal with.
Maybe we reward people for doing the right thing by supporting them financially so they can do it.
All this said and done, the antibiotic testing will help because those people are cleared, they're good to go.
They could be a big portion of the population, by the way.
And I don't, you know, temperature checking we could do, but I just don't know how accurate that is.
A lot of people don't have a fever, a lot of people don't even have any symptoms.
So, it's a way of pulling out people and warning them that they've got an issue.
By the way, if they have the flu, they shouldn't go to work either, so that you don't lose a lot of leverage there.
Antibiotic testing over and over again is not wise.
That's not going to be a good use of money.
But most importantly, if I have any symptoms that might be attributable to COVID-19, I should be able to get tested with a quick response.
And that will be where are we going to be?
It's April the 8th today, 30 days in April.
We're not far away.
That's 22 days away, May 1st.
Where is the country going to be in terms of opening up the economy and letting people go back to work in 22 days?
Well, New York City is not opening up in 22 days.
I mean, our ICUs, and I'm talking to my colleagues there continually.
I mean, it's a little better because we're not having an increasing number of people coming in, but we're still getting a lot of people coming in.
And ideally, we have another week for the peak to sort of run to the end, and then we'll start to see a downward slope.
But New York City is not going anywhere, I don't think, on May 1st.
I could imagine parts of the country, as you alluded, where there hasn't been a significant hit opening up.
But I got to say, here's my reason why I would open them: we need to start doing the experiment to see if case finding, contact tracing, and quarantining works.
We've never done that successfully.
So, we actually literally need public health officials to elect detectives helping to figure this out because people, when they get ill, they don't even know where to start to quarantine themselves and their family and their friends and the people they may have contaminated at work.
I mean, it's just the amount of contamination that happens while you're thinking about how you're going to quarantine yourself is massive.
But the testing is going to be key.
And if we can have the simple, easy ability to mass test anybody that wants to get into a building ahead of time, I don't think that would be hard.
Either testing if you've been if you contracted COVID-19 or if you have the antibodies for it.
Yes, but you can't do that every time someone walks into a building because it's a waste of resources.
We need those tests for people who are at high risk.
You should get an antibody test at once.
As soon as you've got it, there should be some way of giving you a badge so you're no longer in the pool.
You don't have to worry about you anymore.
The antigen testing we should do selectively when people have symptoms to pull them out of the out of the cull them out.
Temperature, we could do every time because that's easy to go.
But the big, the way we'll win this battle at many levels is to get people who think they're sick to pull themselves and the people they may have contaminated out of the work pool.
That's how we'll put the brush fires out.
That I agree with that part.
And I think 99% of Americans would gladly do that unless you're evil and wanting other people to get sick.
All right, Dr. Oz, thank you for that update.
We'll have you another one tonight at 9 Hannity Fox News, also Vice President Pence today's quick break, right back.
We'll continue.
I want the reporters to call him out on his lying.
I want the reporters to follow up on questions.
And if you can't get a real good answer, the correct answer, I want you all to get up and walk out.
Here we have a president who is exploiting a national crisis to move forward his own agenda, his own revenge, his own profit.
If the president's just going to ramble and yell at reporters, say things that aren't the truth, and yell at reporters when they ask important questions, which is what he does, then they shouldn't have the press conferences.
But this is a president who just cannot handle the truth.
A president who has to make everything about him.
He needs to be praised at every second.
What we saw was a hijacking, a hijacking of the task force press conference by a president determined to rewrite the history of his early and reprehensibly irresponsible response to this virus.
This is a president looking for a scapegoat because his own performance is under question.
And this is a president who clearly still has time to watch Fox News because this has been the narrative on Fox News.
Don't blame the president.
Blame China.
Blame the World Health Organization.
Find someone else to blame.
Here we have a president who is exploiting a national crisis to move forward his own agenda, his own revenge, his own profit.
Back in my FBI days, Nicole, some of the most heinous criminals that I saw were those who exploited crises, humanitarian crises, 9-11, Hurricane Katrina, for their own benefit, right?
And I thought that was the most despicable thing that I had seen.
And I have to tell you, I see the president's conduct as akin to that kind of inhumane exploitation of a crisis.
Because the president is still resisting despite pressure.
And we now see part of your reporting was a Neil Newhouse Republican polling that there were a number of people in red states early on who didn't heed the warnings to socially distance because they believed the president's false comments.
They just make this stuff up.
They can't be any more repulsive than they are.
And then they are.
I mean, it just, they sink to new lows, the mob, the media, just it is who they are.
It defines them.
You know, the level, you know, let me give you an example.
Do you think if there was a 2015, November 2017 task force that said, hey, if there is an influenza pandemic, the federal government's going to be down 15,783 ventilators?
Do you think that the media wouldn't be beating the living daylights out of Donald Trump for not having the foresight, the wisdom, the common sense to get the ventilators instead of spending $750, let's say, million dollars on a solar factory that goes belly up, another $600 million on another, what, computer-chipped factory that goes belly up, $90 million on a light bulb company investment belly up?
I mean, because that's what happened in New York.
It is bumbling.
It is fumbling.
It is insanity.
And you would think that we can't carry Donald Trump's press conferences during the national emergency or a pandemic.
We can't possibly do that.
Why not?
Anyway, joining us to discuss our friend Charlie Kirk is back.
By the way, his book was phenomenal.
He's the New York Times bestseller.
Congratulations on that.
The MAGA Doctrine.
And Brendan Carr, one of five commissioners on the FCC, previously served as general counsel of the agency before the president nominated him to the position in 2017.
