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May 21, 2020 - Sean Hannity Show
01:27:56
Best of Sean Hannity: The COVID Response

This "Best of Sean Hannity" has a recap of COVID with NY Governor Andrew Cuomo and Florida Governor Ron Desantis. Plus Roger Stone, David Schoen and Monica Crowley!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.

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And it's my strong opinion that the forewoman of the jury, the woman who was in charge of the jury, is totally tainted.
When you take a look, how can you have a person like this?
She was a anti-Trump activist.
How can you have a jury pool tainted so badly?
It's not fair.
What happened to him is unbelievable.
They say he lied.
But other people lied too.
Just to mention Comey lied.
McKay lied.
Lisa Page lied.
Her lover.
Struck.
Peter struck.
Lied.
All right, that was the president.
Uh now with the well, now we now know.
What were they doing in the case of General Flynn?
They were saying about General Flynn.
Well, what is our goal here?
Is our goal an admission to get him to lie to so we can prosecute him or get him fired?
No, the goal of any honest, which I think is most FBI agents, the vast overwhelming majority of FBI agents is the truth and justice.
It's not a competition.
And of course, we now that case, all of that has been revealed.
General Flynn was innocent.
We had George Papadopoulos on yesterday.
He too, they withheld exculpatory evidence.
He was innocent.
We have the case of Paul Manafort.
Had they not gone forward in this case, his case was dead.
And it was put to rest.
They they dragged it out from the dead uh because they wanted to get Trump.
It was political, a persecution.
Uh then in the case of Roger Stone, well, you have a very unique set of circumstances there because uh it was a process crime.
And 29 guys in tactical gear and frogmen, oh, and CNN cameras show up at Roger Stone's house in another pre-dawn raid like the Manafort case.
Why?
Because they wanted to make a show of force.
Um now we f go through a trial, and what do we find out?
The jury for person had written on social media how much he doesn't like Roger Stone, Donald Trump, or any of Donald Trump's supporters.
I thought we had the right in this country constitutionally, fair, impartial jury.
Well, Roger Stone never got that.
Roger Stone never deserved the pre-dawn raid with CNN cameras and frogmen in tactical gear, 29 guys.
But it happened.
If we don't get to the bottom of all of this, what have I been saying now for three plus years?
I have been saying we don't have equal justice under the law, equal application of our laws.
If we don't have the rule of law, then you might as well take your constitution and shred it because you're not gonna have a country anymore.
Now, to the credit of Bill Barr, and it appears prosecutor Durham, uh, we are getting to a lot of truth here.
Well the problem is the judge finding out that the head juror in the Stone case um was obviously abusively biased, and this was not an impartial jury.
Well, the judge still refused to vacate the guilty verdict.
Um that is a travesty of justice.
And just like General Flynn, well, Roger Stone used to be a fairly well-off guy.
He's now broke.
Uh General Flynn had to sell his house.
He can't pay afford to pay his lawyers, and then they threaten to send his son to jail, and like uh the soldier he is, he's like, so you want me to lie, or you're gonna put my son in jail.
He dove on the sword for his family.
After all, this shouldn't happen in America.
Roger Stone is with us, and we have civil liberties attorney, former uh board member of the Alabama Civil Liberties Union and friend of the show, David Schoen is now representing Roger.
Uh welcome both of you to the program.
Thank you.
Thank you, Sean.
Roger, um, I did send you an occasional note during all of this, but knowing everything I write is basically taken by people that shouldn't be reading it.
I have to be careful in anything I do or say now.
Um, but I felt I I watched this unfold and I'm like, this can't happen in our country.
I can't imagine the stress, the pressure, the anxiety that goes along with all of this, and your thoughts on everything and where do you think this stands now?
Because you still have not gotten this this ridiculous uh guilty verdict vacated.
Well, Sean, as you probably know, uh, we have filed uh our notice of an appeal, even though an appeal could cost millions of dollars and take years.
Um I would leave it to uh David Schoen to give you a better idea of the many issues our appeal would raise.
But all the truth of this became very clear.
This wasn't about me.
This was about pressuring me to bear false witness against the president.
When they knew the Mueller report was a dud, when they were looking for anything in there that they could equate uh to uh uh uh a dishonesty on behalf of the president, they offered me a deal.
All they wanted me to do was to re-characterize a number of phone calls between candidate Trump and myself in 2016, uh, and they would have recommended no jail time.
And I declined because I was not going to lie and because it wasn't true.
I said it on Meet the Press.
I I said it uh I said it with George Stephanopoulos, I say it again.
I never discussed anything pertaining to WikiLeaks and their disclosures with candidate Trump ever.
And there's no evidence other than the false testimony of Rick Gates, which is uncorroborated, to contradict that.
So it was really all about getting the president.
They these people, the same people who set up General Flynn, who is a great American hero, in my opinion, the same people who said the same people are the same people who tried and unf unfortunately failed to set our president up.
Uh, David, you're as good a lawyer as I know.
Um how is it possible the judge allowed this verdict and and didn't reverse it after finding out this uh this obvious bias and hatred of Roger by the jury for person, who I would have thought uh would have had to disclose uh before any trial uh during jury selection.
I I don't think we've even scratched the surface of how bad this juror misconduct was in this case, frankly.
Remember, uh, this juror was posting on social media.
The judge at Roger Stone's sentencing said Roger Stone used social media to get his message out as broadly as possible.
Social media.
Well, so one thing.
I did forget to say that they did silence in America Roger Stone.
He could not defend himself, and the judge was clear.
Or you're going to jail if you defend yourself.
Oh, that that's absolutely right.
I mean, this is the most draconian gag order I've ever seen imposed in the case.
Roger Stone, his family, his friends, his lawyers, were prohibited from commenting on the Mueller team or the investigation against him in any public forum or even retweeting what somebody else posted about it.
So how could he possibly really have investigated the case these days without using social media?
But this juror posted these posts, and the posts were taken down.
We don't know what kind of interaction went on.
Was she further influenced by others on the outside?
Did she influence others?
I don't think this was handled properly at all in terms of the hearing into the juror misconduct.
That's only one of the issues in the case.
You know, you said earlier uh this was I I will say this was simply to get President Donald Trump.
How could this happen in this country?
This is the hallmark of an Andrew Weissman who led this team, um, threatening family members.
Well, it wasn't Mueller.
He didn't know who Fusion GPS was.
Uh as the guy said as as it was revealed during the hearing, that's not a trick question.
Um he didn't know that Jeannie Ray was Clinton's attorney.
Okay, he wasn't there for this.
Right.
So so let me say this about you raised that last point is very important.
Jeannie Ray was the lead prosecutor in Roger Stone's case.
She was part of the Mueller team.
Jeannie Ray was a lawyer partner at Wilmer Hale law firm in D.C. So was Robert Mueller, and so were three other members of the team.
Zebley quarrels and uh uh Zeblian quarrels in any event, plus Jeannie Ree.
There's another lawyer at Wilmer Hale named Nicole Rabner, who was Hillary Clinton's advisor when Clinton was in the White House.
All of those people were partners at Wilmer Hale.
Jeannie Ree and Wilmer Hale represented Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation, and Justin Cooper was represented by Aaron Zebley, also of the Mueller team, in the email scandal investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails and the Clinton Foundation.
According to the judge, at Roger Stone sentencing, Roger Stone, the underlying conduct here was an effort to get Hillary Clinton's emails from WikiLeaks.
Whether that's true or not, that's what the judge understands the whole theory of prosecution in this case to be.
How on earth can you have a Mueller team, all of those partners, including Mueller himself from the law firm that represented Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation now prosecuting Roger Stone?
They still owe the duties to Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation.
And when Robert Mueller said before the congressional hearing that he didn't know when he hired her that Jeannie Ree represented uh Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation, the question should have been are you aware that your firm, where you're a senior partner, and now has returned to that firm represented Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation.
And the fellow sitting next to him, Aaron Zebley, represented Justin Cooper, who apparently admitted breaking the mobile devices that conveyed those emails.
So that's how far this has gone.
And the judge said flat out, Roger Stone is not charged with or convicted of anything to do with Russia collusion or even lying about it.
So what was the Mueller team doing in here given their mandate?
You know, you raise a lot of great questions.
Now I want to get to the heart of we know that they tried to get and they did eventually threaten General Flynn's son because they wanted him to lie.
KT McFarland has said as much.
She reiterated that again last night.
Roger Stone, you're telling America that they gave you a narrative, and if you would have agreed to tell them X, Y, and Z about Donald Trump, you would have been given a get out of jail free card.
Is that true?
That is absolutely correct.
Uh I can tell you the exact date.
It was July 24th, 2019.
But let me add the kicker.
They also implied that if I did not agree, they had the option of uh superseding charges, adding additional fabricated counts against me.
It's important people understand that the reason we know that Andrew Weissman actually wrote my indictment.
