Mike Huckabee Hosts “Huckabee" on TBN, he is a Fox News contributor, author, and former Governor of Arkansas,and Geraldo Rivera, Fox News Legal Analyst and author of The Geraldo Show, discuss and debate the civil liberties aspect of the COVID 19 shutdown. What’s happening in Michigan today with Governor Whitmer shows just how outraged the American people are with government overreach. 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.
It's, I mean, you think back, all right, it was Super Tuesday.
Everybody was fully on focused on the Super Tuesday results.
And maybe that's why so many people were saying, oh, even on fake news, CNN Anderson Cooper, you should worry about the flu.
I'm not even being that critical, except that these idiots, all they want to do is politically bludgeon the president.
He didn't act fast enough when there's nobody that acted faster.
How he thought of this travel ban when those around him said, oh, it's too early.
It's not necessary.
And even February 29th, Dr. Fauci, who I respect a lot, was saying the same thing.
And that is the risk is low and giving perspective.
All of those things are true.
Look, I've been doing a lot of thinking about this.
And I think that, by the way, as we speak, protesters have surrounded the Michigan Capitol protesting Whitmer's coronavirus lockdown.
I wonder if that means that's the end of her wonderful chance at being the ever-confused quid pro quo Joe Biden's running mate.
But anyway, she's catching a lot of hell at home because if you live in Michigan, they're saying this is an excessive quarantine, stay-at-home orders, and it's exploding all over the state of Michigan.
And, you know, there's got to be some sensibilities that are used here, common sense used here.
We're talking about human beings.
We're talking about people that have lives that they themselves want to live.
And you're going to have to balance it.
That's just a fact.
You know, if you look, it's not hard.
It's not complicated to figure out.
I mean, even Detroit, I mean, what is the state of Michigan?
Detroit's like half of what the population once was.
I mean, it's been a city in dramatic, unfortunate decline.
There is new manufacturing there since Donald Trump has become president.
Those jobs that were never coming back started coming back.
My guess is as we eventually get to a post-mortem on things that are going to have to change moving forward, one of them is the reliance on China for pharmaceuticals or even, you know, it's come up as a challenge.
The agents, if you will, chemical agents needed to do the COVID-19 testing, well, a lot of those raw materials actually come from China.
Okay, that supply chain has to be, we need a shift.
We can't be depending on China or any other country for something that, you know, at some point could be about national safety, security, and defense.
You always have these abuses.
I mean, look, as we now move into the phase, assuming we're getting to that time, the leveling off is here, the plateau, the apex, as they were calling it, reached, a downward slope has begun.
Sad lagging indicator are the number of people that have died now at about 26,000.
Hopefully we can mitigate in these other areas that we describe as hotspots.
But, you know, then you're going to have a pretty big, massive challenge.
It's not going to be hard, for example, to open up some of these areas that are not densely populated.
I mean, it's just not going to happen.
And if we're smart, and I mean, some people have been criticizing Governor Christy Noam, who's been on this program.
I mean, she didn't close down her state, but she called on her citizenry in South Dakota to use good common sense, have respect for their neighbors, and even restaurants stayed open there.
And they have under 1,000 cases of positive COVID-19.
We don't want any positives, but that's just not reality.
You got to deal with the reality of what you're facing.
But I think that the next phase is going to ratchet up really quickly, and you're going to have the mob and the media.
They're going to transition to two things again because all they ever want to do is bludgeon Donald Trump.
And it's not about helping people.
It's not about answers.
It's not about solutions.
It is about politics and about what happens in 202 days.
That's why the Democrats have been fighting so hard to change election laws, even going as far as the Commonwealth of Virginia.
You will no longer need any photo ID.
Okay.
Same day registering.
Okay.
How do we know you are who you say you are?
There's got to be some way to validate that.
And I guarantee you, assuming that they do have a Democratic National Convention, well, if they like past conventions, well, I needed an ID to get into the arena where these conventions were being held.
They're such hypocrites.
But the next phase is going to be the reopening.
Now, the president rightly suggested that, you know, some states can now begin the process of reopening now.
They'll be laying out a full comprehensive plan.
You get to the more densely populated areas.
Probably the biggest challenge by far is a place like New York City.
But then you have challenges in cities like Atlanta, Charleston even.
Certainly Detroit would be one of them or some Florida cities or, you know, there are highly, more highly concentrated areas.
So, all right, so how do you get there?
Well, the next the next ventilator charge is going to be on testing, which has already begun.
That's not new.
One of the, I don't think we've identified yet because every day there is, there is a new development in terms of testing.
Like now we could test antibodies.
They can produce, I think I heard this morning, you know, like 20 million a week.
Okay, that it's, we should adopt an all the above testing strategy, but I think it's a vital component and critical and probably the top priority item that we will need at this point.
What is the most accurate test that can be mass produced the fastest?
In other words, positive tests for or negative tests for COVID-19, that's part of it.
Antibody tests, that's part of it.
It doesn't have to be the Abbott five-minute test.
They also have a six and a half hour result test.
And there are other labs that can have results within 24, 48 hours, but it still helps you open the workplace successfully.
With that said, there are new tests evolving daily.
And perhaps you adopt an, okay, let's produce all of the above.
And between all of them, we should have enough that big cities, even densely populated areas like New York City would be able to open.
But why is that important?
Because if we can get that part handled and it's not easy, I mean, you know, I love these people, these politicians just snap their fingers.
They just snap their fingers as if this should get done.
And it's pretty amazing.
But, you know, oh, by the way, sweet baby James, can you tell Linda the article I'm talking about?
Yes, please.
Anyway, so testing is vital.
All of that is vital.
What's the most accurate test we can mass produce?
And by mass producing, I'm talking about tens of millions.
Tests, whether you're positive or negative for COVID-19, whether you had it, that's the antibody test.
These testing methods are evolving daily.
Maybe we do 20 different kinds of testing and you know, we just to get as many testing options out there.
But again, it's not easy.
You have the agents that necessarily are needed to produce them.
That's part of the challenge also.
But when you get to the point where you can mass produce them, that's when I think you have your strongest weapon in preventing what is the predictable rebound, not the if we rebound, the when we rebound and where we rebound.
And then you got to get into some other issues about how do you contain hotspots.
One of the things New York just announced today is that there was an executive order by Governor Cuomo ordering and mandating that people wear masks.
And I know we already have in the production line millions and millions and tens of millions of masks being produced.
Many on order.
More will be needed.
But those numbers are going to be high in terms of the actual numbers we'll need to open up successfully.
And it's crucial because we can't shut the country down like this again.
If we do, I don't know how you ever recover.
I just don't see it.
Gloves are certainly, I would think, the easiest to produce.
But again, tens of millions would be needed.
I would say every building in a city like New York and every other big city, you know, might want to have a box of gloves if you happen to leave yours at home and available.
Similarly, I assume that thermometers are going to be in high need.
If you want to get into a densely populated area and a big building somewhere like New York City, I think the answer to that is going to be, okay, the non-invasive, no-contact thermometer.
That would be ideal.
You wait your turn, get your temperature.
If you have a high temperature, they have to send you home.
Another thermometer that they can use is this paper throwaway thermometer, but they actually have those that can be used repeatedly.
And I think those can be mass-produced very, very quickly.
So that'll be, again, I assume, a pretty easy acquisition.
This battle, which we'll get into in more detail between the governors and who makes the decision on what state opens when.
Look, at the end of the day, the federal government should put out guidelines.
Some may need to be mandatory.
And if they are, I'm sure they'll be self-evident.
But, you know, put the most difficult federal guidelines in place.
In other words, model it after the most difficult reopening challenge like New York City, and then let the governors on the ground in their states along with other state representatives then let them make their own decisions.
I mean, we don't have a nanny state.
We can't have feds on every corner monitoring people's temperatures and seeing if they are social distancing and wearing their masks.
But, you know, it's what I said.
It's all part of a new normal that nobody likes.
Nobody liked the new normal of going through TSA to get into an airplane and taking off our shoes and our phones and, you know, emptying our pockets, getting wanded.
If you go anywhere with Sweet Baby James, you're wandered everywhere you go.
But for the foreseeable future, I still think non-essential workers now continue to work from home wherever possible.
That allows more social distancing in highly populated areas, densely populated areas, and that dramatically lowers the chances of a rebound in those hotspot areas in those densely populated cities.
You probably need gloves and masks at least temporarily, part of a new normal to achieve that.
Again, you're going to need the mass quantities of them.
I would say, you know, again, you know, we're getting into fine lines here.
In the event, what do you do when a person wants to get into a big building and they can't get into the big building because they have a temperature?
Okay, are you going to create a registry?
No, we can't do that.
We're the United States.
Medical privacy, civil liberties, constitutional rights, no government databases.
That's crucial, or else you're not going to get the compliance of the American people.
And what's unfolding in Michigan right now will unfold across the entire country.
So if someone has a high temp, you give them a sheet of guidelines.
All right, we suggest you go see a doctor.
Here's a plan to protect your family at home and you kind of self-quarantine away from family members, especially older members of your family, compromised immune systems, underlying conditions.
If people want to get on mass transit, they've got to have a mask and gloves.
If they don't have it, you don't do what they did in Pennsylvania, just rip the guy out of the bus.