By the way, he's been an outspoken proponent of freedom of speech, securing U.S. leadership in 5G, something new has talked a lot about.
And anyway, you know, Charlie, I listen to the same people.
You know, when early on, they were politicizing this virus.
It's instinctive for them.
This is all we've gotten.
They politicize everything.
Russia, Russia, Trump, Trump, stormy, stormy, SOLSOL, on and on.
This is all they've done for three and a half years, state-run TV.
They have now been throwing a collective temper tantrum at the idea that during a national emergency, the president of the United States is informing the American people about what the latest updates are and what the government response is because of all these failed governors that had no preparation, which in New York there's no excuse for.
That's exactly right.
And Sean, to go even a step further, the media's awful.
And our inexcusable reaction to the success of hydroxychloroquine, which you have been covering so well every night on your show, is literally saving lives.
And the media is doing everything they possibly can to not just discredit the president, but then also try to wrongly accuse him of his motivation, saying that somehow the president has financial holdings in the drug company, which has now been proven to be completely false.
Mika Brzezinski said that on her failing morning news show.
So to your point is exactly right.
The media here is not having a national emergency supersede politics.
Instead, they are trying to infuse their left-wing politics within a national emergency.
And as Ram Emanuel has used to say, never let a crisis go to waste.
Well, and I got to tell you, Brendan, I think that Charlie brings up a good point.
You know, here we have every country that has been greatly impacted by this virus is using hydroxychloroquine.
Every one of them.
And every one of these people that come out day after day, and they say, no, it's safe, it's safe.
And the president says, well, I take it.
And what have you got to lose?
And then they politicize that.
So we get this letter from Dr. Daniel Wallace.
He happens to be, well, a board-certified rheumatologist, Cedars Sinai Medical Center.
He inherited the largest practice for lupus patients in the country.
He has 2,000 patients with the disease, almost all of them taking HCQ.
He authored 400 peer-reviewed papers.
He's past chair of the Lupus Foundation of America, the Rheumatology Research Foundation of America, College of Rheumatology.
And I can go on and on.
And his exact words are hydroxychloroquine or Plaquenel, it's alternative, same, is a very safe drug.
It's been given to tens of millions of individuals in the world since its approval 65 years ago in 1955 and has not been associated on monotherapy with any deaths in the recommended dose.
In 42 years of practice, no patient of mine has ever been hospitalized for HCQ complication and the risk of taking 400 milligrams of HCQ a day following a single 600 milligram HCQ loading dose for 30 or 60 days, which by the way, they're not using it that way.
It's usually 5, 10 at max 20 days.
He said the risk is nil unless one has an allergic rash or an upset stomach.
And yet, you know, Dr. Wolf Blitzer and Dr. Mika Brzezinski MDs are out there saying it's dangerous for the president to be doing this.
It's not dangerous according to the people that are the experts, preeminent experts in the field.
Well, Sean, you're exactly right.
Look, we're seeing a coordinated effort by established gatekeepers that want to control the narrative on this.
And that includes working to shut the president down and prevent him from speaking directly to the people.
That effort has now spilled over here at the FCC where I work.
There's this far-left group that filed a petition asking us to investigate and take action against those broadcasters that continue to cover the president's daily coronavirus briefing and asked us to take action against conservative broadcasters that cover it, including Rush, your friend Mark Levin, Joe Paggs.
Somehow, Sean, you escaped their petition this time, but I don't think you're going to be able to.
Oh, no, I was at the tip of the spear until I actually had to get my whole team together and lay out a timeline telling the truth.
We first had Dr. Fauci on talking about this January 27th.
I had a panel of doctors January 28th.
We only had the first known case of coronavirus January 21st in this country.
And I kept saying, I'm not liking this.
Asymptomatic people are carrying this virus.
They have no idea they have symptoms and it might be airborne.
Those are all the things I was saying in late January and early February.
And it gets funny.
Well, we're going to sue Hannity and Fox News.
Sue me for what?
I mean, it's unbelievable how the minds of these people work.
But I guess, you know, what?
You can't have an opinion that maybe it's not as dangerous.
Now we keep getting lower and lower predictions.
You know, if we didn't do anything and we didn't have a travel ban and a quarantine and mitigation efforts, they said 2.5 million Americans could die.
They were telling us a week and a half ago, 250,000.
It's been revised downward now to 81,000 and now down to 60,000.
So, I mean, does anybody really know at any given moment?
Because I'll give you another example.
Because Andrew Cuomo, the most loved human being on the face of this earth by liberals, the one that denied his own task force and rejected their recommendation that you would need this.
Well, I have him on record as well.
And, you know, his record is not particularly keen in terms of what he was saying in the time that he was saying it because early on, even up until early March, we're New Yorkers.
We're tough.
We have the best hospital system in the world.
Turns out he didn't.
And Donald Trump had to fix him for him, Charlie.
That's exactly right.
And I think that there's a point of this where we wish we could put politics aside.
And then, you know, Governor Cuomo goes and throws cheap shots at the president of the United States in his kind of daily, I guess you could say, exploratory presidential committee morning briefing, where it seems that he is popular amongst many of New Yorkers, but I think it's so, I think it's unwarranted to throw as much praise as he has gotten by some members of the media, especially as it's now gone to show he did not replenish the reserve of ventilators or necessary.
He didn't get one.
They said, if you have an influenza pandemic, he's only been asked one time why he didn't buy it.
They said this is something we can predict.
It's going to happen.