I was arrested at 6 a.m. at 7 a.m.
January 25th.
The special counsel's office blasted a copy of my indictment to the entire media world, and they posted it on their website.
But they forgot to remove the meta tags that bear the initials of Andrew Weissman.
There is uh the culprit.
Now, interestingly, uh uh the judge uh had no interest in this because my indictment was not unsealed by a federal magistrate till 9 30 a.m.
So the dissemination of it at 7 a.m. was not legal.
Doesn't matter.
There are different rules for different people in our two-tiered system of justice.
I don't, you know, I I just want people to understand how breathtakingly corrupt this is.
At every level, everything, David, you've been a part of our ensemble cast.
Everything we reported about, well, Clinton, the emails, deleted bleach bit, the dirty Russian dossier that they knew it was unverifiable.
They used it anyway.
They illegally premeditated fraud on a Pfizer court.
They were warned repeatedly not to use that information.
It was never verifiable.
Now it's debunked.
And then you look at the corruption here with Roger, General Flynn, Papadopoulos, Manafort's case was totally completely and utterly closed.
And by the way, I hear he's not in good health in jail.
And people want him to rot in jail, and then they're saying, well, if you ever got a pardon, and I don't know one way or the other if anybody would do that, then they would go after him on state charges, so he would have to rot in jail.
That's how sick this has all gotten.
Yeah, yeah.
You're a hundred percent right, and you've been a hundred percent right on these issues from the start.
You're the only one who's been talking about them for the last couple of years.
People questioned you at every step of the road, and in every step of the road, you've come forward with the facts to prove just how corrupt this is, the both the agenda and the methodology.
And it's not coincidental.
These are people, including Weissman, who've been at this kind of thing with a what the a chief judge once called a myopic view of his Brady violations.
Do you understand that the FBI had to rewrite their guidelines on dealing with uh cooperating witnesses, confidential informants, because of the conduct of Andrew Weissman and his team in the Eastern District of New York?
What are they now he's uh now he's getting paid over at uh the uh conspiracy channel, MSDNC, these you know, state run TV.
All right, stay there.
We'll continue more with David Schoen, Roger Stone.
Uh as we continue with Roger Stone and David Shoner's attorney.
Roger, where do you go from here?
And and I'll ask both of you in the minute and a half we have uh left here.
You're broke, right?
You don't have any money.
Uh uh I'm uh literally destitute.
Uh I uh the Bureau of Prisons delayed my incarceration, my surrender date by 30 days.
Uh I am uh sticking to the home confinement, obviously because of COVID nineteen.
Uh and I am praying fervently that the president uh, as an actor of both act of both mercy and justice, will either commute my sentence or pardon me.
Otherwise, I will go through the long process of an appeal.
Uh and my lawyers, including David, who's with us, are very confident that we have many strong issues on appeal.
David, I'd like to see this man get his life back.
Uh he's lost three plus years of his life.
Can you get there?
We got 20 seconds.
I want to see him get his life back and his freedom back.
There are two ways it could go.
The government could concede that they did the wrong thing here and confess judgment in a sense.
But I think Roger Stone ought to be pardoned, and it should be sooner rather than later, with all due respect.
He's got to get his life back.
That's the only thing.
I don't disagree, but I'd like to see this thing vacated and thrown out on its own also on the merits, David.
Right, but but but that's a but the pardon is at least a check on the lawlessness and sends a strong statement that that's not how our government operates.
Um the idea of sending him to prison during the opinion, everybody here needs a pardon.
That's my humble opinion.
But nobody's asking.
Um Roger, we're praying for you and your family.
Hang in there.
God is great, you'll be fine in the end.
I believe you're tough.
You've you've fought this hard, and I believe justice hopefully wins the day.
Many of you might be asking, oh, Monica Crowley used to be on your show all the time.
Are you mad at Monica Crowley?
I'm like, no.
Um, Monica Crowley is a friend of yours.
She's been a Fox from the beginning, right?
Yes.
Uh where is she?
Well, she's been working with Steve Minuchin.
She is the Treasury Department spokesperson and yes, friend of the program.
Um how are you doing?
I know it's been hectic, somewhat busy, and I guess you've been spending a lot of time on things like oh, stimulus packages and loan guarantees and everything in between and people that don't deserve it taking it.
How are you been?
And where are we standing what's going on?
Hi, Sean.
I miss you so much.
It's so good to be back on the show with you.
And yeah, I am I joined the Trump administration almost a year ago uh at the Treasury Department as Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, and at Treasury, as you can imagine, we are in the center of the hurricane uh since this virus took hold, and the government mandated the complete shutdown of the U.S. economy.
So Treasury Secretary Stephen Manuchin has been in the center of all of the negotiations, standing up these unprecedented programs and getting massive amounts of money out the door to protect hardworking Americans and small businesses.
Well, let's talk about now.
Look, like a lot of us, I'm standing back and looking at these numbers, and it is freaking me out.
We've never spent this kind of money.
Now we've never had a situation like this.
We are, you know, we had the the first quarter GDP, what, down 4.8%.
The second quarter is going to be an unmitigated disaster, uh, unemployment record lows, it was like depression numbers for the short term.
That's why opening the country safely is top of mind for me.
And by the way, instinctively for most Americans, they've had it.
And I think what we see in all these rebellions and people showing up at the beaches in California, et cetera, is that people have decided what they have determined in their head to be an acceptable or unacceptable risk.
You see the the great pains people go through now to get manicures and you know plexiglass barriers, distance hands through, this little cutout and uh uh in the in the salon, um, and then restaurants, I see plexiglass, social distancing, things.
I mean, people are very smart, actually, and creative.
Um, how do we where's this money going?
Do we get it right?
Did the workers that are out of work get it?
Small businesses get it.
Those that took it and didn't deserve it, are they giving it back?
So I've not had a haircut, Sean, since January, nor have I had a manicure.
So you're gonna get killed for this, by the way.
You know, like oh, Monica Crowley's talking about her hair.
But you know something?
It's about getting back to normal life.
Yes.
I want to go to a Yankee game, even if I have to wear a mask.
Yes, it's about going back to a sense of normalcy.
So America can be America once again.
You know, I think two months into this situation, one point has gotten lost, which is It is this is a completely unprecedented situation.
So the president, the Treasury Secretary, anybody who is on the front lines of this uh challenge cannot pick up the phone and call one of his predecessors and say, Hey, what did you do in the last pandemic?
Because there is no predecessor who has had this kind of experience in the modern era.
So I am extremely proud of President Trump, Secretary Manuchin, everybody in this administration who's taken on grave responsibilities in in this kind of unique situation.
The on the economic side of this, which has directly followed the medical side of this, there was a realization early on, Sean, that because this is a government mandated shutdown of the entire youth economy, that the government then needed to step in and fill the void to protect our great American workers, small businesses, and and great American companies and industries, because we are forcing them to not engage in economic activity.
The other top line realization was small businesses in America account for about 70% of all economic activity, and about half of all private sector payroll comes from small businesses.
So that's why the paycheck protection program was created, the PPP.
We are now in the second round of this.
And so far, we have protected tens of millions of American jobs, and we have protected millions of small businesses.
You're right to say that at the beginning, some companies, some businesses jumped in and took advantage of the situation.
It's always really disappointing to see.
Secretary Manuchin was incredibly outraged when this came to him.
And while the guidelines were always clear, the Treasury Department then stepped up and made them even more clear, issued even greater uh clarity on these guidelines so that these resources will go to the small businesses who need them all across America.
How about the workers?
Like I like I know people in the restaurant business.
Um they're dying.
They and and they're doing okay, you know.
I'm trying to promote all my friends and say, hey, don't forget your local restaurants and people are responding, they're being very generous.
But it is how do we open that and open that safely?
But is the money getting to the workers?
Is it and and now look, as I point out every day, and I I keep going back to one anecdotal issue that New York had all of the medical equipment, ended up with all the ventilators and the masks and the gloves and the gowns and the respirators because the manufacturers they never shut down.
If they did, New York was done.
The same with the guys that deliver the food and the farmers and the packers, and I I kept going to my local grocery store, and it was except for toilet paper.
Monica, everything is available.
And I see see the same guys stocking the shelves with masks and gloves.
And they're all working every week, meaning they're not sick.
Um we should learn, they never shut, they're not reopening, they never shut down.
No stores shut down, no grocery store shut down, and no drug store shut down.
And these guys worked hard every day.
Yes, yes, I know.
So two things about that.
Your question about uh is this money getting to average American workers?
And the answer is yes in two ways.
One, the paycheck protection program, which is a small business program, and it's again paycheck protection, so it's meant to protect those workers who are employed by small businesses.
The SBA, by the way, Sean, is processing a year's worth of loans every single day.
It is astonishing what SBA and Treasury are doing there.
And then, of course, there are the economic impact payments.