At least if we provide police departments with gloves and masks, all right, if you don't have one, offer one to them.
If they won't comply, then they got to do what they've got to do and they got to protect the other people on the mass transit.
As far as restaurants go, I have some ideas.
I think open arenas, concerts, baseball, football.
Look, as a fan, for me to go to a Yankee game or a football game, I wouldn't be against taking my temperature before walking in.
That's my own personal view.
Maybe some of you would hate it.
If they'd say for a temporary period till this whole thing is done, you got to wear a mask and gloves while you're at the game.
I think it wouldn't bother me that much.
I'm very frank.
I mean, I have a mask.
I have gloves.
I've worn it into the grocery store just the first time last week, and it didn't bother me.
I wore it all the time when I was a contractor.
Didn't bother me then.
But, Sean, can I just say one thing about that real quick?
What?
I have a real problem with people wearing gloves and then keeping their gloves on, and then they touch everything and they contaminate everything.
That's not the point of the gloves.
So you're just cross-contaminating everything by wearing gloves and then touching everything.
You have to be like real keen on disposal.
And disposal doesn't mean tossing them in a parking lot.
It means putting them in a trash can.
Okay.
I bet you separate your trash, don't you?
Yes, I do.
Okay.
Yo, what do you think the odds are I do?
I'm not going to ask that question.
All right, 25 to the top of the hour, 800-941.
Sean, you want to be a part of the program?
Bill O'Reilly, all things simple man coming up later in the program today.
But look, there's a new normal, but you got to be careful.
I see an article out there today, a poll out.
This was on John Solomon's website, Just the News.
55% of Independents, 54% of Republicans oppose surveillance measures.
Democrats favor them 4938.
Now, the question is, to end a locked national lockdown, would you favor or oppose requiring everyone to take a coronavirus blood test?
And some people wear electronic ankle bracelets.
I dealt with this the other day, and I pointed out countries that have adopted these draconian measures and making people keep their location services portion of their iPhone open, and they are being tracked.
When I say that medical privacy is crucial, I'm not kidding around.
Do you really, you know what that means?
That is your government database right there.
That is your private medical condition.
And you got to believe in medical privacy.
I thought, where's the right to choose here?
That is not an option that's going to go over well in the United States.
I'm not going to support it.
You're going to come to my house and tie me down to my chair and drag my blood out of me because that's what's going to happen.
That's just dumb and totally and completely unnecessary.
Remember, you got to remember the motives here.
Unfortunately, you know, it's the Ram Rambo Deadfish Emmanuel mantra.
You know, never let a good crisis go to waste because you can get things done that you could never otherwise get done.
Now, we saw that with the withholding of funds by the Democrats.
What was their hope initially?
It was to change election laws.
It was to change immigration laws.
It was funding their pet projects.
They ended up even getting $75 million for the National Endowment for the Arts, another $75 million National Endowment for the Humanities, $25 million down from the requested $35 million for the Kennedy Center for the Arts in D.C. that then subsequently gets the money and then they fire every one of their employees or paying twice.
Unbelievable.
They at least could have kept their employees working with all the freebies we were giving them.
You see what's unfolding in Michigan today.
This is real.
Gretchen Whitmer clarifying her stay-at-home order because the people of Michigan are absolutely exploding because of the excessive quarantine measures that she has put in place.
And by the way, the Michigan Democratic representative I saw was in the White House yesterday.
It was pretty interesting.
We played a part of that.
Look, just if you want answers that are reasonable, that I think people would accept, I think most people are good people.
And I think Christy Noam really hit the sweet spot in South Dakota.
She never closed down her state and even restaurants were open.
And she said, I just reminded people in South Dakota to be responsible on their own, be good citizens on their own, and keep the social distancing, make smart decisions.
They've got under 1,000 cases.
I know it's less densely populated and they don't even have a state income tax.
What the hell am I doing in New York?
What is wrong with me?
Linda, you can answer that question too.
I mean, listen, I feel you, brother.
I mean, I want to get out of here.
Well, you did get out of New York.
You were smart.
I'm not telling anyone where you went, but you're not in New York anymore.
Listen, I'm proud of my state of Pennsylvania.
I'm under a Democratic governor, though, so it's not much better.
Well, the taxes are a little better.
A little better.
The accent is the same.
Except the combination.
Sexually combination makes it more acute.
All right, so the testings are going to be key, but that is evolving like every day.
Antibody tests, five-minute tests, six and a half-hour tests, 24-hour tests.
It's got to be done anonymously.
If companies want to do it, buildings want to do it in New York.
You start with the temperature check.
You have a non-invasive thermometer.
I had this when I went to the Navy hospital ship, The Comfort.
They just point this thing at your head, and I was 98.8.
Took my temperature yesterday with one of those little paper thermometer things.
I was 97.8.
Just to test it out.
Somebody brought one to me, and it's actually reusable, that thing.
That's pretty amazing, too.
You can just kind of put it back in its pack and use it again.
All right.
So now in New York, there's an executive order mandating people wear masks.
For New York, frankly, I want everybody in a mask right now.
Does that sound weird?
Look, if they're not, I don't have to be near them.
You could still do the social distancing thing.
But I would assume If you go with this new normal that half the workforce, not essential, can work from home, it works.
We've pulled it off on this show.
We pulled it off on television.
We now use two control rooms with maybe six people total helping put Hannity on the air every night and one person near me, and that's it.
Not even near me, as far away as he can get from me.
Sweet baby James is in another room here.
I have to yell, James.
You know, there's a lot of that going on here.
So in the interim, people wear masks.
You don't want to rebound.
We can't shut the economy down again.
I think most people volunteer.
The thermometers, all right, we're going to need millions of those.
We're going to need millions, tens of millions of tests.
We're going to need tens of millions of masks.
A lot of these are in the pipeline already.
I think the testing is going to be the clear challenge in the short term to get the numbers that we're going to want and need, but we can get the antibody test, the positive COVID-19 test, but it's got to be private.
You know, and I would say that the federal government should issue guidelines and issue them based on a densely populated area like New York.
And then these governors have to take on their responsibility.
A lot of governors want the federal government to do everything for them, including bail them out completely financially when they were near bankrupt already.
That can't happen.
You can't have the people in this country, especially after we're helping out workers and hospital rebuilding hospital supplies and ventilators and face masks and shields and gloves and gowns and everything in between and putting this $6.2 trillion package together.
It's not about getting your budget balanced on the back of the American people right now.
That would be an abuse of the system.
So in the city like New York, densely populated, half the workforce is at home.
Temperature checks entering a building, kind of like a post-9-11 change.
You're waiting online.
You take off your shoes.
You throw your crap out of your pocket.
You get wanded if you're anywhere near Sweet Baby James is part of what happens.
But medical privacy is paramount.
You don't need to, nobody needs to have their personal medical information revealed.
Civil liberties paramount.
Our Constitution doesn't get thrown out the window or shredded because of a pandemic.
No government databases.
And, you know, if you're going to drag a guy out of a mass transit bus in Pennsylvania, you know, maybe as we consider the millions and tens of millions of gloves and masks, maybe we give police, firemen, EMTs extra ones because if they go on a bus, maybe the guy on the bus didn't have his or left his home, but he still needs to get to work.
Give him one before you go to the, you know, plan B, which is pulling his ass off the bus.
But I think most people, they're not going to want to be on the bus with the guy without the mask for the time being.
Now, restaurants, it's just, it is what it is.
It's more challenging.
Is it possible to open them?
Yeah, maybe less capacity for the start.
I'd like to see these places open.
Furthermore, I'd like to see restaurants and open arenas for concerts and baseball games and football games happen.
Now, maybe that means people get a temperature check going into an outdoor Major League Baseball game or an NFL game.
The NFL and Major League Baseball can pull this off and maybe masks and gloves and temperature checks, whatever.
Maybe that's a part of it there.
And if you're really sick, you're going to have to, unfortunately, stay home probably this fall.
But everyone else should be able to go.
Now, I want to just look, we have seen the best in the American people, and you just see the absolute revolting, repulsive, sadly predictable behavior of the mob and the media and the Democrats.
I mean, this mob is insane.
It is real serious psychosis.
The same predictable people, everyone else goes on, everybody jumps on board to help, except these two specific groups every time.
The president is acting 10 days after the first known case of Corona in the U.S. Puts the travel ban in effect.
I'll keep saying it because nobody else is repeating it.
That saved untold thousands of Americans from contracting the disease exponentially, mathematically dying.
And it bought us time to better prepare for what might happen at that point.
But the Democrats were too busy impeaching the president.
Nancy Pelosi was impeaching the president when the travel ban, and he was being criticized by everybody being racist and xenophobic.
She on February 24th was in Chinatown and San Francisco saying, come be with us.
Crowds are fine.
Blah, blah, blah.
You know, just like fake news CNN, Anderson Cooper, their lead guy, is telling people March 4th, ah, flu is worse.
We're more about the flu.
And, you know, Dr. Fauci, February 29th, was saying the risk is low.
And as late as I think March 9th was saying, if you're healthy, you can probably go on a cruise ship.
So we didn't know a lot.
China's partly responsible for it.
Others just, you know, want to point fingers and they're the biggest, most egregious idiots in all of this.
The 10% of idiots.