And if you're interested in what he was saying on March the 2nd, he goes, well, excuse our arrogance as New Yorkers, Cuomo said.
I speak for the mayor on this one also.
And we think we have the best health care system on the planet right here in New York.
He said this on March 2nd.
So when you're saying what happened in other countries versus what happened here, well, we don't even think it's going to be as bad as it was in other countries.
Well, Donald Trump built them five hospitals.
He's manning two of the hospitals, the Navy ship and the largest hospital now in the country, the Javit Center, which was not supposed to take on COVID patients, but they are.
And all the ventilators that he has pretty much came from Donald Trump, along with the gowns and the masks and the respirators and the gloves and everything in between, Brendan.
You're right.
Look, there's a former FCC commissioner who came down with COVID, and he's publicly stated that he attributes at least part of his recovery to taking this drug.
And look, I'm not a doctor, so I don't recommend it one way or the other, but the idea that people would look to shut down speech simply because the president expressed optimism about this drug is really something.
Yeah.
So Alex Berenson, I guess, used to work for the New York Times.
He points out that Governor Cuomo reported ICU patients and discharges for weeks, but not today.
And just new hospitalizations, which are now two-fifths of what they were predicting it was going to be a week ago.
Well, that would be good news, and that would mean, I guess, the president's travel ban worked.
Charlie, I think my favorite flop and flip is Joe Biden now two months and three days late supporting the president's China travel ban that he called xenophobic and hysterical and fear-mongering.
No doubt.
And you could tell, I mean, Joe Biden, basically everything that he said he had to support throughout the Democrat primary has now been proven to have only made America be more infected, whether it be the appeasement of China, which we know that Joe Biden downplayed at best the threat of China and at worst was cozying up to the dictators of the Chinese Communist Party while his son was doing very questionable business deals with the leaders of China or immigration.
I mean, Joe Biden came out with a statement that he may or may not have written.
It was probably his handlers, but it came out under his name in his campaign where he said that it was xenophobic and it was closed-minded to close off the borders to China.
President Donald Trump can go into re-election mode against Joe Biden, or some people call him Joe China, saying that I saved tens of thousands of lives because I shut down the borders to China and instituted a travel ban while my opponent hid behind virtue signaling left-wing talking points while I put our country's lives first.
That's a great point, Sean, that you have brought up many times.
And the president has really zeroed in on this in his press conferences because Joe Biden would have kept the borders open and we would have a death toll that would be unimaginable and unacceptable if we would have followed the policies of Joe Biden.
And this next phase, Democrats are arguing for money for illegal immigrants.
Shouldn't surprise you, Brendan, just like they want to change the voting laws dramatically.
So anybody could phone it in, mail it in.
You can have somebody bring it in for you.
Yeah, that will be widespread cheating and stealing.
Well, look, I think, Charlie, you had it right.
I mean, this is what you're seeing is a very partisan reaction by the left to this pandemic rather than coming together to find solutions.
You saw it with some of the relief packages where they're trying to push this Green New Deal through the relief packages.
And again, you're seeing it right now with the broadcast of the president's coronavirus briefings, using that as a basis to file a petition here at the FCC to shut down broadcasters that do cover that.
And I think on that last part, this is a clear signal of the- Can you believe they want to sue people?
Because when all of them got it wrong, I mean, that's Cheryl Atkinson did a great service to everybody pointing out all the crap they were saying and how wrong everybody was.
Well, you know, it was a learning curve for everybody.
So I guess Dr. Fauci was saying it's not a problem on January 21st.
Nothing Americans have to worry about.
Everybody changed over time as we began to see the real seriousness of this.
Yeah, look, this is just a clear attempt, and they're going to continue this, to try to use the FCC to shut down any voice that doesn't fit the far-left orthodoxy.
And they're not going to give this up, even though we've turned back this petition.
So I think it's something we have to really keep an eye on going forward.
All right, Charlie Kirk, thank you.
Brendan, thank you.
All right, Leonard Skinner's simple man can only mean one thing, all things BillO'Reilly, BillO'Reilly.com.
And the models now are, again, projected downward.
Anyway, Bill O'Reilly is with us.
Now, Mr. O'Reilly did something that he never does.
He actually sent his Bill O'Reilly message of the day to me.
And I liked it, but I don't have a free membership on billo'reilly.com.
I don't have access to anything O'Reilly.
I mean, Mr. Simple Man, you know, is just, what's up with that?
I give you free stuff all the time.
I thought you had a free membership.
I just sent you a free book, killing crazy yours.
What do you want me to do?
I'm going to have guys go over every day and say, what, Sean, what would you like today?
We'll provide.
You know what I mean?
I want life back to normal.
Can you fix that in a simple way?
Oh, man, I wish I could, you know?
But we're making little steps.
Bernie Sanders, he's gone.
That's really good for everybody.
The projections that you just mentioned are down to 60,000.
I don't think it'll be that high.
13,000 dead now in the USA.
Many people who are dying both here and around the world were on their last legs anyway.
And I don't want to sound callous about that.
You're going to get hold on.
You're going to get a lot of people.
I don't care.
I mean, a simple man tells the truth.
You mean people that have underlying conditions and compromised immune systems, any virus, you're saying, would have.
And not only that, but they were damaged.
For example, one of the reasons the death rate in Italy and Spain is 10 times higher than in the United States, 10 times.
Okay?
And somebody can break this to Bernie Sanders.
Number one, they have socialized medicine, which is not nearly as good as our private system.
But number two, many more people smoke in Europe than here.