This is direct money, the 1200 dollar checks or 1200 amounts going directly to every eligible American.
And Sean, do you know that Treasury and IRS pushed out a hundred and twenty million payments in just the last two to three weeks.
That is an astonishing achievement for government.
Look, this is one of the reasons why President Trump was elected in the first place, because he came out of the private sector, was a successful businessman, and was going to bring that private sector mentality to government.
And that's exactly what he's done.
The idea that the federal government could move so fast in standing up these these programs and getting this magnitude of money out the door To small businesses, industries, and American workers in this rapid amount of time is unbelievable.
I think, and I just went over this with Dr. Oz.
I think the medical mobilization, we've never seen anything like it.
Um it was uh all the rules have changed as it relates to travel bans, quarantines.
Uh New York government, you know, the next time I guess they get a recommendation to buy ventilators in the city or the state, maybe they should buy them.
Uh but Donald Trump provided them, and we saw the great work down in Florida, the governor of DeSantis, he did an amazing job.
He targeted the elderly population and protected them first, and that was the single best call in the country.
Although I got to give a lot of credit to Christy Gnome, short of one outbreak in a meat facility.
They did pretty well and they never shut down in South Dakota.
Um, but Donald Trump bailed out New York, saved them, and everybody that supplied New York saved New York.
And I would say that's the future.
Telemedicine is the future.
I think we are now aware of the our capabilities for medical mobilization.
They're spectacular, but preparation will help.
Uh breaking down the sequence of viruses.
We never did it faster.
Getting us to a chance at a vaccine sooner than later, off-label use of medicines, hydroxychloroquine or remdisvere, all now on the table in the future.
This is transformative.
This these are new times, and it's all been rewritten.
And the same with the economy.
And you know what, Sean?
I think that's a really important point, is that this pandemic and and its ripple effects in every direction.
I think it's resetting everything in ways that nobody really has a handle on yet.
Nobody does.
Whether it's economically, politically, culturally, there are massive sea changes going on, and nobody quite knows how it's going to shake out.
But I have to give all praise to this president, Treasury Secretary, everybody in the Trump administration for moving fast, moving directly, and moving efficiently to make sure the American people were protected economically and medically.
This is going to be the standard for uh, God forbid any future pandemic going forward.
I I totally agree.
All right.
Now that I have you on the phone, here's the tough question.
I hear I hear of stimulus spending on top of what are we at, 2.2 plus trillion dollars, more than that now, right?
What's the total figure?
Yeah, so in terms of this spending, we're at about 2.5 trillion.
And then remember that the Federal Reserve has stood up a bunch of facilities to provide liquidity across the board.
Four trillion loans, additional, yes, liquidity for about four trillion.
So we're in the six trillion dollar range.
Okay.
Now, we've never spent money like that ever.
Now I think most of the country understands why.
People, you know, we bailed out Europe after World War II, we rebuilt Europe.
We can we're gonna help out Americans in need.
These are extraordinary circumstances.
That's why reopening the country safely is key.
When I hear talk about infrastructure, my head, I want to bust blood vessels everywhere because I want this money to sink into the economy first.
And as Mitch McConnell was saying, and I don't think I agree with him all the time, that uh we can't afford it right now.
We got COVID-19 issues to deal with.
So in these programs that we've pushed out, again, in record time of the last two months, they're all they're all associated with end dates, right?
So enhanced unemployment insurance, there's an end date.
These are all temporary programs to get Americans through this temporary but very challenging time.
We put end dates on all of these programs so that they wouldn't go on forever and and drive the sp already astronomical spending levels even more through the ceiling.
So we will see what the next conversation is for phase four.
Sean, President Trump is on the record talking about infrastructure and talking about how interest rates are so extremely low that now is the time to do it.
So I know that that conversation and that debate.
I know that's all happening.
I I'm I am looking at it as a conservative, and I'm saying, okay, we I'm not so quick.
Remember, part of infrastructure was about shovel-ready jobs in the Obama administration, and eventually even he conceded.
Shovel ready, isn't that shovel ready?
Yes.
And and you and I have spent our entire careers as fiscal conservatives.
So when we look at some of these numbers, they are indeed eye-popping.
But again, this is about getting the country, and it's not just the United States.
I mean, look at the rest of the world, Western Europe, China, all of the major economies are in this predicament.
So the president took immediate and net very necessary action to get us through this time.
And then the next challenge will be unwinding these things and getting America back on a solid economic footing.
And that means unleashing the private sector and doing exactly what the president has done from the beginning, which is pro-growth, economic policies, economic freedom.
That's what he's all about.
That's what delivered the first boom under President Trump.
And if anybody can deliver a second boom in record time, it's Donald Trump.
All right, Monica Crowley, always great to talk to you, always great catching up with you.
We appreciate it, congratulations on your new job.
Let's get America open and open safely.
And I'm gonna just reiterate what I had said before, and it's real simple, and that is, as it relates to the country, COVID-19 only.
These states don't get to balance their corrupt deficit spending and their books using COVID-19 as an excuse.
COVID 19 relief only.
Workers, small businesses, etc.
And and by the way, I heard one guy executive was on, and he said, Well, I have a fiduciary responsibility.
I don't own this, this, and this.
I don't I don't understand the ins and outs of finance to be very blunt.
It's not my wheelhouse, and I I just want to get it right for the country.
And that means those that are in need will be taken care of.
Every American agrees with that.
But let's get back up and running.
It can't go on forever.
Um and do it safely.
Sean, you want to be a part of this uh extravaganza.
Uh I mentioned at the beginning of the last hour.
I'm not going over old ground with Governor Cuomo.
Um we had a a number of good chats.
We went we had a good conversation on this show a while back, and I was unhappy with some of the things that he had said and and etc, etc.
But um we still have two hundred and twenty-two thousand two hundred and eighty-four COVID-19 positive tests in the state of New York.
We've already lost twelve thousand one hundred and ninety-two people.
Uh the governor is with us on our newsmaker line.
Now, every metric that we are looking at in the state of New York, if you look closely at what's happening here, is what we thought and hope would happen in terms of there would be a leveling off and then a dramatic decline.
Uh with that said, you you we've been told by every medical expert we put on this program, it's not if, it's when.
There's going to be rebounds.
And how do you open up a city?
It like we had, for example, Governor Christy Gnome, South Dakota.
She never shut down her state.
She appealed every day to the people of South Dakota.
Now it's obviously less densely populated than New York City.
New York City, smallest geographical area.
You got 11, 12 million people in that city on any given day.
It depends.
Opening up New York City is going to be a massive undertaking and a challenge.
Um, and uh I'm glad that the governor and I have put aside some differences that we had for a while, and now we're focused.
I think we're on the same page, Governor.
Um first let me ask, I know Chris uh still had a temperature the last I had heard uh that he reported himself, and I know his wife uh Christine, your sister-in-law, apparently is COVID-19 positive.
First of all, I'm sorry to hear it.
Our prayers are with them.
How is how are they doing so far?
Uh thank you, Sean.
They're doing okay.
You know, it's uh it's the disease is a tough one to have, and when you have uh they are three kids, so he's in the basement quarantined.
Uh Christina in the upstairs room quarantined, and then they have uh three kids they have to deal with.
So they are long days and nights, but uh so far so good.
Um let me get one political question out of the way, because if I don't ask it, I'm you know, I'm just gonna get hammered.
And I know that you've been on Chris's show uh a number of times.
You know the Shermanesque the the statement that everyone quotes so often.
Uh and I I guess you and your brother, you guys must have fought a lot as kids.
Am I right about that?
We still do, Sean.
We still do your brother's.
Your brother's positive of COVID nineteen, His wife now tests positive, but you're still fighting with him.
Um it's often misunderstood by I think a lot of people.
And you've been asked repeatedly, are you running for president?
In other words, where's the Sherman esque?
If drafted, I will not run.
If nominated, I will not accept.
If elected, I will not serve.
Will you make that statement today?
Yes.
Here's the Sherman esque.
Uh I have zero interest in president, vice president, going to Washington.
Uh been there, done that.
I was a cabinet secretary under Bill Clinton.
I was there for eight years.
I'm going to be governor of New York, Sean.
It's very important to me that people understand that, because frankly, this is such an intense partisan environment.
I can't do my job at this moment in time, if there's any political uh agenda whatsoever.
I'm not going anywhere, period.
If this statement, does this statement hold for you?
If nominated, I will not accept.
If drafted, I will not run.
If elected, I will not serve.
Is that your statement?
Yes.
Now we're done.
I don't want to talk about it anymore.
Here's what I want to talk about.
But Sean, I want to be crystal clear because look, uh I am I am governor of New York at a time of historic need.
We have people dying, 600 yesterday.
They're not Democrats, they're not Republicans, they're New Yorkers.
I represent all of them.
You didn't represent me.
You're stuck with me for a while.