It's not the 90%.
Dear colleague Pelosi, this Easter weekend provided me with a time for deep prayer and reflection.
Okay, again, really?
I'm prayerfully impeaching the president.
Here we go again.
You know, you're about to get whacked when you read or hear Nancy Pelosi's praying and reflecting.
This is an unbearably sad time.
All Americans sharing the same devastating experience, grieving for those who have died from the coronavirus.
We are fearful.
Our health and especially the health of our loved ones, and we are heartbroken for our children who are unable to be in school and with their friends.
I hate to break this to people, teachers, professors.
I can speak for the kids that I know.
They're not that heartbroken.
There are some seniors that wish they could be there.
They're upset about graduation, et cetera.
I know a lot of students that are happy because they're not in school, but putting that aside, and they'll get back in school.
As Americans who are suffering pressures, economic hardship, all of us want to resume precious, beautiful lives that America's unique freedoms provide.
We will overcome this moment, but success requires one fundamental from which all action will follow.
We need the truth.
To succeed in this crisis, we must insist on the truth.
We must act upon it.
In order to move forward, we must first understand the truth of what has put us in this position.
Okay, I'll tell you the truth, Nancy.
It's not in your letter.
You were obsessed with impeachment.
You and all your Democratic friends.
You, when the president put the travel ban in effect 10 days after the first known case in the U.S., you were involved in impeachment.
That's where your head was at.
The truth is Donald Trump dismantled the infrastructure handed to him, which was meant to plan for and overcome a pandemic, resulting in unnecessary death and economic disaster.
No, that's a lie.
In your prayer and your reflection, obviously some dark thoughts must have snuck in because that those supplies were never replenished by N1H1Joe and Obama, 60.8 million Americans contracted H1N1 or N1H1 if you're Joe.
The truth is, in January, Trump was warned about this pandemic, ignored warnings, took insufficient action.
Okay, you're lying.
Nobody acted faster.
We didn't identify corona till January 7th worldwide.
First case in the U.S., January 21st.
Travel ban, January 31st.
Quarantine, first in 50 years, follows.
Subsequent travel bans.
No Democrat liked it or supported it.
You were impeaching.
And then a month later, you were telling people it's fine to go out in public.
You know, we didn't have proper testing available.
Well, when you have a new virus, you got to develop it.
No sequence of a virus was ever broken down more quickly.
The truth is of an incompetent reaction to this health crisis, the strong economy handed to Donald Trump.
No, the strong economy began with Donald Trump once we got rid of the Obama-Biden disastrous economy.
The truth is, a week, it's all political.
It is all political.
It is the worst.
And now, not only did they play around and delay monies for workers, necessary monies for hospital frontline workers, the monies for small business, the monies for big business, they withheld that money so they can change laws and take advantage of what was going on.
They withheld that money over a week.
Now they're doing the same thing for PPP money.
And now Nancy Pelosi is playing politics, which is the only thing.
Her rage against Trump is politics.
President is saying we're not paying the WHO, which was nothing but propaganda for the Chinese government that was lying and covering all this up for the world.
He said they must be accountable.
President has the authority to do that.
And it is just, I look at this group of people.
They are a group of psychotic liars.
The media mob smear slander besmirchment every second, every hour, every day, even during a national emergency.
Even during a pandemic, propaganda outlets, state-run television, radical Democratic Socialist Party, they have been, along with the Democrats, a hateful and destructive force for the country.
I've been saying it for three years plus.
They think they're smarter.
They think they're better.
They're not.
And as we roll along our two Sean Hannity show, 800-941.
Sean, if you want to be a part of the program, I've been warning people about how Americans will not accept an invasion of medical privacy, how the methods that are used in other countries of tracking people and this poll out that shows Democrats would support every American having to give their blood and people with COVID-19 positive tests have to wear ankle bracelets.
It's not going to go over well.
If you don't believe me, take a look at what's happening as we speak in Michigan as the governor has put fairly draconian isolation orders in place.
And now you've got 300,000 people in Michigan now have a petition to recall the governor.
As of this morning, the roads were jam-packed all through Capitol Avenue, the one three-way lane road that was bumper to bumper for miles and miles north of the Capitol in Michigan.
And, you know, it's taking a sledgehammer to an ant.
It's just, we don't have the options of what some other countries do as when it comes to the idea of reopening.
Dr. Oz, our medical aid team, back with us today.
And you've been doing a deep, deep, deep dig and dive on how to reopen the country.
You know, we know, for example, we had Governor Christy Noam on yesterday from South Dakota.
She never closed her country or state down, never once.
She reminded people about their responsibilities, and people complied voluntarily.
And they even kept restaurants open, and she even was being widely criticized for doing that.
Some of the things that she is doing, coupled with the, we're getting new testing avenues every day, the antibody tests, the five-minute test, the six-hour test, the overnight test, the one-week test.
If we do all the above in a highly densely populated area like New York, it should be all the above if we want to open up New York City, right?
Question.
And interestingly, the lab companies reported today that the volume of testing they're doing has shrunk.
And I was surprised by that, but I think it's because a lot of people either gave up trying to get tested because they never could get tested or they know what they got.
And then, you know, they're just sitting at home not needing to get an official diagnosis.
But to your point, the biggest challenge with forcing people to get tested, then labeling, then marking them.
I mean, I understand the theoretical reasons.
I've been in these conversations.
But it's pretty easy to hack that system, right?
So now I either don't get tested because I don't want to be in the system, or if I'm forced to get tested, I can actually just send out a note saying, hey, listen, I tested COVID-19 positive, and 50 people that I've been spending time with in the last three days are now wrongly going to be forced to be quarantined when that doesn't really move the needle for them.
I think we have the wherewithal in America to figure this out, but we're going to do it not by starting in Midtown Manhattan.
But for example, Governor Noam in South Dakota, she's been able to manage this already.
Let's continue to test aggressively in her state.
By the way, they have in that state Stanford Healthcare, which a lot of people on the phone may not have heard of.
It's the largest rural health care provider in the country.
I've known them for years.
They're led by some really innovative people.
Let's just get some data around what works in South Dakota.
Because you know what?
If we make a mistake, people are already spread out enough that we're not going to have hospitals jam-packed to the gills.
We'll be able to bounce back.
And one concrete little thing I figure out is, can kids go to school?
Because there you have a clear downside, maybe for some kids, a really devastating downside.
And we can figure out that because kids don't get sick or they don't pass it to each other, it's not as dangerous for them.
If they are in school, then maybe we'll get comfortable so that when the fall comes, we're not going to have a battle in the major urban areas of whether these kids go to school or not.
And let's build from there.
And from there, you go to the basic work issues, then restaurants.
Because I can imagine how restaurants can be safe, right?
Initially, you can socially distance the tables from each other.
Within one table, you'd be contaminated, but the people around you wouldn't be on top of you.
And then people get their mojo back and they build.
Let me go to things that we've talked about.
First of all, as a medical professional, the New York Times printed this.
I was shocked when I read it that New York City added nearly 4,000 people, over 3,700 people to its death tolls that they assume died of coronavirus, but had never been tested.
You can't falsify data like that.
That data is so dramatically important for any decision-making down the road that we're going to make, isn't it?
Of course it is important.
But then again, people die from heart attacks from not going to the hospital.
And so let me just paint the picture for you.
You're sitting at home.
And we know, by the way, the number of people coming to see doctors like me, I'm a heart doctor, has dropped 60%.
All right, so why do they drop 60%?
Are we having 60% less heart attacks?
No.
I mean, staying at home is more stressful for some people.
So let's say some of it's because you're not commuting an hour to work every day.
But undoubtedly, people are not going to get medical care because they're fearful of COVID-19 and thinking they'll get it at the hospital.
So even if it's not caused by COVID-19 indirectly, I could imagine a scenario where people would argue, well, it's still part of the overall issue.
But I got a bigger beef on this issue.
I think that we have a lot more people infected than we think.
Some of them may have gotten sick at home and not known it or knew it and they were too scared or they couldn't get care, whatever the issue is.
But I think there are a lot of people who actually have had very minor symptoms, gotten it over, never got tested, never bothered to enter the health care system.
If we find out that number is as big as it might be, then it means that we've already had a lot of people get through it.
And that might be a good harbinger for what's going to happen over the next year as we weigh the moral dilemma of how much to expose at least the young healthy members of society.
Let me use myself as a barometer because first of all, and we've talked at length, how do you open up a densely populated city like New York and the challenges?
And you and I, I think we've been on the same page, and that is, you know, we keep 50% non-essential workers home for the foreseeable future.
Gloves and masks are a part of it.
Temperature taking going into a building is part of it.
Building out the testing.
By the way, New York announced an executive order, the governor, that mandates people wear masks and gloves.
And, you know, we're producing them.
I'll be honest, I prefer if people have masks on right now.
I'm just being honest.
Of course.
And I think most people don't have a problem with that, but you can't have a database.
You need medical privacy.
I think you agree with all of that too.
You know, this idea, I think they're scaring people when they start talking about mandatory coronavirus blood tests.
And a majority of Democrats, interestingly, not independents and not Republicans, favor that.
That kind of shocked me a little bit.
And I think you're beginning to see pushback.
The state of Ohio also is demanding a reopening, as are other states now.