And this ravages the lungs.
It's also an older population, too.
Absolutely.
And they're the ones that have been succumbing in the big numbers.
And by the way, you know, they're rationing there, too.
Well, you're going to see, and you heard it from the simple man, the Centers for Disease Control at the end of all this say this percentage of people who died from the virus also had other things that killed them.
And they're going to break it down because they're an honest outfit.
In Atlanta, they are.
They tell the truth.
But, you know, I want the country, obviously, everybody does, to get back to normal.
I think that will happen.
But it's a painful time in history.
And we should all, as I said, keep a journal of what's happening because this is something like 9-11 that is going to be with us, and we'll be discussing it for years.
Let me ask you about your comments and your message of the day that you never sent me.
You give to everyone else but me.
But I want to ask you, you know, you were right pointing out that fake Jake Tapper over there at Fake News CNN, you know, retweets this vicious, you know, attack from a Trump hater.
You know, they're saying that Mr. Trump is insane, literally, completely.
Now, I've been playing, I played earlier in the program, I won't do it again now.
But all of the they have not stopped hating Donald Trump throughout a national pandemic.
They're actually fighting to see if their networks won't cover during a national emergency the president's press conferences every day.
There are a few things in play here.
Number one, does this do any good for the American people having the national press use the pandemic to try to diminish the president of the United States so he loses in November?
Now, the justification is Trump's worse than the virus.
That's what Tapper and these people believe.
All right?
So you've got a movement that isn't really devoted, and that's the right word, to helping the American people get through the pandemic.
Look, I don't mind, in fact, I research accusations that the federal government botched it.
I'll look into that.
If you say the Trump administration or one of their appendages didn't do what they should have done in the beginning of the Wuhan virus, I'll look at it.
I'm not going to reject it out of hand.
Nobody's perfect.
But at this point, does it do any good to call the president insane as Tapper did by retweeting that?
No.
I have a different theory.
I think the reason they want to silence him at his press briefings during a national pandemic and emergency is because he is too presidential for them, Bill.
They might help him, sure.
But I have to say that these things are going on far too long now.
And that President Trump would be smarter if he kept it to 45 minutes and was very disciplined in his messaging and maybe took 10 questions, maybe seven, because now it's just too much and people are starting to tune out.
And I think they're actually not tuning out.
I'm looking at the ratings from last night right in front of me.
They're tuning in.
Yeah, but no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Here, if you're not going to be able to do that.
You don't want me to look at the ratings.
Okay.
No, no, I want you to look at the ratings.
But that's Fox News channel ratings, right?
That's true, but if you add it all together, though, he's, I mean, yeah.
Listen to me.
Okay.
Sunday night, 60 minutes, beats, all right, the Trump press conference.
Never should have happened.
It wasn't that good a broadcast.
I watched it.
Beats him.
Okay.
Can I give a caveat on that, though?
The president was not going to have a press briefer that day, and they called it last minute, like with a half hour notice.
You know how it is.
It gets out.
All the people who like Donald Trump, admire Donald Trump, watch the Fox News channel because they're the only ones that are covering it.
All right?
So the others didn't take it.
So yeah, you're going to get a surge in there for that.
But what I'm saying to you is for the country, not for ratings, not for Donald Trump, just for the country.
Wouldn't it be better to do a very focused, precise broadcast for 45 minutes to an hour every night?
Wouldn't that be better?
He was doing that for a while.
If you remember, he'd come out, give the headlines, take some questions, introduce the medical team and Vice President Pence, and he would leave.
But lately, he's gotten in a habit of going a lot longer.
That's true.
And I think at some point at some point, you see, one of the biggest questions I have, and maybe you can help me here, because we've already two point two trillion dollars in relief.
And I think the American people want to make workers, through no fault of their own, that have lost their incomes here, whole.
That's part of the $2.2 trillion that Congress held up because of the Kennedy Center and National Endowment for the Arts.
But then you got another $4 trillion that the Fed has put aside in loan guarantees.
Now they're talking about another $2 trillion when the numbers are coming in 60 to 70 percent now below what they thought it would be in New York this week.
All their projections.
Let's wait on the extra.
You know, it's a $25 trillion debt now.
Let's wait on the extra two.
It's good to have it.
And you saw this ProPublica story that the state of New York, de Blasio, and Cuomo had a no, sold their ventilators five years ago.
So hang on a second.
That was 2006.
And they recommended by.
They sold them, I believe.
No, no, no.
Well, in 2006, Bloomberg, they recommended, they said if there's an influenza pandemic, they'd be almost 10,000 ventilators short.
Right.
Bloomberg bought 500.
Okay.
Then they didn't maintain them, and then they sold them at auction.
Now, in 2015, in November, Andrew Cuomo had a task force and said they have an obligation.
This is going to happen.
It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when.
And to save lives, there is a shortage in the state of New York of 15,783 ventilators.
Guess how many Andrew Cuomo purchased Bill O'Reilly?
None.
None.
So why are we not getting any reporting on that?
For me, that's it.
Because they cover for him.
That's right.
And so when he had a press conference today, I actually had my people tune in because I was writing the simple man has his people tuning in for people.
You have people, Hanny.
I have people.
We are people.
So my investigators watched because we were assuming there would be a question about this to Andrew Cuomo.
No.
There was one person.
Can you imagine if Trump had done that, though?
Can you imagine if Trump had taken office and then somebody said to him two and a half years ago, hey, you know, we're going to have a little pandemic, so you've got to buy some respirators and other medical supplies and masks.