But you get all my money, which really annoys me.
But let's stay on a serious note, though, here.
The challenge Christy Gnome doesn't have the same challenges as New York.
Uh New York City is the biggest reopening challenge.
I would argue a place like Vegas.
I feel sorry for Vegas.
I mean, how do these, you know, hotels and casinos open up again?
I mean, it's it's hurting all those workers.
Here's the challenge, and and you and I, you've been very generous with your time.
We've shared text messages that I'll never make private, but some ideas that I've thought of.
If we're going to open New York City, what I have been looking at and telling my audience is I would say, okay, non-essential workers, 50% of the workers have to stay home and work from home.
Temperatures have to be taken upon entrance into any building in New York moving forward.
You you use the term yourself today, new normal.
Masks and gloves, even indoors in the workplace, that would have to be mandatory.
Or else you can't go to work, you have to work from home.
Eating protocols if you're if you're eating when other people are around.
I know it sounds nuts.
Um you put out a mandatory mask if you're not socially distant in New York.
I totally agree with it.
It's not bothering my life to wear a stupid mask and gloves.
It doesn't bother me.
And I don't want if I got sick, I'm probably gonna be fine.
But older people, if I have it and pass it on to them, they're not gonna be fine.
Yeah, no, sure, and I I agree 100%.
There's going to be a phasing in, and it is going to be different.
Uh I don't know different worse.
It might even be different better, but it's going to be different.
Look, this is going to do what 9-11 did, right?
If I ever told you before 9-11, you would have to take off your shoes when you go to an airport and walk through a metal detector on a line and have them go through your bags.
People will would say uh no-how, no way.
But 9-11 changed our orientation.
This is going to change our orientation.
And people are going to want to change it.
You know, they people want to be safe, first of all.
So you like the idea of every big building in New York City, in particular, let's stay with New York City.
Half the workforce must be home unless they are essential.
Temperatures taken before you enter any building.
You have a temperature, you're handed a piece of paper, and you say, Go to this location, that location, go to your doctor, and get your test, and here's what happens if you are COVID 19 positive.
This is what as a good citizen you need to do to contact, first of all, how to protect your family from contracting the virus at home, and go back and remember everybody you can remember you're in touch with the last 14 days.
I don't think you can mandate that.
I think it has to be voluntary, and I bet you the 98% will do the right thing.
And you're right about New York City.
The problem in New York City is the density.
It's take a look at another city.
You take LA, for example.
New York City is more than twice the size of LA, and it's about half the geographic footprint in New York City.
You have people on top of each other.
Look at the subways.
Look at the buses.
Look at the sidewalks.
That's why it spreads the way it does, and that's why it's an extraordinary challenge.
And we're going to have to take extraordinary measures, phase it in over time, get testing uh to a level that makes a real difference.
And I think people are ready.
I really believe they are ready.
I agree.
Now we've tested almost four million Americans now.
You know the amazing thing about testing.
Two weeks ago, Abbott didn't have an antibody test.
Do you know they've already produced a million tests for antibodies?
Now they also have their six hour test, six and a half hours.
Then they have the five to fifteen minute test.
But the the the it's and everybody says, oh, we need tens of millions of those.
You and I both know it's a lot more complicated because you've talked to the people at Abbott, and so have I. Um some of the agents that they need are not available because for some insane reason we rely on China for those agents.
So they're a lot, it's a lot more complicated than people to say, I need 400,000 testing kits tomorrow.
They've made amazing progress, but it's hard.
No, it's more than hard.
It's in it's impossible to get the testing numbers that we would ideally need.
It is impossible.
Uh and I understand why everyone's intimidated by the task and nobody wants to go near it, because in our society, Sean, everybody blames everything.
Uh everyone.
This is about a finger pointing competition.
Uh so government says, well, if it's uh no no win, why get involved?
Uh I think the states work with the federal government.
We do the best we can to get testing up to scale.
It is very complicated.
Uh you're right.
I've been talking to companies.
Uh again, it comes back to China.
This is the talk about a lesson.
Masks, gowns, everything comes back to China.
Uh testing comes back to China.
So that we have to fix after this.
Well, with that said, America's uh companies have been amazing.
I mean, I think they've been unreal.
I mean, the they've all stepped up.
The 90% of people step up, and the 10% I have no use for.
They're just awful.
Nancy Pelosi's letter was awful.
Absolutely.
She was telling people February 24, come to Chinatown.
She just she was impeaching the president when he put his travel ban in effect.
And you had even said that travel ban saved it's incalculable.
Numbers of Americans, thousands of Americans from contracting the disease and exponentially mathematically dying.
And you agree with that.
Look, I have said uh when they when they look back and they write the history book on this, and we should do a retrospective, see what we can learn.
Uh the travel ban was right.
Uh it was right.
There's no doubt that China was uh either not doing as good a job as they said they were doing, or they weren't uh giving us the full story.
Uh but the travel ban was right.
There's also no doubt, Sean, that talk about Americans doing the right thing.
Every projection from the CDC to the White House Corona Task Force, Peter Navarro's memo, McKinsey, Cornell, Columbia, every projection was five, ten times worse than the current numbers because the American because Americans stepped up and did the right thing and quote unquote flattened the curve.
Americans did that.
We did it faster in New York.
The numbers we were looking at three weeks ago scared the hell out of me.
And I don't like the numbers today.
Don't misunderstand me.
You know, I'm I I I have a uh a friend now fighting for her life.
It's a friend of my sister's right now in a hospital in Long Island, fighting, she's intubated.
It's not good.
Um let me go back to New York City, though.
Do you like the idea of 50% of the workforce has to work from home if possible, nonessential workers work from home, temperatures taken upon entrance, uh masks and gloves, even though they'll have more natural social distancing with half the people away, masks and gloves indoors mandatory.
Uh If you're gonna eat, you gotta have a really big distance when you take that mask off.
What do you think of those four items?
I I think the elements are all correct.
I think uh I think we have to have some flexibility here.
I said today the businesses, uh you know, you have some businesses that are more essential services than others, and some businesses that are going to be safer than others.
And I said to businesses, you know what, rethink how you do business and tell us how you can do it safer.
How can you do social distancing in the workforce?
How can you have run your business without having gatherings or conferences?
So if a business is safer, Sean, and it's more essential, let it open faster than other businesses.
Uh but it there's no doubt it's going to be phased in.
I don't even know how long it takes to get to half of the workforce.
Uh, but again, you have to look at how dangerous that business is, you know.
Are they putting people in close trust?
Your average office building, if it had half the number of people, you'd build in social distancing, you put the masks and the gloves on, nobody's gonna like it, but uh you know, if it keeps everyone else safe, I'd be willing to do it.
Um I wrote you specifically about, and this is my this for me, I think would be a game changer.
Now, I'm just looking at it from my own point of view, selfish point of view, and I think of the people that are the ticket takers at Yankee Stadium City Field, outdoor concert venues like Jones Beach.
And so we have baseball season now is on delay.
The NBA's done.
The NFL, I would love to think that you can go to uh a Jets Giants game.
Here's my plan.
Tell me if you think it's even doable.
If you want to open up Yankee Stadium City Field temperatures taken upon admission.
By the way, every player, everybody in that locker room, every ticket taker, every food worker would have to have a real test.
Then masks and gloves would be mandatory inside Yankee Stadium City Field or the Meadowlands.
Then you can't sell popcorn because you need to keep your mask off the whole time or peanuts, but maybe you're gonna sell hot dogs and give straws when you drink a beer.
Um maybe you start every other seat if you have to.
I would be I for me if the choice is wearing a mask, gloves, get a temperature check to get in, and maybe half every other seat, I'd do it, and I'd want to support not only the teams, but the workers in those stadiums that are all suffering.
Yeah.
Look, there's no doubt that you're gonna have to phase that in.
I'll start even earlier than you though.
Why can't they start now with nobody in the stands and just televise it so at least the people home, you have something to watch, you have something to do, you know, if you enjoy sports.
Why can't you do that now?
I mean, they have to renegotiate uh the terms, I suppose, when you don't have uh enough seat, uh you're not selling the the stadium, uh, what's the TV contract worth?
But uh I don't know why they couldn't be playing now uh right away uh without depending upon how many seats they sell at in the uh auditorium or in the stadium.
Uh there has to be some economic equation.
If I'm a player, I'd rather be earning something rather than nothing, right?
And then you move to phased-in attendance uh with the right precautions.
I th I think that's gonna be doable.
Now I can't speak look, every New Yorker has an opinion.
Everybody's gonna weigh in on it.
But for me, if I had my temperature taken, had to maybe maybe they even give away masks with a Yankee you know, the New York Yankees uniform thing on it, uh, or the Mets or the Giants or the Jets, whatever.
But if the choice is me going and I have to wear a mask and gloves and I can only have hot dog and drink out of a straw, I would do it.