And to do it safely, thermometers, gloves.
I want to be able to get to a baseball game outside in a football game.
Can you do that with temperature tests?
And people, you know, if they say you want to go to the game, you have to wear a glove and masks.
I think people would still go.
I would go.
I'm just speaking for myself.
I could see it happening, but that obviously is not the first step.
And I know you're not saying that.
And I also think that could happen in some parts of the country a lot faster than others.
But I'll tell you, since you're bringing up this privacy issue, my biggest concern with forcing people to do things is they go underground.
They hide.
It's hard to force people to take care of themselves.
And so let's just take an example of Georgia, which is a conservative state.
They've got a Republican governor.
And I interviewed Governor Kemp today.
And, you know, as you know, I have a partnership with this with SharedCare, which is one of the biggest health data companies out there.
They help people figure out how to take care of themselves and then get them into the healthcare system if you need it.
So they built this thing called the COVID Coach.
And they built it for the cops.
And you know why?
Because the cops never went home and stayed home because they couldn't.
And they didn't socially distance themselves because when they're arresting someone, you can't do that.
So they built it so these guys could every day get quizzed about whether there are things happening that might worry them.
That if they want to, they can quickly hit the button.
They get sent to a testing center that would take them immediately.
Georgia texts a partner.
So for example, they'd be right there and they can get tested and it's reliable testing.
And then if you need a helpline or a doc to speak to, it's right there.
Now, what does that do?
That makes it easy for people to do the right thing.
A cop wants to stay healthy.
You know, we've had five to ten percent of police officers in areas that have been hit taken out of the force.
And then other police officers get nervous because they're seeing all their buddies fall, and then you sort of like a domino.
So you see these kinds of programs work.
If, for example, Georgia, which is the tech capital of the South right now, because they've got all those engineering schools, if they become successful and then Florida picks it up, and then South Carolina, you see something that fits the sensibilities of that part of the country.
You're going to have a different sensibility in the Pacific Northwest.
Those states should be doing their own little deal, but sort of similarly, give people the choice.
Most people are going to want to take it.
If you make it easy to do the right thing, again, they'll do it.
And then so on and so forth for all over the country.
And I asked Governor Kemp today when I was interviewing him, where the governors are talking to each other.
And he said, actually, the White House task force has been really good about getting, and the vice president is on all these calls about getting all the governors to exchange best practices.
I just wish I was understanding what they were thinking.
It's just not as transparent to me.
So sometimes we're not as aware of what they're doing then as they are doing.
And Governor Kemp seemed like he was on top of the game, and they haven't had a bad event yet.
And they've had, you know, one or two outbreaks, but it haven't been that bad.
And they're not going to peak till the first week of May.
So his game plan, I think, is to use these kinds of technologies and new ideas and other initiatives, keep the first responders healthy.
If it works for them, roll it out to the average person.
The school teachers and the other civic workers eventually have more in the state because they'll see each other doing it.
And then that'll work for that half-rural, half-urban state.
You know, I think, though, there's got to be, let's say, people anonymously, you're going into a building, you shouldn't have to be registered to get your temperature checked.
And let's say you have a high temperature, or if they do have a five-minute COVID test at some point, or an antibody test, whatever.
I think they've got to be given a pretty comprehensive set of instructions how to stay safe and protect family members, people you live with.
I think that's part of it.
I think, you know, here are the testing sites, and your number will be called if you're just given a number, but there's no record of it.
Get tested.
I think everyone's on the same page.
I think people aren't going to do it otherwise.
Forget about whether we think it's a good idea or not.
They're just not going to do it.
And by the way, I don't blame them.
And nobody trusts the listen.
I don't trust people with information like that.
And I'm sure over the years you know how acutely people are aware and want and frankly deserve medical privacy.
Back to the issue, though, assuming we're going to get back up and running in a challenge like an outdoor concert, football game, baseball game, I think people are going to want to go.
I'm guessing.
And even if they take your temperature non-invasive when you get there, it doesn't take long.
You just get enough thermometers.
We'll have to ratchet up production of those.
And then gloves and masks you have to wear.
To me personally, is it ideal?
No.
Would I do it?
Yeah.
I do it for a couple of reasons.
Because the guys selling hot dogs and beer and memorabilia, they're out of work right now.
I do it because it'd be nice to get out in the fresh air.
I'd do it because it'd be, you know, back to as normal a life as possible.
But if you don't do it with the masks and the gloves, you probably can't do it.
Well, you know what's going to make it easier to make that decision?
When we actually find out how many of us have truly been infected.
Let's just take a create a scenario.
Let's say the mortality rate for young people who don't have comorbidities is not hugely different from the flu.
Right?
Let's just pretend.
Then you're going to start to see a lot of young people say, you know, I'm willing to take the chance.
Now, we may not want them to take the chance.
We may be hyper-aware of how dangerous that could be for their great-grandparents or their grandparents.
But as long as they are not going to go see someone they love dearly after being at a ballgame, then you can begin to see America understanding that.
And that's why I think the big cultural debate we're going to have to have is how to take care of the people who taught us about life.
How are we going to make sure that folks who have comorbid conditions or a bit older are taken care of and not forced to face infections while letting the rest of the country, which might be able to weather an infection if they got it, to deal with it?
We said this before: 90%, 90% of the hospitalized patients have comorbid conditions.
So if you're a 25-year-old person with no problems at all, you're just not going to end up in a hospital, most likely.
All right, we'll have more with Dr. Oz tonight.
Medical aid team has been doing a phenomenal job.
You know, your show airs at all hours of the day and night.
I figured out.
If I miss it, I can find it in another place at a different time.
It's all over the place.
By the way, I read your ratings are up like 75%.
And I can tell you why, because you're giving out good information and people see it and want it.
Good for you.
We're proud of you.
God bless you.
All right, by the way, we have Rosanna is in Michigan, apparently at the protest in Lansing that started earlier today surrounding the Michigan Capitol regarding Governor Whitmer's lockdown order.
Rosanna, I heard a lot of people showed up.
Oh, yeah, thousands of thousands.
We've been here before noon from when it started, and we're just getting into the Capitol area.
Wow.
Pretty amazing.
And tell me why exactly, because I think this is a canary in the coal mine that governors around the country better be paying attention to.
Yes, sir.
I think so.
We have no problem with shelter in place.
We're supposed to be doing that until the end of April.
So the only person I'm with right now is my daughter who lives with me.
But we just think these updated restrictions from our governor, we think she's just gone a little bit too far now.
Yeah, well, how is everyone feeling about her, you know, obvious consideration and almost lobbying efforts from my perspective to be on the ticket with the ever-confused quid pro quo Joe Biden?
You know what?
I think I'd have to agree with you because why else would you go so, so far?
So, so restrictive.
And we're not the only ones who feel this way.
We're surrounded by thousands of people.
Great energy here today.
Well, good for you people.
By the way, you folks in Michigan, on Tuesday, it is interesting.
All of the women that are on the VP shortlist, he said he'd pick a woman, have been silent on the sexual assault allegation.
AOC, however, is saying the Democratic Party needs to address this sexual assault problem.
We'll be watching this in more detail.
800-941-SHAWN.
If you want to be a part of the program, when we come back, all things simple man, Bill O'Reilly.
Download it to your iPod.
Me a Hannity Insider at Hannity.com.
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All right.
Time that music.
Leonard Skinner, simple man, showing me one thing.
All things Bill O'Reilly at BillO'Reilly.com.
He says he's a simple man.
Do you have a simple answer to opening the country, including a densely populated city, 11 million people in a small geographical area like New York?
What's your plan?
How are you?
First of all, I'm okay, but I have a question for you before I give you the answer.
You know, I love this.
I invite you on to ask you questions.
It's the Sean Hannity Show.
You have your own shows.
No, but it's important.
Okay.
Am I a Hannity insider?
Am I a Hannity insider?
Oh, payback.
So I'm Payback.
Now, did you and Linda manipulate that?
Was this like part of a conspiracy?
Bill, don't tell me.
I don't know.
Did you sign up to be a Hannity insider?
I gave you like $25,000.
Okay.
Simple man has these simple untruths.
But I will, can we, Linda?
Can you arrange for Mr. O'Reilly to be a Hannity insider and then also arrange for me to be a Man?
I want a little shirt.
All right, so opening the country, right?
Did you know?
Yes.
And I think you probably do.
Idaho opens today.
No more stay-at-home order for Idaho today.
First one.
South Dakota never closed.
It rolls out.
Yeah, South Dakota did, and you interviewed the governor there.
But it kind of rolls out across.
But what I'm watching more closely than that is Europe.
So yesterday, Austria, the small businesses open.
And tomorrow, Czech Republic.
Germany announced on Monday.
So they're all kind of opening slowly, which is, I think, smart.
Here in the United States, we're going to have a similar situation that the states like Wyoming and the Dakotas that aren't impacted will get back to work faster.
New York City in the down area where I am and you are, that's going to be last because we're on top of one another here.
And I think that's the logical way to do it.
But the reason that it's important, and you know, the opposition to President Trump doesn't want any of this.
Of course, they want to shut it down as long as it can be shut down.
Hey, Bill, do you want to laugh at this?
They're trying to prevent Donald Trump from continuing to build the wall while this is going on.