And he goes, no.
I have an important question for you.
No, because listen, we know the double standard.
I'm the only one that's been hammering this because he should have bought the ventilators.
Then he's screaming at Donald Trump, who built him five hospitals, manning two of the five hospitals, including the Javit Center and the Navy hospital ship.
And he's building more hospitals, and he sent Cuomo all the ventilators that he needed.
Now he doesn't need so many.
But here's my question that I think is really important.
And I don't think there's a simple answer to this bill.
You know, we've got to get this economy open.
Now, geographically, it's going to be pretty easy.
Those areas that don't have a lot of instances of positive COVID-19, okay, that'll take care of itself hopefully sooner than later.
But what do you do in a city like New York, small geographical area with a high concentration of people?
I got to imagine that, and it's not a matter of if, but when there's a rebound.
Dr. Oz just confirmed that.
How do you open up New York City?
Well, this is what's going to happen.
The people who work in buildings are going to get their temperature taken before they enter the building every day.
Many of the buildings will require masks.
They'll have to wear them during work.
And they'll also require the spacing of six feet.
So that'll happen.
How do we open a restaurant in New York then?
That's a good question.
I was going to get to that.
It's dicey when you have people who are now coming in to attend your business.
I think they'll probably have the thermometers.
I really think that people's temperatures are going to be taken, the workers and customers, for a few months.
Now, if they do that, that's going to lessen the panic.
It's going to give people some assurance that there isn't an out-of-control virus lurking.
But I think you're going to see that happen.
Now, it'll be interesting to see what happens in Europe, because as you know, Austria and Norway and Denmark, the Czech Republic, they're opening.
And Italy, I don't think Italy can get it done myself.
I don't think they are, but I don't think they can.
But the other four can.
And it'll be interesting to see what rules they apply.
And whatever rules they apply, you're going to see that here.
You see, I think the future is going to be the temperature checks.
When I went to the Comfort to do the show, they took my temperature by just pointing something at my head.
Then you're going to have antibody tests.
Then you're going to have a five-minute test.
Hopefully we can get those machines from Abbott up and working.
But I also think things are changing.
Teleworking is going to be a big part of the solution.
I think people will probably in big cities have to be accepting masks and gloves as part of everyday life for a while, including the social distancing stuff.
Yeah.
There's no doubt about it.
I'm lucky we have the technology to do that because the thermometers can read your temperature now, what, 10 seconds, 15 seconds?
Right now, yours is 98.9.
Yeah.
I'm just kidding.
All right.
Bill O'Reilly's with us.
Hang on.
Stay there.
BillO'Reilly.com, allthingsO'Reilly.
Simple man, Bill O'Reilly, Willis 800-941.
Sean is our number.
You want to be a part of the program?
All right, so we are now 209 days away from election day.
Sanders is out supporting Biden, but holding on to his delegates, wanting to influence the party platform.
Is this now done?
It's Biden's, it's over, or are they going to try and remove him?
Well, we talked about this last week, I think.
His family and friends, Joe Biden's family and friends, very worried about him.
The PUBAs in the Democratic Party understand If he declines further, they're going to have to do something because he's not going to be able to run against Trump.
He's got to debate Trump a couple of times, maybe three.
And if he can't get the sentence out, how can he possibly win?
Well, I mean, look, he's done better.
He has plenty of time to rest.
His podcast, video podcasts, aren't doing particularly well, Bill.
You know, I wrote Killing Reagan, controversial book, because after President Reagan was shot, his mental faculties declined a little bit.
Now, he made a stunning comeback, stunning.
But there were a point where he had very, he had big problems articulating.
Right now, Joe Biden has major problems articulating.
Well, I mean, how does that happen?
You think the linchpin to this is going to be Joe Biden, his wife?
Joe Biden is running that show.
100%.
Why would she allow it to go this far and then step in last minute?
She wants it.
It's not going to be last minute.
It would be in June.
Their convention's been pushed back to August.
Right.
But you got Hillary and you got Andrew Cuomo looming.
So you think that they've, do you think there is a plan?
Do you think there's going to be an intervention?
Or do you think they're just going to tell everybody to pound sand?
Because now let's say they do that.
If you're Bernie Sanders and a Bernie Sanders supporter, you're going to say, well, he got the next highest amount of votes.
Why doesn't he get it?
That's what they'll say.
That's why Sanders is hanging tough.
Everybody knows this in the Democratic hierarchy.
This is not a secret that Joe Biden's mental acuity is being questioned.
Everybody knows.
The good news from Biden is he doesn't have to really do much between now and the summer.
You know, he couldn't even do the podcast, Hannity.
He couldn't do it.
He was from his own house.
And it was usually three hours late, and then he forgot that he was in front of the camera and he'd turn and walk away.
He couldn't do a podcast from his house.
I do a podcast on billoreilly.com five nights a week.
I can do it.
The thing is, he's as old as Joe.
I'm a little smarter than he is, but it's not that hard.
It's not that hard.
BillO'Reilly.com.
Bill stirring up the pot as usual.
Thanks, Bill.
When we come back, wide open phones, 800-941-Sean, you want to be a part of the program.
Also, we are expecting at some point in the next half hour the beginning of the coronavirus task force, their daily press briefing and updates.
We'll get to that.
Hannity, Vice President Pence, among our guests, Dr. Oz, tonight at 9.
We'll continue.
Hannity's on right now.
All right, 25 to the top of the hour.
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All right, we're waiting for the coronavirus task force daily briefing.