That's my personal choice opinion.
Obviously, if you're older, you gotta make different and and underlying health conditions, you gotta make different decisions, and you gotta make the right one for you and testing every worker, every food worker, ticket taker, uh, every player, every trainer, everybody in the locker rooms, etc.
But I I think there might be a way we'll learn as we go.
Certainly a rebound is going to happen, not if it happens.
Um Now, here's where I see I don't I cannot in any way figure out how we're gonna open up a bar.
I can't figure out uh the say any safe way really to open up a restaurant.
I can't.
I can't I I I just I've been racking my brain.
Do you have any ideas?
I don't see it yet.
I don't see how you put people in a close environment.
But look, uh we've been learning every day.
The thing has been changing every day.
Uh I think there's still going to be a big development that we haven't anticipated, Sean.
They're all working on a medical treatment.
Uh and if one of these medical treatments works, either the convalescent plasma or one of the j these gene-based therapies, uh, that changes the game.
You know, if I know that if I get it, I can get treatment, that's different.
So uh I think some I think we still have to let the facts play out here.
One of the things I've been most fascinated by, um I I think you're aware of this Dr. Wallace, who is the foremost expert in the country on hydroxychloroquine.
And you know, this guy, 42 years, he's the head of every he's written the book on lupus and they the prescription of hydroxychloroquine, uh says it's safe, says in the doses to treat COVID-19, it's safe.
There are two studies going on.
One is Dr. Oz's hospital, Columbia Presbyterian involved in it, and another at MYU Langone.
And Dr. Raz has been on his show, my TV show, this radio show, looking for lupus rheumatoid arthritis patients that take hydroxychloroquine, and they're saying they're trying to find if people are on that medicine are getting or contracting COVID-19.
He can't find any of those people yet.
They've they've they're trying to find them.
Now, I don't know, I'm not a doctor, I'm not playing doctor on TV.
Every doctor I know in Long Island and New York, they're all prescribing it.
Um that wouldn't indicate potentially, potentially hope.
I'm looking for hope that it could have prophylactic qualities.
Uh have you discussed it with any of the the doctor experts that you talk to every day?
Yeah, I have.
Look, and unfortunately, uh it's it's like everything else in our society today.
It's become uh politicized.
And I'm a Democrat, obviously, as you know.
Uh I said, look, I I need to fix that, by the way.
It's you know you know, the entire legislature in New York is, you know, basically the politics of uh Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez.
But go ahead, you continue.
The uh hydroxychloroquine, I said, Look, I'm not a medical doctor either.
Uh people think it might work.
We need a solution badly.
Uh I I we had a problem in New York.
We literally couldn't get it.
The feds have opened up a supply.
Uh I said uh the other day, any doctor can prescribe it.
We have a 14-day window, which is the normal prescription uh window, because the supply has been so hard to get.
But any doctor can prescribe it for any patient 14 days.
If a doctor think it makes things it makes sense.
Oh, so you live so the executive order is now officially lifted, people can get it in a pharmacy for 14 days.
Okay.
Yes.
I've been I was mad at you about that, you know.
Yeah, well, you're mad at me about a lot of things that sometimes aren't connected to the facts, but that's a different story.
And I'm screaming, I need 40,000 ventilators.
I was I went nuts when you did that.
I was like, I went crazy.
But go ahead.
Yeah.
Well, do you know where I got those numbers?
That's the White House and the CDC projection.
Well, thank God we didn't need him because you and I, I don't even want to talk about it because if people have sick friends on ventilators, I don't want to know what I know about when you get to the ventilator.
It's not it's not your A game at that point.
Let's put it that way.
Let's well, let's put it this way.
You go on a ventilator, 80% chance you never come off.
That's the point.
I didn't you said it.
I I mean, and then we had look, we needed them, and but I now you're now sending them to New Jersey and all over the place, uh, but which is the right thing to do.
Um, and there's the government now we have 150,000 ventilators by the End of the month.
So I mean, what they've been able to do to make them is pretty amazing.
Now on the testing thing, I want to stay on this with you.
And by the way, for the stations along the Sean Hannity Show Network, we're going to continue with Governor Cuomo through this break.
I want to get into a big challenge.
I think New Yorkers are going to tell you.
And I look, you know what it's like.
Everybody in New York has a pretty strong opinion.
We kind of yell a little louder and curse a little more.
And I learned as I lived in four other states, Rhode Island, California, Alabama, and Georgia, pursuing this crazy job of mine that not everybody, not everybody in a conversation drops words that begin with F as often as we do, uh, but it's just a fact.
But I think New Yorkers are going to tell you how much they're willing to take.
I think you understand that.
I understand that, but we're beginning to see a backlash.
We saw it in Michigan the other day.
We saw the legislature in Pennsylvania overturn the governor's lockdown order there.
There was a big Wall Street Journal piece about eroding privacy.
So my question is this to you.
Um I again, I think people are gonna at some point demand more, rightly.
They're sick of it.
They want to get outside.
So the question is how do we do the testing, which is getting better every day?
We didn't even have this test, Abbott made two weeks ago.
It's they made a million antibody tests.
How are we gonna manage medical privacy, civil liberties, constitutional rights, not go down the road of these other governments of digital surveillance of their citizens, medical records on a database?
Because I would think that you and I, I'm a conservative, you're pretty liberal.
I think we might agree that that we've got to protect those issues.
100%.
Uh and look, it is a difficult time.
Everybody wants out of the house.
You know, cabin fever is real.
Uh in concept, it's nice.
Stay home with the uh the kids and the family.
Uh you do it for a month, you're not getting a paycheck, you know, you're ready to move on.
And that's where we are.
And you're right.
New Yorkers, the feedback is immediate.
Now, New Yorkers also, Sean, you're also right, that you know, we paid a higher price here, and I think the fear factor right now is higher than in some other places because it's it's everywhere, and everybody knows someone who's been affected.
Uh but uh yeah, we have to move on.
This is unsustainable.
Uh and testing is one of the stones across this pond, right?
Stone to stone across the pond.
Uh so coming up to speed on testing is important.
Even though it is impossible, it's going to be a blame game.
You can never get as many as fast as you want.
And I think the state working with the federal government, I said to the president, look, I need your help.
When you start talking about a supply chain that goes back to China, I don't do China.
Okay.
Uh I can't work that out.
When you're talking about getting companies all across the country to help, I can't do that.
So there's a piece that the president can be very helpful on.
There's a piece that I can do, which is the actual implementation, right?
I'll take care of all the logistics.
That's my job in my state.
But it's going to take the both of us as if to the extent we can ramp up the testing all the better.
I'm not going near uh the I am very worried about these digital surveillance mechanisms that could intrude on privacy.
And you'll never put that genie back in the bottle, by the way, once you do it here.
I'm glad you said that because you know what?
You won't.
And you know, a lot of these governments didn't seek permission.
This was in the Wall Street Journal piece from people before tracking their cell phones, like South Korea, China, Taylor, Taiwan.
They didn't ask anybody.
They just started tracking their cell phones.
By the way, I've already had that done by the deep state.
It wouldn't be new to me, Governor.
Um, let me let me look let's dig down a little bit deeper into this.
You know, I I heard some commentators someplace somewhere, it wasn't on Fox, you know, make a statement about where are the drive-up testing?
And I'm like, you idiot, that's three iterations ago.
You know, Abbott has this machine, and and I've had a lot of discussions with a lot of people.
You might think the machine the size of a toaster is easy to duplicate.
It's not.
Even so the sophisticated engineers and and they are genius at GM and Ford, they had a hard time adopting an assembly line to properly manufacture those ventilators that all of a sudden we realize we needed.
Now they got it done.
Everyone thinks you snap your freaking finger and oh, we should be popping out 10 million of them.
But we have this going for us that we now have the five-minute Abbott test.
We now have an antibody test.
We now have the six and a half hour test, and we have the more traditional tests that lab cores and quest diagnostics can help us with, where you're testing people over a long period of time.
There was a poll, believe it or not, and I think I think you'll disagree with us.
56%, I believe, no, it's 4938 Democrats support both ankle bracelets and and mandatory blood tests of every American.
I'm like, you're out of your mind.
Americans are not going to allow that.
Never gonna happen.
But I think that if we put all of the different tests together and whatever new iteration comes down the road, because they're developing a new one every day.
I think we'll figure out a way to get the numbers of tests, but you know, nobody wants to hur hear the words you gotta be a little patient here.
You don't snap your finger and and now have the test.
We broke down the sequence uh sequence of this virus in less than six weeks.
Used to take six years.
And we'll have uh uh probably a vaccine what in 14 months, 15 months.
Yeah, well, that's what I mean, Sean.
It's going to be imperfect.
You know, everybody wants a 15 minute test.
It's not going to work that way.
Uh to get the the volume we need, you're going to have to use all of the above.