Can you believe it?
Look, but it's to their benefit.
And if you look at the New York Times, which is always the barometer of the opposition, it's one after another after another.
Oh, oh, no, no, no, we can't do this.
We can't do that.
It's we can't.
Not yes, we can.
It's no, we can't.
Because to them, and we've said this many times, four more years of Trump is worse than the COVID virus.
It's worse.
So whatever we can do to prevent Trump from winning would do.
But I think for the people, the folks, as I call them, we need to have some optimism.
We need to have some hope.
And that's what getting back to work gives us.
That's what a rollout gives us.
So I'm pretty happy with the way the country is being handled now in this virus situation.
I'm looking at it from an American's point of view.
I think we're doing the right thing.
And I think that by Memorial Day, things will start to be humming.
I agree with you completely.
And I think it's a responsible plan.
Look, I have a little bit more kind of weeds and details that I add to mine, but I'm not a simple man, Bill.
I'm complicated like you are, or like you aren't.
Testing is vital.
Now, it's a moving target because, you know, one day we have the ability to produce millions of antibody tests, and then we have the six-minute COVID are you positive or negative test, and the six-hour test, and the 24-48-hour test, but tens of millions of tests.
Hopefully, with the Defense Production Act, we can get as many as possible for a city like New York in particular.
Governor Cuomo earlier today, executive order mandating people in New York wear masks.
That doesn't bother me.
I know that's bothering some people.
That does not bother me.
Same with gloves.
There's a little bit more to it than that.
But first of all, there's a flaw in this testing deal.
Number one, you can't test 335 million people.
So that's not going to happen.
But you could test somebody on Tuesday, and then on Friday they get it.
Right.
So that's not a panacea.
Great word, by the way, panacea.
You know, look, we do the officials do what they can do.
Well, here's my, but here's my thing.
You've got to take measures.
I think going into a big building in New York, I think 50% non-essential employees for a while, you stay home.
Essential employees.
Listen, I agree.
They get a temperature check.
Cuomo's doing site ops, too.
So Cuomo's saying, well, yeah, we ought to all wear masks.
But that's not what he really said.
He said, if you're going to be in proximity to people and you can't distance.
Then you have to.
But if you're going walking your dog or you're going on a beach or in a forest and taking a walk by yourself, you know, then cops aren't going to pull you over if you don't have a mask.
So you want, but what Cuomo wants to do is he wants to cut down on the contagion, and that's good.
We want that.
Right.
So that if you think you have to wear a mask, then you wear it.
If you're on a subway or you're on a bus, all right.
Now, I do think if you keep half of the workforce at home in every big building in New York, you have thermometer use when people come in.
You include masks and gloves as part of the strategy to open up a city like New York.
If people, you got to protect medical privacy, civil liberties, and no government database, but you can do that.
It's sort of like a post-9-11 adjustment, and I think it's only going to be temporary.
Here's what I would like, though.
I would like, and I know you love the Yankees.
I've seen you at baseball games because you're so unassuming and you just stand up and there's a giant and you're on television every time you're at a game.
That's right.
Would you wear a mask to go see a Yankee game?
I would.
Well, if I look like you, I'd probably wear a mask, too.
Well, all right.
Good shot, O'Reilly.
I don't even know what to say to that.
If I had to.
You're evil.
You're an evil person.
I understand.
You're dark.
If I had to, I probably would to go to see the game, but I don't think we're going to have to do that.
But if that's what it took, here's my thinking.
If that's what it took to get stadiums open, all right, because you know what?
I don't want the hot dog guy and the beer guy and the cotton candy people.
I want them to work and the guys that let us in, and they're all nice people.
You know these people.
I know these people.
I don't want to lose an NFL season over this.
Let me break this to you.
You can't eat the hot dog if you have the mask on.
You get to take it off to chew, Bill.
You know, you just shove it in underneath and you just take a bite.
It won't be that hard.
I'll still be able to hide my face.
See, I'm a simple man.
I don't understand that kind of a strategy.
No, but you know what I mean.
I mean, you just take a bite and put it back on.
What's the big deal?
You lift it up.
Look, I don't think that's going to happen.
I really think this contagion is going to decline.
And once it declines, we're going to get it back to semi-normal in the early summer, normal by mid-summer.
And so a lot of this speculation now is going to happen.
If I had to wear the mask to go to see the game, I would, because I, just like you, I want the people to come back to work.
I want people to have recreation that's psychologically and emotionally good to do.
And I'm tired of playing games, you know, political games.
Should we do this?
Should we do that?
So if the public health authorities, if Fauci comes and tells me, hey, O'Reilly, you can go to City of Yankees or the Mets if you wear a mask.
I'll wear the mask.
How about this?
The same in the times like this, you see the best in people.
I mean, the medical professionals, scientists, pharmaceutical companies, testing companies, big box stores, Walmarts, Targets, Walgreens, CVS, Rite Aid, all these great companies.
The grocers across the country, the truckers, the farmers, the Packers, they never shut down.
Those that are making the medical equipment, they haven't shut down.
They're sending all the equipment out.
And then you see there's always the two groups that go to the lowest common denominator: the media mob and the Democrats.
Democrats delay aid, needed aid to workers and hospitals and small businesses because they want to fund the national humanities for the arts and the humanities, et cetera.
$75 million each in the Kennedy Center.
Now, Nancy Pelosi puts out a dear Democratic colleague letter.
Now, Donald Trump put the travel ban in effect while she was impeaching him on January 31st, 10 days after the first identified case of corona in the United States.
I think that one decision might have saved his reelection.
Number two.
It's worse than that, though, for Pelosi.
Pelosi in mid-February.
No, not mid-February 24th.
I know where you're going.
Yeah.
Let's come down to Chinatown.
Come on down.
Let's have a meal down here.
Let's go.
And now this woman has the gall to say that the president of the United States didn't act fast enough, and she's doing that at the same time, Mardi Gras is going on.
So it was lucky that the mayor of San Francisco made the right decision not to do that and overrode Pelosi.
And now you have that.
But you're always going to have politics in this.
And then I think that's a very strong thing that voters should evaluate come November.
I mean, who was really looking out for you during this pandemic?
Who was really looking out for you?
Well, CNN was saying, Anderson Cooper, isn't he supposed to be their big star?
He was saying on March 4th that you should worry about the flu, not coronavirus.
So I didn't think that he was particularly helpful.
I'm confused because did Cuomo get in a fight with some guy on a bike or something?
Did I miss that out in the Hamptons?
What was that all about?
I have no idea.
Why are you always trying to get me in trouble?
Why don't you get in trouble on your own shows?
You have plenty of platforms to get in trouble.
Every time you get in trouble here, they mock you every night.
Come on, you can make fun of them.
I just don't, I have more important things to do.
But here's the thing: she actually is claiming that in the middle of this, they're already investigating.
We're in the middle of a national freaking emergency and pandemic, and they've started an investigation.
She is claiming Donald Trump was warned about the pandemic and ignored the warnings.
Now, the opposite is true because nobody took it more seriously.
First case, January 21 of this year.
10 days later, travel ban.
Then a quarantine never happened in 50 years.
Then subsequent travel ban.
She's impeaching them.
Then she is telling people to come to Chinatown February 24th.
CNN on March 4th is saying, yeah, worry more about the flu.
And then they're criticizing.
That's ridiculous.
But even worse is the CDC thing.
I would have done the same thing had I been president.
If you got a UN World Health Organization saying, oh, China's okay.
Yeah, what they're doing is all right.
And then it turns out that they're lying to the world and, you know, hundreds of thousands of people are ill and dying.
You're not going to cut off $500 million in spending while you investigate what the hell happened?
That's wrong.
And that's the problem.
I don't think they should get another.
Oh, you can't do that.
Can you believe this battle?
You know, 95% of this could have been prevented, according to that study in Great Britain, had China been honest.
And have you seen the images of these wet markets?
Those with the bats and the animals?
I'm like, it's so creepy.
I never even heard of the wet market stuff until I saw it.
You went to China.
You were hanging out at the wet markets where the bats are?
Yeah, I went there, Hannity.
You know me.
I've been to 82 countries.
I reported all over the world.
I went to the country.
Okay, you went to the wet markets.
Thanks for the warning.
I'm not going to that baseball game with you.
Hang on for one second.
All right.
How does this all play out in 202 days, Bill O'Reilly?
We have an election.
You got 45 seconds.
Well, if we're back in business in the summer, Donald Trump has a 60, 65% chance of beating Biden if Biden makes it to the finish line, which we don't know.
So that's how I see it.
I think people should listen to you.
Watch me on billo'reilly.com.
I think there's a good chance that we're going to beat this thing and beat it.
Are we going to tell people when we're going to go to the Yankee game or are you going to keep it a secret?
You know, no, the first game, Hannity, you and I. I'll go.
If I can get a day off of work, I mean, you know, tied to this microphone.
Stop with the whining.
Good gracious.
We'll get a fill-in for you.
That's not hard.
When you and I go to the opening game.
All right.
When we come back, Mike Huckabee, Geraldo Rivera.
All right, news roundup and information overload hour, Sean Hannity show, and so much to talk about.