When that happens, we'll bring it to you.
John is in New York.
John, how are you?
Glad you called, sir.
And we got to get this city up, running, and open again.
Yes, we absolutely do, Sean.
And thank you for trying to help save American lives.
We couldn't do it without you.
And I'm compelled to call because of you and your mission of trying to help everybody.
Thank you.
You're very nice.
I appreciate it.
Listen, we got to look.
I'm a little shocked.
We're going to analyze in more detail tonight how these numbers could have been so off.
How did they get it so wrong?
But that's a separate issue.
That means less death.
That means less overcrowding in our hospitals.
That means we had enough equipment.
All of these things are all good.
But how did they get it so awfully wrong?
Sort of like polling.
But anyway, go ahead.
Yeah, well, Sean, you know, I have rheumatoid arthritis and I've been taking hydroxychloroquine for five plus years, okay?
A long time.
And that's every day, 400 milligrams.
Right?
There is, I have had no adverse effects whatsoever.
And every time I hear people say that it's dangerous and don't take it this, that, it infuriates me because it doesn't do anything.
It's safe.
And it worked.
Well, here's Luxon.
There's no more expert than this guy, Dr. Daniel Wallace, who's with Cedar Sinai Medical Center.
I mean, largest lupus practice in the U.S., 2,000 patients.
This guy in 42 years of practice, quote, no patient of mine has ever been hospitalized for HCQ complications.
He said it is a very safe drug.
You know, everyone says it's untested.
It's tested because, you know, it's been around 65 years.
Tens of millions of individuals around the world, all these other countries are giving it as part of their treatment.
It is the number one treatment option in a survey of 6,300 doctors worldwide.
And he said the risk of taking 400, which is what your daily dose is, HCQ a day, following one single 600 milligram HCQ loading dose.
He says if you take it for 30 or 60 days, he says any risk is nil unless you get a rash or an upset stomach.
You're not dying from it.
A rash or an upset stomach, you stop taking it.
But, you know, the average run of or course run for treatment of COVID-19 is five, 10, or 20 days max that I've read.
And you've been taking it five years, and you take 400 milligrams a day.
Now, there are long-term issues involving potential risk of eye retinal toxicity, and it's very low for the first five years.
Have you talked about this with your doctor?
Yes, my rheumatologist recommended me getting my eyes checked once a year.
But to be honest with you, I haven't done that yet because I've had no sign or ill effects.
Shame on me for not going yet, but I will.
You should probably just listen to your doctor.
Go get the eye check.
It doesn't take that long.
It takes, you know, 30 minutes.
Yeah, you know, and I will do that.
I'm like you.
I don't want to go to my doctor either.
I hate going to the doctor.
My doctor, he gets me in the office.
He never lets me leave.
We must have the same doctor.
Oh, my gosh.
He goes, oh, you're here.
Well, might as well get everything done.
Here, get on the treadmill.
Hurry up.
Good grief.
Why did I do this?
Well, anyway, you know, look, if there was any risk, I would tell people.
But this is a guy that now inherited the largest lupus practice in the United States, cares for two, that's 1985.
He's caring for 2,000 patients with the disease.
Majority of the patients are taking or have taken HCQ.
He's authored 400 peer-reviewed papers, written the principal lupus textbook, past chairman of the Lupus Foundation of America, the rheumatology research foundation of the American College of Rheumatology, and, you know, currently on a board of directors, Lupus Research Alliance, Lupus Therapeutics.
He's authored numerous articles on anti-malarials.
I mean, who are we going to believe, Dr. Wolf Blitzer or this guy?
I think I'll choose this guy, and I trust Dr. Oz too.
He's not looking to hurt anybody.
And we're getting, you know, all these, you know, studies that nobody in the media will even tell you about.
You know, he talked to the guy that ran the French study, a thousand people now.
That was after a smaller study that he had done.
He feels confident in the Chinese study, but he says it's well beyond anecdotal at this point.
And he says the evidence is clear and convincing to him.
And if there's no risk, as Dr. Daniel Wallace is telling us in terms of, okay, what have you got to lose?
Why wouldn't you take it?
I would myself.
But people got to consult with their own doctors.
I'm not going to play doctor on radio, but to me, everything I've read and every doctor I talk to, they're all, by the way, every doctor in Long Island I know is giving this out.
Every doctor I know around the country is giving this out to patients that are test positive COVID-19.
But anyway, listen, I'm glad you're well.
How's your arthritis?
Does it really work?
It does.
I take that with a few other things, but it definitely has helped.
And my numbers are way down at the biological level where they check every three months.
And I honestly think that nurses and doctors and firefighters and policemen, they should be taking this preventatively because it will keep them safe, save their lives, and it'll help kill the virus faster.
That for me is the fascinating science that Dr. Oz is trying to get to the bottom of.
And he's doing a clinical trial at Columbia Presbyterium where he is.
I know NYU Langone is doing one.
And that is people with lupus or rheumatoid arthritis as you have.
They're not finding any people yet.
Dr. Oz is trying to find people that have been taking hydroxychloroquine for those illnesses.
And they're trying to find somebody that has contracted COVID-19.
They can't find anybody yet.
They're looking for them actively.
You can go to Dr. Oz's website if you're one of those people.
You know, you got to open your eyes to this.
This is what we need.
It's like the holy grail.
You know, come on, America, let's go.
Enough with playing politics.
Let me tell you something.
One of the things, and I appreciate the call, John.
Thank you.
I love the idea of right to try.
Because I've watched friends die from cancer.