Uh sometimes a 15 minute test, sometimes a 24 hour test, sometimes I'll call you back in three days.
You know, that's that's what it's going to be to get the volume and the scale that we need.
We have about in this state, about 50 labs in New York that can run tests.
But they run different tests.
Some of them have the equipment to do the fancy tests.
Uh, but some of them don't have that equipment.
And we're gonna need all 50 labs to get up the volume, and then whatever test they can perform, they can test.
Uh you're right.
Nobody wants to wait several days, but at least you know, and it's better than not having a test.
So I we have to put it all together.
There's one thing you did when you announced the mandatory mask wearing if you're not if you're not socially distant, and I I I'm with you, I don't mind putting on the mask.
I go into the store.
I wore it for the first time to be honest, like a week ago.
Uh, prior to that, I I just went into the store.
The shelves are full, that's another thing.
The country didn't shut down because of the supply chain for food and medical equipment that is needed for frontline workers, that they were working away, they were producing the hell out of everything, and the truckers are out there, they're being honored at the White House today.
You might think this is nuts.
Um, but I think it you could be do it anonymously.
There's there's a nefarious uh, I guess, possibility that's around the corner.
But one thing, like for example, Moscow's using facial recognition technology on people.
That scares me.
But they did have in Seoul, they used a thermal camera monitor, believe it or not, that shows body temperatures of travelers.
Now, if we could produce those, you could literally have a lot of people's temperatures taken, and anybody that shows up hot on that camera monitor, you don't take down their name.
You you just gently hand to them here, you might want to go.
Here's a testing center you can go to.
If you have COVID-19, this is how you protect your family when you get home.
You gotta self-quarantine and isolate.
Um here is uh what you need to do for contact tracing.
That doesn't bother me as much.
I'm surprised I'm even saying it because a thermal monitor, what I liked about it is you can take the temperature of a you know large group of people.
For example, if you have all this group of people, you go into a big area at Yankee Stadium and you want to get in, you have the body temperatures, anybody that might have a high temperature, you identify, and somebody doesn't ask their name.
They just go over, hand them the information and say we're not gonna be able to let you in, but we care about you, and this is where we you can go and get tested, and and this is what you do when you get home with your family, and these are the people that you probably want to call.
Yeah, that sound like a crazy idea.
Well, look, uh, that's why these labels don't have to be a little bit more.
You don't want to go there either.
I'm a little more conservative than you are in this one.
The technology makes me nervous.
If it was really nervous too.
Yeah.
If it was really just a person's temperature, that's one thing.
But uh is it is it doing temperature?
Does it also doing facial recognition software?
Is it also a few years?
It does not do facial recognition.
It did it's specifically said in the Wall Street Journal that it is a thermal camera that only shows body temperatures of individuals, not named individuals, not facial recognition in any way.
Look, I'm like you, I don't trust the government.
You know I don't trust the government.
I hate most of you politicians.
I mean, I made my living but not trusting government, but um, but I don't want people to get sick and die either.
Yeah.
The tech look, if it was only the temperature and you knew that.
It might have some application.
Yeah.
You know, but yeah, I don't think anyone can complain about taking the temperature for their own good.
I mean, it's not like you're it's uh it's this uh a selfish thing.
So uh I think that would be one thing.
But uh again, the technology itself, because you know, you find out so many facts after the fact, right?
Oh, we forgot to tell you.
It was also pinging your cell phone to find out your location, you know.
But I think temperatures uh we're going to have to go there, right?
And we're doing it everywhere.
You s we're doing it already on the temperature.
How like I had it when I went to the comfort and I did a show from there one night, and I I didn't even know this technology existed.
They don't even touch you.
They just point the thermometer at your forehead, and I my temperature was 98-8 within the normal range.
They let me write through.
Um, but how do you feel about temperature taking every day for every building in New York?
But that also means we're gonna have to get a lot more thermometers.
Although I think we'll have an easier time with that because I you know they have those paper thermometers, right?
Yes, yes.
So I mean, if everyone does their temperature before you're allowed entrance into a building in New York, that would be a pretty good start, don't you think?
Especially if half the workforce stays home.
Yeah, I do.
I don't have a problem with that, and I don't think anyone would.
You were 988.
That doesn't surprise me, Sean.
You tend to run a little hot, you know.
I would have I would have guessed Oh, now you're gonna pull the same crap you and you know, you and your brother pull on TV.
You know your brother never beat me in the ratings until he's he's he he announces he's COVID 19 positive and dying.
Everyone wants to make sure he's okay.
And you know, we actually have been friendly for a long time.
He used to be with us at Fox, and I think he's mad at me because I was going after you and he's protective of his brother.
Uh but I tried to contact him a couple of hundred hundred times a couple of times on text rather.
And um, and I was gonna ask you for a uh a promise of a pardon because I was gonna smuggle him because that you had your executive order in place.
You know, I was gonna find somebody to prescribe uh hydroxychloroquine and sneak it into them, which means I'd probably be arrested in New York and put in jail for the rest of my life for helping the governor's son, and you know, I might have needed a uh a pardon at that point, and I'm obviously kidding, but he's doing right, he's doing well, he's better.
He's he's doing he's doing better.
This is the wife, the wife's uh getting sick, Christina getting sick is a it's just a practically complicating factor.
You know, he's got kids, three kids, uh the oldest Bella's about seventeen, so uh it's it's just tough on a day-to-day basis, but uh he'll get by.
He's a tough guy.
Uh and uh he was maybe a little too tough.
I keep reading about him getting in trouble all the time.
I'm like, calm down, Chris.
Relax.
He does not like to be criticized, I'll tell you that.
In New York, who likes to be criticized?
You know, it's I don't get you know what?
I don't give a flying, you know, I don't care.
I I swear I don't care.
It doesn't mean anything anymore to me.
But I guess I lost that chip a long time ago.
All right, so I know you've got to run.
Last question.
So if there's gonna be these new normals, I can I'm only speaking for myself.
I'm thinking as a a good citizen, I don't really care if you're if I have to put a mask on for a while to get past this crap, uh, or wear gloves, Or have my temperature taken.
If we protect medical privacy, civil liberties, constitutional rights.
Now, on the issue of money, I was watching uh Comrade de Blasio, and he's, you know, cutting and slashing.
I we obviously monies are coming.
I think Schumer claimed it was forty-five million dollars to New York with the first bill, et cetera.
I'm not gonna like the fact that Americans won't like the fact if, you know, a city like New York, separate from you with a pretty big budget, is trying to balance their budget and take down their deficits off the backs of the American taxpayer.
That's very different from needed aid relief, help for small business, help for big business, help for workers displaced, and help for hospital workers.
Would you agree that the monies have to be specifically assigned to those categories?
Look, the uh uh state government, local government is basically a pass through, right?
Uh they've done nothing for state and local government in the f first two bills they passed.
And uh they often can do uh categorical aid because if you don't give it to me, then I just have to turn around and cut the hospital.
So what's the point of uh you want to help the hospitals?
I was the number one funder of hospitals.
I'm broke, which I am, I have a 10 to 15 billion dollar hole.
That means uh I'm just cutting the health care budget.
That's all I'm doing, and education.
So uh if the if the goal was to actually fund health care, then uh that's what the legislation could have done.
I just think it was I think it was political, Sean.
I think they gave the money to a lot of places that didn't have the COVID expenses.
Uh there was one analysis that said some states are getting about 200,000 for every COVID case they had.
New York, it's about 12,000.
You know, I was in Washington.
Well, but New York got five hospitals.
You got to admit how the Army Corps of Engineers, what they did at the Javitt Center, and then they changed it to COVID-19.
I didn't know till the other day that the president then had to go back and change the ventilation at the Javett Center, but that was 3,000 beds.
Now, thank God you didn't need them, and New York didn't need them.
But the projections at the time were that we would need them.
Uh the same with the comfort.
I mean, that became a a COVID center as well, taking the pressure.
They even provided the personnel for New York.
They did a lot for New York.
The ventilators, 5,000 plus were sent, um, gloves, mask, shields, you know, all respirators, they were all sent.
Um so New York got more in terms of all of that help from the president.
Sean, I am the first to say.
And that's why I like to stay away from the politics, because I can't do my job if I'm doing it through a political lens.
You know, you guys, my brother, you uh once you start taking positions in this polarized environment, you lose 50% of the people.
I represent 100% of the people.
The president was there for New York.
I called him, I said, I need help, I need emergency beds, because everybody's projection, his own projection, by the way, CDC's projection, said a minimum need 2.4 million beds.
You know how many beds we have in this nation?
One million.
His minimum projection at the CDC was two and a half times the capacity of our hospital system nationwide.
I called him up.
I said I need emergency beds.
He got the Army Corps of Engineers, they came up.
I've never seen anybody build anything that fast.
Amazing.
Amazing.
Uh brought up the U.S. Navy ship comfort, then went back and said, let's convert it for COVID use.