Now, one of the things that is happening, and we mentioned earlier in the day that you have these protesters now surrounding the Michigan Capitol about how the great governor, Whitmer, obviously accused of, well, excessive measures.
One protester said it's like taking a sledgehammer to an ant, and you had thousands of people showing up in bulk outside the Michigan Capitol.
And in large part, in Lansing, dealing with the fact that it's called Operation Gridlock, and the fact that the governor now is putting these draconian measures in place, and the protests, which now erupted also in Ohio today, and in this case, Governor Whitmer's draconian isolation orders have angered a lot of people.
Ohio protesters demanding DeWine reopen that economy.
Now, on the other hand, you've got Governor Christy Noam of South Dakota, who was on with us yesterday.
She made a really good decision for her state because it's not as densely populated, obviously, as a city like New York, and she never shut her state down.
Now, Idaho opens today, and you're going to see a rolling out of these things.
But in the process, you have real concerns about civil liberties.
We saw this happen on Easter Sunday.
All right, there were some pastors that decided to have social distancing types of services, and we were told that license plate numbers and parking lots were going to be written down as a means of penalizing people that want to go to church on Sunday, and even instances where drive-up Easter services, I assume that would be your drive-up, and you get an Easter message from your pastor, and you want to do that for your family.
You don't want to forget this important Christian holiday, and that's Jesus' resurrection.
And after Holy Week, you now have a study out today, and this was pretty shocking to me.
The question, this was just the news, John Solomon's new website.
And the question was to speed in the end to the national lockdown, would you favor or oppose requiring everyone to take a coronavirus blood test and for some people to wear electronic ankle bracelets?
Okay, well, independents, the vast majority, no.
Republicans, vast majority, no.
Democrats, 49, 38, yeah.
Mandating blood testing, electronic bracelets.
I'll tell you what's not going to work.
It's not going to work if we don't respect medical privacy, civil liberties, and constitutional protections.
You can't shed the Constitution.
You had this guy dragged off a bus in Pennsylvania because he wasn't wearing his mask.
These stay-at-home orders now are not being listened to by some people because they feel it goes too far.
Now you have checkpoints targeting out-of-state residents.
That is now drawing complaints and some legal scrutiny.
You had a former police officer arrested in a park.
What was he doing?
He was throwing a ball back and forth with his daughter.
I violated social distancing.
I'm like, all right, we're getting a little nuts here.
Anyway, here to sort that part of this all out is former governor Mike Huckabee and also Geraldo Rivera, Fox News legal analyst.
Welcome both of you back to the show.
Governor, you made the comment, and I totally agreed with you.
We're not going to shred the Constitution here.
We're not like some other countries.
We're not going to be tracking people.
We've got to maintain civil liberties and medical privacy.
Well, Sean, something confuses me about liberals.
They don't want to have voter ID for people to show that they are genuine citizens, but they're willing.
Do I get this right?
They're willing to have the government forcibly take blood from their body so the government can determine whether they can go out in the neighborhood.
I mean, this is the kind of stuff that you think happened decades ago that Americans are protected from.
And I've said to you the other night on your television show, Sean, I'm waiting to see when the first journalists will recognize that if you strip religious liberty, the freedom of speech and the freedom to assemble away from a church on Easter Sunday, how long is it before the government decides that only the news that they approve is able to be printed?
Does the journalists of this country, do they not understand that the First Amendment, before it gets down to the freedom of the press, first guarantees freedom of religion, the freedom of speech, and the freedom of assembly?
I am just stunned that people are willing to give away their basic fundamental civil liberties.
I get it that we're in a pandemic.
I haven't left my home in five and a half weeks.
I'm living the life of mitigating, but I'm not going to give up my basic fundamental constitutional rights and have the government say to me, show me your papers.
That's frightening to me.
Geraldo, I would think this is probably something we all agree on, right?
Yeah, yeah.
First of all, hi to you and to the governor.
Nice to hear your voices.
I think the problem comes with rigidity.
The problem comes where the concept of distancing and being practical is submerged by the letter of, you know, you've got to do this, you've got to do that.
Rather than take Easter Sunday, I thought that it was a great practical alternative to having a lot of people crowded into a church, the drive-in idea, where they go to the old drive-in theaters.
Remember those?
John, you may be too young, but I think the governor and I.
Okay, Geraldo, I'm not that young.
I've been to a drive-through movie theater.
And by the way, they're coming back in fashion, I read recently.
But they should.
Tell me, Sean, if you even know what the movie was.
Come on.
Nobody would.
Governor, I'm going to be honest.
Absolutely not.
Did I know what the movie was?
Why do you think I went to a drive-in?
That's where all my troubles started, the old drive-in movie theater.
Exactly.
What do you mean?
All your problems.
Your problems started the minute you came out of the womb.
Could be.
But I think that with reason, with flexibility, with just a practical, we should be pragmatic idealists.
We want social distancing.
We are honoring the quarantining and the self-isolation and all the rest of it.
But there has to be a sensible alternative for people.
If they want to go someplace and if they honor the six feet or the 10 feet and they wear their masks, for a cop to bust them as if they were vagrants or people jumping turnstiles, I think it's very, it works against the idea that what's the goal?
The goal is to prevent person-to-person transmission.
That's the goal.
We should never lose sight of what the goal is.
So when you impose a rule that you can't go to a liquor store or you, you know, all these other things that you can't go to your second home if you live in state, but if you're from the other state, you can go to that second home.
You know, all of these, the attempt to micromanage, you have to give people flexibility so they can, what is at stake here?
It's their personal health is at stake.
Let people make judgment based on, you know, we get the rules, we understand the concept, we understand where the boundaries are.
Now, don't treat us as if, you know, we were spies penetrating the CIA.
You know, Governor, as we move forward, and we've been talking a lot about opening up the country.
Now, I remind people, the country never shut down.
The entire, you know, the chain of supplies for groceries and pharmacies and medical equipment, that all stayed open.
And we were able to successfully do that.
And, you know, one of the things I want to prevent is ever having another shutdown like this when there is a predictable rebound.
And I don't really have a problem if I think New York City with smallest geographical area, highest concentration of people, densely populated, they probably need to make teleworking, non-essential employees stay home for a while.
They probably need those people that are going to come into the city.
Temperature checks, that'll be a part of it.
Social distancing, even in the office, masks and gloves are part of it.
I think people are willing to do that to get life up and running again.
But again, they can't be any you can't have a database created by the government.
You do deserve medical privacy.
That's got to be protected.
If people end up COVID-19 positive, you can't mandate that they go to station A, B, C, or D. You've got to give them a piece of paper, say, we recommend you go to your doctor.
We recommend this is what you do to prevent any family members from contracting the virus.
And, you know, this is what contract tracing means.
Think back the last 14 days and remember as many people as you can and call them.
Well, Sean, I wonder where the ACLU is.
Normally, they would say that you can't have the kind of issues where Google and Apple get together and they decide that they can track where we've been, with whom we may have had contact, because our phones will light up and say, oh, he was with Sean Hannity on 48th Street.
These are things that it's a brave new world, to put it in the terms of a great novel.
But I just hope Americans step back and recognize that, yes, the pandemic is a very serious threat.
But when you have a mayor in Louisville, Kentucky that tells people that they're going to take their license plates down at the Maryville Baptist Church on Easter Sunday for sitting in their own cars in Greenville, Mississippi, where the mayor sent the cops to give people a $500 ticket for sitting in their cars for a drive-in service.
The only time they came in close contact with someone was when the police officer made them roll their window down and got within a foot of them to hand everyone in the car a $500 ticket.
It's crazy stuff.
What do you make of dovetail into this question?
You know, you see great goodness in the American people in moments like these.
Companies, individuals, frontline people, medical people going out there risking their own lives.
And then you've got the Nancy Pelosi's of the world that when Donald Trump implements the travel ban, she's impeaching them.
She's telling people February 24th to go to Chinatown, Geraldo.
And then, you know, then you've got fake news CNN.
All they ever do is hate Trump every second of the day.
But Anderson Cooper on March 4th is saying, oh, the flu is a much bigger concern.
And the just psychotic rage against this man, even during a national pandemic, we don't even want to carry his press conferences.
How do you react to it all?
I think that in terms, let me take the last point first.
I tweeted out today to my colleagues at MSNBC and CNN that I thought it was really amateuric of them to not carry the president's task force briefing, that they were doing not only harming themselves in terms of rating, but doing a disservice to their audience.
What they should do, and granted that they disagree with the president on these various points, philosophical or political, almost, you know, Geraldo, with all due respect, they are not your colleagues.
They have spent every waking minute of every day for over three years hating this man irrationally in lying.
I'm being gracious to get to this point.
I editorialized, I tweeted that what they should do is if they want to fact-check him, if they want to really give him a hard time and roast him over the coals, let the audience see what he said and then do it.
Don't preempt him and then try to categorize or define what he was saying.
It's very dishonest, and it's not doing your audience a service.
And there's a reason the audience is deserting them even more rapidly than they were prior to this crisis.
All right.
We'll come back.
I'll ask Governor Huckabee the same question about the media and Pelosi.
You know, they can't stop for 10 seconds hating and trying to bludgeon this president with anything and everything, even if they have to make it up like the New York Times.
All right, as we roll along, Mike Huckabee, Governor, and of course, Geraldo with us.