I've watched family members die from cancer.
And if somebody tells you, hey, this is showing some promise, some hope, and you want to give it a try, it's your life and your body.
That's why I like that the president thinks differently.
You know, the public-private partnerships were different.
We now know also the travel bans.
I don't think they're going to be viewed as so controversial moving forward if there's any sign that we could have a possible pandemic.
I also think the, you know, the partnerships with businesses, I mean, Abbott is going to produce so many of these five-minute test result things, it's going to be amazing.
The antibody testing as well, it's going to help us open our economy.
We can't keep this thing shut down and think that somehow we're going to spend ourselves into prosperity.
It's not going to happen.
And Americans, you know, the funny thing is most people want to get back to work.
Brian is in Oklahoma.
Brian, how are you?
Glad you called.
Mr. Hannity.
Yes, sir.
How are you?
I'm doing well.
Thank you, sir.
So glad to talk to you.
It's an honor to talk to you.
Hi, I just wanted to let you know on the hydroxychloroquine issue, I've been on that for over 20 years, and I have rheumatoid arthritis.
And I have had no ill effects.
And I've also, on occasion, taken the ZPAC with it.
And it has not bothered me whatsoever.
And the reason why I take the ZPAC is very like a case of an infection for bronchitis or somewhat like that.
But yeah, I have had no ill effects whatsoever.
Well, let me ask you.
So they do say that, and this is per Dr. Daniel Wallace, again, foremost expert that I can find, that there is a risk of retinal toxicity as the years go on.
Continuous use, it goes up after 10 years, up after the risk does, after 15 years.
And they usually adjust the dose downward.
Have you had your yearly eye exam?
The first 10 years I had a yearly exam, and then I went to one eye guy, and he said, You don't take enough of that to even worry about it.
Back in the early days, that's when they gave the large doses, and that's when the problems came in.
Well, Dr. Wallace is saying that after 10 years, you know, you have a 10% at 15 years continuous use in patients that are given the advised five-milligram kilogram daily dose, but you're taking more than that, right?
Yeah, I'm taking 400 milligrams a day.
Okay.
Well, I think you probably have you're probably a prime candidate.
You can check with your doctor that would probably need to get the eyes examined more often.
Correct, correct.
But like I say, as far as I know, I see fine other than I'm just old age.
Right.
Well, anyway, you know what?
Anecdotally, as the president said, they're looking for people that have been taking hydroxychloroquine for either lupus or rheumatoid arthritis that have contracted COVID-19.
So far, they can't find them.
If anyone is in that category, I urge you to go to Dr. Oz's website.
He's looking for you.
Anyway, thanks, Brian.
Glad you're up doing okay.
Julie is in California.
She's been taking Plaquenol for lupus, which is the same thing as hydroxychloroquine.
How are you?
I'm good.
Nice to speak with you, Sean.
How many years have you been taking it?
Oh, shoot, since 93.
Wow.
That was taking for lupus.
And of course, I was at three, well, I was at three pills a day at one point in my life.
And I didn't know what was worse for the doctor with the hydro.
When you say three pills a day, were they 200 milligram pills each?
They were, yes, they were each 200 milligrams.
Now, you know, I did experience some stomach ache, but other than that, it did take care of the lupus.
And now today, my doctor has since taken me off because my lupus is in solution.
But they explain you have to go to the doctor.
Or, you know, every three months I went, get your blood test every three months when I was taking that high of a dose.
And then later it dropped to about every six months to get my eyes and my blood because it will, you know, any like any kind of medication, you know, it'll affect you.
So they checked my liver to make sure it was still doing good.
And the doctors know what they're doing.
And the drug worked for what it needed.
And on top of that, I was just tripping because I was like, I never ever got the flu.
That's interesting, Julie.
See, that's what we're trying to get.
This could be a prophylactic.
Anyway, I got to let you go here.
We're going to take the president stepping to the podium for the stations along the Sean Hannity Show Network.
We'll take this to the end of the show for full coverage.
And we have Hannity tonight at 9, the Vice President, also Dr. Roz, and much more.
We'll see you then back here tomorrow, but to the task force, the coronavirus task force briefing.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
This is a holy week when religious believers across the nation will observe Passover, Good Friday, and Easter.
Millions of Jewish families begin Passover at sundown tonight, a sacred, unbroken tradition that traces back to the ancient land of Egypt.
And on Sunday, we celebrate our beautiful, wonderful Easter, which we all look forward to.
And we're going to have many Easters together in churches in the future.
We're getting closer.
You see the numbers.
We're getting much closer to getting our country back to the way it was.
We have now an extra two countries that have been attacked, 184.
They're being attacked as we speak, but we'll all win.
At some point, we're going to all win.
We're going to do it sooner than people think.
Earlier today, I spoke with 10,000 of America's faith leaders to thank them for raising the spirits of our people during these very difficult days.
While we may be physically apart, we can use this time to pray, to reflect, and to focus on our personal relationship with God.
I also spoke with more than 3,000 mayors, county commissioners, and state and tribal leaders to provide an update on our administration's ongoing drive to beat the virus, to crush the virus, and that's happening.
It's happening.
I think if you look a little bit more quickly than people thought, maybe a lot more quickly, I hope.
And it's something that all over the world we're watching, but people are watching us and seeing what we're doing, and they're very impressed.
We're dealing with many countries right now, many, many countries, and we're giving them whatever information we're able to glean.
I just spoke with the representatives of the UK, and I think that their great prime minister is doing much better today, or at least better.