The Army Corps of Engineers did that.
Uh, they were magnificent.
And I'm the first one to say the president did it, he moved fast, and he delivered.
Period.
I don't care what his politics are, what political party, that's a fact.
Listen, I will say this even between that and I think probably the most insightful position that he's taken throughout his presidency was the travel ban, the first quarantine in over 50 years, got the crap beat out Of them for doing that.
And followed by the subsequent travel bans.
I I think we cannot even begin to calculate how much worse this could be.
I mean, I'm pissed, by the way, at how wrong these models and projections were.
They did not serve us well, the models that they gave us.
Now, with that said, we can't shut the country down again either.
When we open New York with the knowledge that there's going to be rebounds, we've got to be able to, you know, hone in on hot spots, do mitigation.
That's why I think keeping New York City, the workforce, non-essential workers, let them work from home.
Right now, for example, I'm in a I'm in a studio.
I have one person in the next room.
Usually there's ten people in front of me.
Um at Fox, when I do my TV show, there's one person in another room.
Um, and I'm doing the show every night.
And it's worked out incredibly well.
Some uh I know some people are more productive at home because they don't have the travel time.
We probably might we might solve New York City congestion in all in one swipe.
But I think that I think if you create that natural social distancing and we suck it up with the get with the masks and the gloves, because it's a pain in the ass.
You know it's a pain in the ass.
We'll do it.
America will do it.
Um just to pr help prevent others from getting this and putting this totally behind us.
I think post people will do it.
As long as we respect privacy and the things we talk about.
They will do it.
And by the way, I think if you just left it alone, naturally, things are not going to go back to the way they were they were, because a lot of people realized I can work from home.
And I save two hours a day in the commute.
Uh a lot of businesses are going to realize that.
So I think a lot of the lessons are going to be natural.
And yet, wearing a mask, they're giving me a lot of blowback on masks.
I get it.
I get it.
But compared to the risk to yourself to other people, uh, you know, and you look at people in China have been wearing masks for a long time just out of pollution.
You know, I have doctors who say to me, Look, we haven't been shaking hands for 20 years because shaking hands was crazy in terms of transitions.
Elbows, Governor.
By the way, I'd love to throw your brother an elbow because he says he's a martial artist, and I I trade mixed martial arts now for seven years.
He says he can kick my, you know what, but anyway.
Uh well uh just please tell him that he's in our prayers, but we're also praying for everybody in New York and everybody around the country.
Uh I've had very dear friends of mine, you know, really come to the edge with this.
And all of them except one now.
I'm praying for the last one that I know, but I'm praying for people I don't know.
Um I know you it's got to be tough on you, your sister-in-law.
These are your nieces and nephews you're worried about, and we're praying for them too.
Uh I'm glad you got the hydroxychloroquine.
I think that if we work with companies like Abbott on testing, I'm I I just have this confidence they've done so much so quickly that it'll evolve even further if we can maybe it'll take the defense production act just like with the with the ventilators.
Um I think we'll be able to get American ingenuity working.
We've you know, we've rewritten the books on how we'll deal with future pandemics, that's for sure.
This is a transformative time.
But, you know, as the president has pointed out, we could have lost two and a half million Americans and and the latest projection is around sixty thousand, but it's sixty thousand too many.
We lose, you know.
I wish we had a cure for everything.
I wish we had a cure for the common cold, the flu, heart disease, and every cancer, but we make progress every year on all these issues.
But I'll give you the last word.
No, you're exactly right.
Look, uh this country can do anything it says it's says it's mine to.
I believe that.
And when things are at their worst, Americans are at their best.
I can't tell you how many people.
We had sixty thousand volunteers from New York and across the country.
Health care professionals who said they would come to help New York during this crisis.
60,000, Sean.
Health care professionals.
By the way, then that means they're putting themselves in harm's way.
Yes.
Yes.
I mean, it incredible.
Uh so yeah, we'll get the test done.
We'll get whatever we have to get done, we always do.
This country's uh the world leader.
It always has been.
If if we fulfill our legacy, we'll continue to be.
And if we don't let the politics interfere, we'll get there even faster.
You can call the opening of Yankee Stadium and City Field Hannity's crazy idea.
Everyone wearing a mask, and if you take a bite of a hot dog, you have one second to take the bite and close it up again.
And drink your beer from a straw.
That's gonna suck, Governor.
That's not but I'll take it to a game.
I'll, you know.
Uh anyway, uh, I'm praying for our state.
I want this dramatic drop off if those patterns hold.
We're getting closer to it every day, and uh, we're praying for everybody with this, including your family.
Thank you, Sean.
Let's do it together.
We're trying to reopen the economy.
Now, I just want to reiterate, I'm gonna make a couple of points that I have made, but they we have got to we've got to understand some things here.
And one is is that uh New York, if people did shut down, meaning farmers and those that made medical equipment and people that pack trucks and people that drove trucks, and I keep going back to these guys that I see every week at my local grocery store.
I go in every week, once or twice a week, put my mask on, go through the aisles.
I see these guys, they never got sick.
Nobody.
I asked the last time did anyone here ever contract the virus?
No.
Said, okay.
Um, we learned something.
These masks work.
Social distance.
Now, look, they've seen a lot of people.
Um, they weren't restricting the number of people going into the grocery store.
Some days it was pretty crowded, lines were pretty long.
Everybody had a mask on.
Then we have the issue of, okay, what states did things right?
What states did things wrong?
Well, the dumbest state by far, not even close, is New York State.
Not only did you have Comrade Mayor de Blasio uh telling people, oh, go out on the town.
Here are my recommendations for March 2nd through March 5th.
I'm like, huh?
You're watching fake news CNN, you had Anderson Cooper telling you to worry more about the flu.
Had Governor Cuomo saying, I know I speak for the mayor about this, and uh maybe I sound like an arrogant New Yorker, but as a New Yorker, I can say this by the way, because I'm from New York, as a New Yorker, um, we're better prepared than these other countries.
They weren't prepared.
He never got the his own health task force November 2015 recommendation.
You'd be shy, peak week, 15,783 ventilators.
They bought none.
The city of New York, 9,800 ventilators.
They need it just for the city.
Well, they did buy 500, but they didn't maintain them.
And they sold them at auction, nobody knows where.
There's been a ton of waste, fraud, and abuse.
Now, Donald Trump built the hospitals.
He manned the hospitals.
3,000 beds, Javit Center, the Navy hospital ship Comfort, converted both.
First manned them both, all his personnel, built them all, and then converted them for COVID-19 patients.
Only a little over a thousand of the 3,000 beds used at the Javit Center.
Other hospitals were built and manned also around New York.
Only 182 patients aboard the Navy hospital ship the Comfort.
But there was a March 25th directive forcing, by law, forcing uh nursing homes, long-term care facilities into uh to accept COVID-19 patients.
Well, that's where about 30% of the deaths came from.
That was the single dumbest idea I've ever heard.
Now, you have draconian measures like you can't cut the lawn, you can't walk on the beach, you know, all around the country.
It's getting nuts.
I was a little skeptical of Governor Kemp uh and his idea that tattoo parlors could open up.
I thought that was a little risky and nail salons, but then I saw the images of people, let's see, they built plexiglass, they distance everybody by six feet.
Everybody had masks, everybody wore gloves.
I said, okay, I think can you put your hands under like a teller thing and where you're getting cash?
I said, Oh, I think this might be able to work.
Dr. Oz talked about it.
Ventilation systems changing, like they did at the Javit Center.
That can help uh restaurants, that can help nail salons, that can help other places open up.
Now, what state did the best?
Well, I would say that would be the state of Florida.
And I don't think Ron DeSantis got enough credit because while they were forcing COVID-19 positive patients into nursing homes with the most vulnerable population, well, the governor of Florida quietly sent a SWAT team of basically everybody under all of his jurisdiction into the villages.
If you don't know it's America's friendliest hometown, it's around Orlando.
I've been down there.
It's the coolest place on earth.
They got a million golf courses and tennis courts and pickleball courts and movie theaters and concerts and bars and restaurants.
They got it all.
Well, one of the first things he did was meet with the people of the villages.
How do we protect you?
And then every single long-term care facility for the elderly and nursing homes, they were flooded with help support and mandates from the governor.
Well, if you compare the the COVID 19 contraction rate of the people in Florida, with which happens to have a large percentage of of their population being the elderly people retiring down there because it's better weather and cheaper.
Um and you compare it to all these other states, it's negligible, especially compared to states like New York and New Jersey and Connecticut, but even states like Michigan, because that idiot Governor Whitmer blew everything there.
Still, you can't cut your lawn.
Huh?
Why not?
And Governor DeSantis allows people to walk on the beach.
You can't lay around on the beach, you gotta have a little social distancing, urging people if you're going to be in closer contact wearing masks.