Governor, you know, I see the mob in the media.
You see it.
Nothing Donald Trump will ever do is going to be right.
I will tell you the January 2031st travel ban, 10 days after the first known case, proves how seriously he was taking all of this and subsequent travel bans.
And they were impeaching the president.
Nancy Pelosi's out there telling people, CNN out there telling people, you know, come to Chinatown and the flu is worse.
And I'm just wondering, you know, what is it about Donald Trump that they can't acknowledge even the travel ban was right?
No, they can't.
I mean, this is the same Nancy Pelosi that when he mentioned the virus in his State of the Union address, she was back there tearing it in half because she had such disrespect.
Nothing he does is going to satisfy Pelosi and the Democrats in Congress or the press.
But then I repeat myself because they basically speak with one single and harmonious voice.
And it's true Trump derangement syndrome.
And it's unfortunate because at a time like this, we need to question the president.
We need to challenge if we think there's something he is saying or are advocating that may need to be challenged.
That's a responsible opposition party and it's a responsible role of journalists.
It is not responsible to say we're not going to let America hear what he's saying.
We're going to tell you what we think he said.
And it's not responsible for the opposition party to oppose everything on its face, even before they have facts in front of them.
And unfortunately, that's what's happening, and it's destructive to the country, and it is certainly not helpful to getting us out of this pandemic.
In the 50 seconds we have left, how does this play out in 202 days on Election Day, Geraldo?
30 seconds each.
I think that his presidency will totally be determined.
His future will totally be determined by how this epidemic pans out, how these various policies work for the American people and how they perceive how he did.
It's all his presidency and the pandemic are now one.
But one thing I need him to do, I need him to demand of the Chinese that they allow our investigators to go into their labs that are in Wuhan where they're doing this bad coronavirus research.
You know, we've got to have access.
We've got to find out how things started and whether or not they told the truth.
All right.
You took all of Governor Huckabee's time.
Anyway, thank you both.
Coronavirus Task Force, your calls are next.
All right.
We're monitoring to see where the coronavirus task force schedule briefing takes us.
If it does, in fact, take place in the remaining parts of the program today, we will go to it in its continuity and let stations along the Sean Hannity Show Network understand that their break structure could be impacted.
Giving you a heads up.
And thank you for your understanding.
All right, let's get to some phones here.
We say hi to Paul is in Florida.
Paul, hi, how are you?
Glad you called, sir.
Thank you.
Just an idea to maybe get football out of the gates, and that would be to have all the regional teams play each other for the first three weeks of preseason.
You know, the Giants Jets would face for the first three weeks, and then you could kind of expose fans in a limited way and kind of use that as your test tube to start the season.
You see, I think MLB, Major League Baseball, and the NFL, I think for them, they have the infrastructure where the players, the coaches, the people that are in contact with the players and coaches, that they all would be able to get tested.
So that would prevent transmission from player to player.
Okay, important to do.
But if it meant, now you might have a problem if you bring in, you know, some of these stadiums, you know, are enclosed and that becomes more problematic, but I think there are ways to work around it.
And that is, look, if it meant for me, if it meant that Major League Baseball can get up and running and the players can play and the people can watch, people are dying to get out of the house.
And if they do the temperature check on the way in, just like you have to wait at TSA if you're boarding an airplane and take your shoes off and go through the, you know, whatever you call that, there was an electronic, whatever the thing you got to walk through.
You talking about airports?
What are you talking about?
I'm talking about airports.
You take your shoes off, you walk through one of those.
It's called a full body scanner.
It's called full body bodybuilding.
Full body scanner.
Okay.
Or they wand you if you're with Sweet Baby James.
You go through it.
You go.
First of all, I got it much worse than Sweet Baby.
No, you don't.
He's got an electronic hemp.
He's the $6 billion man.
I'm just letting you know when we travel, I get it worse than him.
Okay.
Traveling with both of you is annoying.
This is true.
I'm not arguing that point.
You all get wanded and you carry 400 million bags with you.
Oh, I wonder why.
Why do I do that?
No, I'm not talking about equipment bags.
I'm talking about your bags.
Oh, that's not a good thing.
First of all, that is not that big.
That's fake news.
And I listen.
I'm saying, let's stay focused on the point.
If it means we can go to baseball games and that means that the stadiums can open, that means people have entertainment.
But let's say it meant they want you to wear at an NFL game or MLB game, all right, a mask.
Now, O'Reilly was being pretty funny about it.
Well, how are you going to eat your hot dog?
Well, okay.
You pull up the mask, take a bite, put it down and chew.
That's how I do it.
I would go with the mask and gloves because so many people's jobs depend on this.
And with the people that are working there, you know, they'll have a mask and gloves on.
I would go.
I would not be afraid.
If you're in the more vulnerable health group, pre-existing conditions, underlying health issues, et cetera, you've got to be more careful.
But I think there's a way to do it by the time June comes around, if I was to guess a date.
Restaurants, to me, are problematic, probably the most problematic.
Okay, so I have a solution for that.
What?
So just like you take a reservation, right?
Just like we're doing now with grocery stores and we're doing things with delis and all these different places that are considered essential foods and needs, et cetera.
With a restaurant, we do the same thing.
We take reservations.
We allow so many people in, maybe half of the allotted amount that you're allowed to have via the fire code.
And then they come in, they put them equidistant in their six to 10 feet.
The same people that would be putting your food into delivery or to go boxes are the same people that would serve it to you in a restaurant.
You know, look, I have many, many friends.
You know me.
I'm a creature of habit.
You know my four or five restaurants, right?
You know my deli.
You know I go to Mario's Pizza.
You know where I go.
You know how I eat.
You know what?
I eat like a bird.
You tell me all the time.
I eat the same things.
Unless you eat steak, then you eat like a human being.
Then I eat like a human being.
But I eat skinny steaks.
I eat small steaks.
They weigh 0.55 ounces.
Yeah, and they're usually 90 10 or something.
Okay, but the bottom line is, so I'm very predictive.
But I've been ordering food with the exception of one restaurant that I normally go to that is closed.
Every other restaurant's open.
So some of them deliver, some of them don't.
If they don't deliver, I get my car and I drive and I go pick it up.
What's the big deal?
I go grocery shopping every weekend.
I finally wore a mask and gloves because everyone else was in it.
And I said, what the heck?
You know, somebody's going to say, Hannity's a horrible example.
And people are socially distant in the grocery store.
Anyway, so I did.
I just wore it and it didn't bother me.
It didn't bother me at all, to be honest.
I didn't care.
And as O'Reilly says, it covers my ugly face.
I'm fine with that.
That was such a low blow.
No, it was funny.
It was not a low blow.
It was funny.
It was funny.
And I will tell you that there's something about people, if we can get outside faster and we can keep the people that work in these jobs, these are important.
That's important.
That's an important stream of revenue for people.
And I want to go just to support them.
I completely agree.
I don't know how you get the NBA up and running or the NHL up and running because it's indoors.
You know, what are the Saints going to do?
What other teams?
What is Dallas going to do?
Can they open that big Dallas stadium?
Does it have a roof that opened up?
Yeah, but the problem still comes down to, so then you have to test every single, you have to test every single player.
You have to test every single person who's not hard to do.
Right.
But I'm saying, like, maybe we start with, you know, the players getting back to work once they've all been cleared.
You know, whether they've had it, they have antibodies or they, you know, we get everybody clear and then we can start, right?
But you can do that every week before a game.
Yeah, I'm not arguing that point.
I think it's a great idea, but we don't have to bring the audiences in house.
And you are being so absurd about you have to change your gloves every 10 seconds.
You do whatever you're talking about.
You don't have to change your gloves every 10 seconds.
I'm just saying, if you get, it's a scene.
If somebody's going to be shaking hands and putting a mask on, you're not going to be putting your gloved hands on your face.
Listen.
I'm just telling you.
Linda's famous words live by listen.
If you went out with your bare hands, which is what I do, right?
As soon as I get done touching something, I use Purel all over.
Okay, fine.
If I'm in the office, if I'm working from home, whatever I'm doing, I wash my hands, okay, every time I touch something so that the next thing I touch isn't contaminated.
Whatever I just touched doesn't contaminate me.
And this is the process that you keep doing, right?
Anybody who has kids knows that you do this all the time anyway, because you never want to contaminate your kids with anything.
So you move forward from that.
And now you're wearing gloves and you're like, oh, well, my hands are protected, but your gloves are dirty.
You're touching everything with these dirty gloves.
Everybody understands that when your gloves get dirty, it's time to replace them.
Yeah, I don't know who everybody is in your world, but I don't see anybody doing this.
I see people rubbing their nose.
What do you expect when I go shopping at the grocery store?
You're expecting me.
I go and let's say I'm pushing a cart.
I'm pushing a cart.
A cart.
Okay.
Now, I will first, I will Purel my hands.
I will put on my gloves.
I will go to the store.
I'll put on my mask.
I will buy the crap that I'm buying, the same stuff I buy every week.
And then I will exit the store.
I go through the checkout self-checkout line, which I love.
I pack my bag and I go to the car.
When I get to the car, I put the groceries in the car.
I get in the car, rip off the mask, rip off the gloves, and the gloves are.
It's time for a new pair of gloves.