But certainly he's had a tough bout, and he's still going through a tough time, but he seems to be doing better, and that's good.
And we send our regards to Boris and his family and his friends, all of the people that really love him.
He's become a very popular before this happened, became a very popular prime minister.
He's doing an excellent job.
He loves their country.
He loves our country.
So we appreciate everything he's done.
And hopefully, he's going to be okay.
Speaking of great people and people that have done a fantastic job, I have Secretary of State Mike Pompeo with us.
And I'd like to ask Mike to say a few words.
And then I think what we'll do, in order to get him back to the State Department, we'll take some questions and we'll then go on with the rest of what I'm going to say.
Then we'll take some questions after that.
And then Vice President Pence will take over.
So, Mike Pompeo, please.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Under the President's leadership, my team and I at the State Department are doing our part to protect the American people from the virus and importantly to get them home.
As you know, when many countries shut down their rail lines, their buses, their infrastructure systems, the capacity to get out of those countries, they were trapped, they were stranded.
The State Department swung into action.
Since January 29th, we have now repatriated over 50,000 United States citizens back to their homes from more than 90 countries, more than 490 flights back to the United States from all across the world.
This worldwide scale of our repatriation efforts is without parallel in our lifetime.
We are coordinating with foreign governments, militaries, airport authorities, medical units, transportation companies, hotels, you name it.
We're working with them to make sure the American people get back to be with their families.
You can see behind me the map of the flights that we have brought back, people from all across the world.
Every day I get a chance to hear some of the remarkable stories from our team.
Let me give you just a couple of examples.
Our mission in Peru, working with the Peruvian military and police forces to send river boats up the river to get citizens that were stranded deep inside the Amazon forest.
Our mission in Nepal, made sure that a woman who was running low on medication could get what she needed at a pharmacy before boarding an evacuation flight that brought her back here.
In Honduras, after the government imposed very strict 24-7 curfew and closed airports, our embassy sprang into action for stranded Americans, thousands of them.
A three-year-old boy told one of our counselor officers just before he boarded the flight, thank you for helping me get back home to my dad.
Pretty neat.
We've received similar messages from lots of people.
They're proud to know that their country will not leave them stranded and we're going to get them back home.
One woman wrote, quote, I was in tears when I received the email approving our flight back to the United States.
God bless the United States of America.
And another said, I felt like I had allies there that actually treated me like a person or a family member, not just a number.
The Repatriation Task Force, State Department, our consular officers have done great work.
I want to thank our partners in the Department of Defense who have helped with some of these flights back home and other government agencies, our sisters and brothers across the United States government and this administration that have helped get these people back.
And then lastly, aside from our repatriation efforts, we continue to help countries around the world as well.
We've got CDC officials helping these countries with expertise and all the things that these countries need to get their citizens safe and healthy and back so that we can get the economy all across the world, the global economy back on its feet when this crisis is over.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Thanks.
Maybe you stick for a little while.
Sure.
We'll see if anybody has any questions for the Secretary of State.
Anybody, please?
Sure.
Mr. Secretary, that's an amazing effort that you have made.
How do you know when you're done?
Because I imagine there are Americans on all corners of the world and you're always someone's going to pop up and say, I want to go home now.
So it's a great question.
We still have several thousand people that were working.
They identify themselves every day.
New people find themselves in difficult place.
Look, we're going to be done when people can travel on their own again.
These people traveled abroad on vacations or with their church and we're intending to get back on their own.
We hope that day comes pretty soon where they don't have to rely on the State Department to get them back home.
But know this, in the meantime, we're devoting all the resources we have to get them.
They're often in difficult places.
They're not in the capital near the airport or the roads are closed.
And so it's not just a matter of getting a flight down there.
There's a lot of work that has to be done to coordinate, to make it all happen, and get those people available so they're sitting there when the flight lands, they can get on the plane and then we can get them back home.
We still have several thousand.
We're working on it.
We chip away at that number every day.
But new citizens go to the State Department website, identify themselves and say, I need a little bit of help in some way.
And we do our best to get that to them just as quickly as we can.
We're going to keep it up as long as we have resources to do it and there is a need.
Yes, sir.
Mr. Kiribati.
How many of these staffers have tested positive for coronavirus?
Have they been tested?
Are they going into quarantine?
And what does this do to diplomatic efforts overseas if you're pulling 50,000 people out of state capital or national capitals, nation capitals all over the world?
So the vast majority of these 50,000 weren't our officers.
These were ordinary citizens who were there traveling for business or for commercial or for their trip of a lifetime.
We've seen some of that in the cruise ships, but of course they're stranded all over the world.
So our embassies, save for the one that is in Wuhan, which we did pull everybody out of, the rest of our facilities around the world are all open.
We've had a handful of our folks now test positive, but we feel like we have a good handle on it and we're doing everything we can to make sure that not just the State Department of Fairs, but our Department of Defense colleagues that are working on these missions as well are doing so in a way that reduces risk to them and their well-being also.
Yes, ma'am.
Thank you so much.
Do you feel like China helped withheld critical information from the United States and will there be any consequences for that?
You know, this is not the time for retribution, but it is still the time for clarity and transparency.
We're still working on this problem set.
There's still data that these good people need so that they can perform their analysis of how to both develop therapeutics and a vaccine and to understand where this virus is.
So every country, China included, every country needs to be transparent about what's going on in their country.
They need to share that data.
We share ours with the world so that the best scientists in the world can get to the right conclusions and bring this economy, this global economy, back to the place that we all want it to be as quickly as we can.