We're learning from these things.
Now, as we reopen the country, the states that did well, what can we learn from them?
Governor DeSantis is with us.
How are you, sir?
I'm doing good, Sean.
How are you doing?
Well, first of all, thank you for protecting the most vulnerable.
And that would be our loved ones, our grandmothers and grandfathers and mothers and fathers that are down in your state, happily retired.
Tell us what you did.
Well, you mentioned uh with the villages, which yeah, that's not a nursing home community.
These are very active seniors, but um very early.
The elderly population, you know, the older population.
So it was very clear uh we message very early to the elderly that this that they were at increased risk and there were certain things they needed to do to reduce contact.
And so, like at the villages, for example, they stopped doing the indoor events.
They usually are party and they do a lot of fun things, but they stopped doing the indoor events, but they still did golf with social distancing, everyone in an individual cart, and they were doing things that were safe uh but allowed people to have an outlet.
And I just checked the numbers this morning at the main village's hospital, there is zero villagers hospitalized for COVID 19 right now.
And this is 125,000 people.
And not many contracted, not many contracted it even at the worst points, right?
No, yeah, no extremely low um uh positivity rate when we would do testing and so but that's just by doing it the right way.
It wasn't uh saying that they could not garden or do anything like some of these other states, it was understanding where the risk was and then minimizing that.
Our long-term care facilities I mentioned on your show, we were launching our mobile uh RV that does the 45 minute rapid test.
So we deployed that.
Uh, we were down in Miami yesterday, so that's going around, and it'll be in a central location, then they'll have teams go out to various long-term care facilities, all bring the samples back, run them through the lab, people will get the results that day.
So that if you do have some a staff member that's infected, if you get the results that day, then you can isolate that staff member.
No one else is infected, then you know it's okay if there's more.
I want you to explain a lot of work.
Yep.
Uh explain every part of Florida government that you utilize to target and in a positive way, protect would probably be a better word, the older population of Florida.
You know, we have um the Florida Department of Health, so they would do a lot of infection control.
They would go proactively at the beginning of this to the areas that so yeah, we have almost 4,000 long-term care facilities.
Not all of them have an A-plus record on infection control.
So they went to the ones that we thought would be problematic, uh, identified some needs, was able to help make corrections.
I have a health care administration office that was doing uh things like um uh making sure the hospitals wouldn't send back uh COVID-positive patients to some of these places because obviously that would spark an outbreak.
We issued rules about you need to screen the staff members every day.
You can't have visitors, you have to wear PPE.
My emergency management department, we've now sent Sean 10 million masks just to our long-term care facilities, over a million gloves and half a million face shields.
Then I have the Florida National Guard.
I have 50 strike teams, four-man strike teams.
They go into the long-term care facilities and they test the staff and then the residents.
Sometimes they'll test everyone.
If ever if if people don't want to be tested, the residents they'll test enough to know whether it has permeated uh the facility yet.
And so it's really been all of our assets focused on where the most vulnerabilities are.
So I spent l I spent less time trying to suppress you know people under 50 from doing their jobs because I didn't think the risk was was significant there.
And we found that the city is not a good thing.
That is the one thing that held.
There was one point where we thought that younger people might be more vulnerable than we originally thought, but then that went away.
But in the end, it was what we originally thought.
It tended to go after older people, those with underlying health issues, compromised immune systems, and that's where you focus like a laser beam.
Okay.
Based on what you've learned and the shift show, if you will, in New York, which was oh, let's force COVID 19 patients onto nursing homes that are screaming they can't that they're not prepared to handle it.
Uh how do we learn these lessons and reopen states successfully because again, the guys never stop stocking the shells.
The manufacturers, if if they stop making the medical equipment that New York desperately needed, New York would have been screwed.
So they kept working, they never shut down.
Farmers never shut down, truckers never shut down, packers never shut down, and stuck those stocking shelves never shut down.
So, you know, we there has to be some lessons here that we can use in opening everything up.
Safety.
Yeah, well, I think though I think one lesson is um if you're doing what you need to do to protect the seniors and particularly the long-term care facilities, opening up your economy isn't gonna affect that.
If you're doing what you need to do, then open up the economy.
Just like if you keep the economy closed, but you don't do what you need to do for the long-term care facilities, as we've seen in some of these other states.
Guess what?
You're gonna have big problems.
So you can open up the economy and still focus the resources on the most vulnerable, then they're not mutually exclusive at all.
And in fact, I think by having a healthier economy, getting society back up, that allows us to have the resources we need to continue this fight because this is uh you know, we don't know what direction the virus is going to take, but we're gonna assume that it's gonna be with us for a while, and so we're gonna continue to need to divert resources to our most vulnerable, and so I think that that makes the most sense.
I think that's what we've learned in Florida, um, that you can keep the economy going.
Now we had obviously tourism and some things stop, but I had construction going.
We were accelerating big road projects in Central Florida and South Florida.
We've made huge progress on that, all the while protecting um, you know, those facilities.
By the way, how long are you going to keep the likes of hand?
I can't go down to Florida until you lift the the 14-day ban of self-quarantining.
I can't go down and visit my my friendliest hometown or anybody.
I don't know if you saw, but I mean, even the New York Times had an article today saying New York City ceded the most of the country.
I did certainly on the East Coast, and so that's what I was guarding against because Florida is the number one.
That was a smart spot.
I told you at the time it was a smart decision.
I said it on the air.
Yeah, he's smart to keep us out of there.
I was smart.
Yeah, so and the thing is is obviously I think New York's on the other side of the curve too.
But I mean, we're still in situation where we want to we want to keep that.
But I I do think that um you know we do have a good path forward.
It's not it's not necessarily easy, but we know a lot more about this than we did two, three months ago.
I think we know where the risks are, and um and let's do it.
Let me ask you this important question.
I want to see baseball opened, and I want to see, and I've been talking to Randy Levine and Dr. Oz a lot about it.
They have these turnstiles that'll take people's temperature.
I think we should probably say to the vulnerable population, guys, you're gonna have to take the season off.
Not to be mean because we love you and we want to protect you.
But for those that do go in a stadium, my suggestion is if anyone has a temperature, they be pulled aside.
You don't ask their name, they're entitled to mega medical privacy.
So you have a temperature just for the sake of everyone else in the stadium, we'll give you tickets to another game.
Um here, this is what you do.
If in case there's where you can get tested in case you might have this, this is what you do with your family members at home.
This is what contract contact tracing means.
And say, sorry, we'll give you tickets, we'll take your name if you want, uh, or give you a refund right there on the spot.
Uh and then even if it even if it means wearing masks in a stadium.
I'm cool with that.
Would you do you think you can do it down in Florida?
Oh, I think we've got it.
We've got it.
We've got to be innovative.
I think those are interesting ideas.
I know others have had others.
But um we we don't just sit in the fetal position as Americans.
We figure out ways to to to live life and do this in ways that are going to be safe.
I think you need baseball back.
I think you need the sports back.
I also want our kids to be playing sports again.
I mean I think that this has been a big big problem that they've been on the sidelines.
So yeah we've got to do it and and you're right I think there's certain folks who are going to be much more high risk and I think that those are probably advised to to to not go to events like that once they get underway.
But I think for most folks you're gonna be fine and look I mean flo hey if you go down to like the Miami Marlins, as much as I hate to say it, you know they're not selling out Sean.
So you go there and it's probably it's kind of social distancing anyways because the stadium's usually only about a quarter full um and I don't know if that'll change is that open now for people if they want to go no no no well no I'm saying the Miami Marlins when the when the Mars okay yeah the regular season game so but I think they I think you could definitely do it.
We and we also know that um this thing is more transparent.
Well why don't you lead the way and show everybody how to do it safely like you have been because they screwed it up at Michigan, New York.
I listen I'll throw a bar I'll you know I think Gavin Newsom did okay out in California.
I think he's gone a little nuts.
You know the idea that you can't cut your lawn or walk on the beach in some of these places is stupid.
But listen you did a great job.
Oh by the way um did you once tell me your mom likes me or likes our show?
Oh yeah definitely this is what I'm gonna do.
So I have a spell you know I'm doing this new book and by the way I'm updating it tonight on the Flynn issue.
Um it's called Live Free or Die America and the world on the brink but I have the special Mother's Day card and I'm gonna give it to your mom.
I'll give one for your great your your wonderful wife the first lady of Florida and uh as well does that is that break the law in Florida I don't feel like getting arrested.
No I think it's de minimis.
So but if so I mean we'll if I'll look at the if there's anything then I'll just I'll put it I can't break the law.
They're they already want me dead in New York for exposing their corruption and ineptness.
Um anyway but we'll say so it's up on Hannity.com a great Mother's Day gift but I'm I want to give you one thanks for saving the people of Florida the elderly population you did a great job and I know a lot of people helped you and all my credit to them and the first responders and the medical professionals.
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