You should have never touched your car handle, the back of your car, or anything with the gloves.
You just touched the push.
Okay, then you want life.
Then if you want to be that safe, go live in a bubble.
First of all, no, I'm right.
I'm telling you, it's easy.
I carry Purel in my back pocket and I just wipe everything down.
When I touch my handle or whatever, it's easier than walking around with gloves.
Oh, I forgot the part.
I do have the wipes too.
Right.
So you wipe your, you know, you wipe your door handle down if you touch a button.
I actually wipe the handle on the push cart.
You can do that if you want.
By the way, I'm getting old enough now.
Maybe I can get one of those drive around carts like other people.
Oh, my God.
If you do that, I will have to go.
If I get to that point, I'm done.
I mean, you know.
Even with a mask and glasses on, people still say, what are you doing here, Mr. Hannity?
I'm like, how do you know it's me?
I don't get it.
You have a fairly distinguishable face.
Yeah, one that a lot of people want to punch.
Al Riley tells me that it's very popular.
All right.
Mike in Oklahoma agrees with you.
Why I'm putting him on is beyond me.
How are you, Mike?
Hey, how you doing, sir?
And that would be a great topic to talk with Dr. Oz this evening about.
Yes, I do agree.
Wearing gloves during a pandemic will not achieve the goal of protecting most people from the virus.
I mean, that is the goal of doing that.
And here's why.
Medical personnel, they wear them differently than the general population and the way that they use them.
They remove them as soon as they leave a suspected area of a contamination, and then they don a new pair when they go into a different area to protect themselves and other people that they come in contact with.
Listen, the more vigilant you are, yeah, with wipes, purel, gloves, and your mask, the better.
Nobody's disputing that.
You don't have to be insane about it, though, either.
I mean, I don't, there's a fine line.
You know, there are germphobes that I know, and I'm like, these people are nuts.
I mean, everything gets the Purel.
Then it gets the wipe.
Then the wipe.
Then you change the gloves after that.
Then you got to do it, redo it, and redo it again.
Just be smart about it.
Everybody has a little common sense they got to apply when to change the gloves.
Does that sound fair?
And then, yeah, well, everybody isn't wearing the way that you have described, but based on the general population using them, it's truly better for the general population not to wear them because here's why.
Because you're more likely to disinfect your hands more frequently when you're not wearing gloves to protect yourself.
Thank you, Mike.
Yes.
And thank you for my opinion.
I prefer for my own safety, for my own choice, if you will, is that let's say I get out of the car, Purel up, throw my gloves on.
I take a wipe, close the door of the car, then use the wipe to wipe the bar that I'm going to be pushing on the push cart.
As long as we're going into detail, I go through the store, I pick out what I want.
I try not to hold the can like I might in years gone by to look at the calories or the ingredients.
I just know what I want.
Campbell's chicken noodle, throw it in the cart if you can get it.
Paper towels, forget it.
You're never getting them.
Toilet paper, you're never getting it.
I have no idea why they always fly off the shelves.
Get the stuff that I want.
Then I make my way to the self-checkout place.
Get to the self-checkout place.
I check out, get to the car, use another wipe, take my gloves off, purel up, stuff's in the car, doors closed, mask off, drive.
That sounds all right?
Well, here's something that most people might not be familiar with.
Most hand sanitizers after application can be effective to kill any viruses up to an hour after you put it on.
So you can put your hand sanitizer on and go into Walmart, do all your shopping, come back out, put your bags in your car, reapply your hand sanitizer.
I've actually thrown it on my gloves sometimes.
Right.
Well, that's smart.
That's good if you're going to keep walking around with the same dang gloves.
But Mike makes an excellent thing.
See, you were so smart.
I didn't say you were so smart.
I said you had a moment of brilliance.
Let's not get carried away.
All right.
Thank you, Mike.
Stay safe.
Let us say hi to Jason Florida.
What's up, Jason?
How are you?
John, I just want to chime in and agree totally with Linda on this glove thing.
Maybe you, being meticulous, would use the sanitizer, but let's face it, Sean, that's not going to happen to the general population.
So I'm a big no on the gloves.
Just wash your hands.
What do you do in the medical profession, Jason?
I'm in the medical imaging business.
And radiology.
What do you do?
MRIs and stuff like that?
That's correct.
Yep.
Yeah, look, I mean, everybody's going to have to, listen, we're not going to have Purel police or glove police.
But I'm saying if we do care about Whether we want to open up major league baseball games and open up NFL games, and I'm a huge supporter of opening it up as safely as possible.
If it means this is a choice, if it means they say you got to wear a mask and gloves, I'm in.
I'd wear it because I, for a lot of reasons, I want to be outside.
I want to watch a game.
I'm tired of being cooped up in a house, and I want to support the businesses and not just the players as much as all the other people that work in these stadiums.
They are, you know, they are people that need these jobs.
What are you saying in my ear?
Anyway, Jason, thank you.
All right, let's go to the president, the coronavirus task force stations along the Sean Hannity Line Network.
We will say goodbye.
I want a quick reminder, we got Hannity tonight, Nine Eastern on the Fox News Channel, loaded up.
Oh, Dennis Miller returns tonight.
Kevin McCarthy, Tom Cotton, Devin Nunes, and a lot more of Janine Pierre.
We'll tell you more about it at Nine Eastern.
See you then back here tomorrow.
Thank you for being with us.
Okay, thank you very much, please.
Thank you.
Big day today at the White House.
All of American society is engaged and mobilized in the war against the invisible enemy.
While we must remain vigilant, it is clear that our aggressive strategy is working and very strongly working, I might add.
New cases are declining throughout the New York metropolitan area.
Cases in the Detroit and Denver metro areas are flat.
Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, and St. Louis are showing great signs of progress, and new cases in Houston and New Orleans are declining.
The battle continues, but the data suggests that nationwide we have passed the peak on new cases.
Hopefully that will continue and we will continue to make great progress.
These encouraging developments have put us in a very strong position to finalize guidelines for states on reopening the country, which we'll be announcing.
We're going to be talking about that tomorrow.
We'll be having a news conference tomorrow sometime during the afternoon.
We're going to be announcing guidelines and we'll be talking about various states.
And it's very exciting.
It's been a horrible time to see such death and destruction, especially when you come out of what was the greatest economy in the history of the world.
The greatest.
There's never been an economy like what we had produced, but we'll produce it again.
And I think we'll produce it again very fast.
The medical and health care advances we've made are critical to our continued progress.
We've rapidly developed the most expansive and accurate testing system anywhere in the world and have completed more than 3.3 million tests.
To date, we have authorized 48 separate coronavirus tests, and the FDA is working with 300 companies and labs to widen our capacity still further.
Today, Abbott Labs announced that it has developed an anti-body test that will determine if someone has been previously infected with the coronavirus and potentially developed immunity.
It's a great test.
The company says these tests could be available to screen up to 20 million people in a matter of weeks.
My administration is also distributing vast amounts of medical supplies to states across the country through Project Airbridge, which has been an amazing success.
We have completed 44 flights and these are flights of very, very large airplanes, massive cargo planes.
44 flights of critical supplies as of today and an additional 56 flights scheduled in the near future.
We have some very brilliant people working on this.
It's logistically incredible what they've done.
And we've also been working on this with the military.
And these people have been, the genius of all of them together has been incredible to watch.
In total, through all channels, the federal government has developed and delivered 39.4 million N95 masks, 431 million gloves, 57 million surgical masks, and 10.2 million gowns.
We ordered 500 million masks, and they'll be coming shortly.
And we've distributed 100 million masks.
Following our use of the Defense Production Act, GM announced that its first ventilator has come off the assembly line in Kokomo, Indiana.
Great place.
They did it in 11 days from start to finish, a remarkable testament to the ingenuity of the American worker.
GM will ship over 600 ventilators this month alone, with thousands more to come, and we have other companies doing something similar, and I think they said that.
There's a brief clip that we have of General Motors, sent to us by General Motors, and I think they might be wanting to play that for your benefit, please.
Ladies and gentlemen, right now you're hearing the musical background of the video that the president is playing.
Going to grow it.
Pass for an update.
He is showing how the Army Corps of Engineers and GE built things to help us during this terrible virus.
I know you got a little bit nervous when you saw there was a clip about ready to be played, but that was sent to us by General Motors, and we thought it would be a good one to play it.
It's amazing.
It's, you know, what they've done in a very, very short period of time.
They're now making thousands of ventilators and they're coming out of the factory very rapidly at a clip that nobody can even believe.
But we have others also doing it.
And these are very high-grade ventilators.
So we're helping a lot of people.
And at this moment, nobody needs them.
And we have to remember during the surge, nobody's needed them for weeks now.
But we'll have them for stockpiles.
And very importantly, we're going to have them for other countries because nobody's able to do things like we can do.
And we're going to be able to help other countries that are having tremendous problems, to put it mildly.
My administration is using every available authority to accelerate the development, study, and delivery of therapies.
So important, therapies, treatments, and ultimately what we want to come up with is a safe vaccine.
But frankly, the therapies to me are the most important because it takes care of people right now.
The vaccines have to be tested, so it takes a longer period of time.
But we have some great potential therapies already, and we'll see how they're working.
We'll be able to report on that, I think, over the next week or two.
