Leaked Intel Report CONFIRMS China Is Lying About COVID Numbers, China Is Exploiting The Crisis
Leaked Intel Report CONFIRMS China Is Lying About COVID Numbers, China Is Exploiting The Crisis. Several intel officials have privately confirmed that China has been under reporting the number of infected to downplay the crisis.China has been lying in an effort to exploit the situation for economic gain. When the outbreak first began they started hoarding supplies from other countries while downplaying the severity. They have since been supplying faulty numbers resulting in slow responses to the pandemic.Now a new report from the FBI shows Chinese scientists caught illicitly transporting vials with the virus in it.In the end we must take what China has done seriously. Republicans, Democrats and Trump should absolutely come together in a way to help the American people and prevent this from happening in the future
Support the show (http://timcast.com/donate)
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in Wuhan, China, the Chinese government has lied to the rest of the world about what's really happening.
They told us, around the 15th, they told the World Health Organization there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission, even though they did have evidence to the contrary.
At the same time, they were lying to the rest of us, saying there was nothing to worry about.
They were instructing their employees in countries like Australia and Canada to buy up as much medical supply materials as they could to send back to China.
They knew how bad this was going to get, and now we have confirmation.
A leaked report from U.S.
intelligence says that China is absolutely lying about the numbers of cases and dead in their country.
If you take a look at the John Hopkins chart, you can see that China's officially confirmed 82,361 cases.
Strangely though, they have substantially less than Italy.
Italy is a country of 66 million people.
How do they have 105,000 to China's 82 if China has 1.3 billion people?
Stories started to emerge.
Locals said that crematoriums were working overtime.
And based on the timeframe of delivery for someone's cremated loved one, there were estimates of up to 50,000 dead in China.
The reason this is significant is that the more China lies, the harder it is for us to respond and to know what's really happening.
If we don't have accurate numbers from China, then our predictive models will be wrong.
And if it's worse than China is saying, that would mean it's likely going to be worse here in the U.S.
Now, it's possible U.S.
intelligence knowing this has already delivered that report to the Coronavirus Task Force to Donald Trump, and we know that it's going to be a lot worse, and we should not take China's numbers seriously.
But China has been trying to make it harder for us to recover.
They have had disinformation campaigns running full time since this started.
Countries like Taiwan, for instance, which China will be mad about me saying, but I don't care, have had a slower response because of the lies.
And China now has been caught, or at least in the past, smuggling viruses, or I shouldn't say that, but perhaps illicitly transporting them.
There is a fear of a real potential of war because China is exploiting this crisis, sending faulty goods to European countries that don't work.
They are lying to us to hurt us for personal economic gain.
At a certain point, they'll cross the red line, and that's what's truly scary.
Let's get started with the first story, the report.
What's going on?
Why is China lying?
And what's really happening?
Before we get started, head over to timcast.com slash donate if you'd like to support my work.
There are several ways you can give, but the best thing you can do, share this video.
It is important people realize the extent to which we are being misled.
It is important that people take this threat seriously.
In fact, many people probably don't think it's very serious because the death toll globally is low.
Add $40,000 to $50,000 on top of that, and it nearly doubles.
Then maybe people might start listening to how serious this actually is.
Bloomberg reports China concealed extent of virus outbreak, U.S.
intelligence says.
China has concealed the extent of the coronavirus outbreak in its country, underreporting both total cases and deaths it suffered from the disease.
The U.S.
intelligence community concluded in a classified report to the White House, according to three U.S.
officials.
The officials asked not to be identified because the report is secret and declined to detail its contents.
But the thrust, they said, is that China's public reporting on cases and deaths is intentionally incomplete.
Two of the officials said the report concludes that China's numbers are fake.
The report was received at the White House last week, one of the officials said.
The outbreak began in China's Hubei province in late 2019, but the country has publicly reported only about 82,000 cases and 3,300 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
That compares to more than 189,000 and more than 4,000 deaths in the U.S., which has the largest publicly reported outbreak in the world.
Communication staff at the White House and Chinese Embassy in Washington didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.
While China eventually imposed a strict lockdown beyond those of less autocratic nations, there has been considerable skepticism of China's reported numbers both outside and within the country.
The Chinese government has repeatedly revised its methodology for counting cases for weeks, excluding people without symptoms entirely, and only on Tuesday added more than 1,500 asymptomatic cases to its total.
Stacks of thousands of urns outside funeral homes in Hubei province have driven public doubt in Beijing's reporting.
Deborah Birx, the State Department immunologist advising the White House on its response to the outbreak, said Tuesday that China's public reporting influenced assumptions elsewhere in the world about the nature of the virus.
The medical community interpreted the Chinese data as, this was serious but smaller than anyone expected.
She said at a news conference on Tuesday.
Because I think probably we were missing a significant amount of the data, now that what we see happened to Italy, and see what happened to Spain.
China is not the only country with suspect public reporting.
Western officials have pointed to Iran, Russia, Indonesia, and especially North Korea, which has not reported a single case of the disease, as probable undercounts.
Others, including Saudi Arabia and Egypt, may also be downplaying their numbers.
U.S.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has publicly urged China and other nations to be transparent about their outbreaks.
He has repeatedly accused China of covering up the extent of the problem and being slow to share information, especially in the weeks after the virus first emerged and blocking offers to help American expats.
I'm sorry, and blocking offers of help from American expats.
This data set matters, he said at a news conference in Washington on Tuesday.
The development of medical therapies and public health measures to combat the virus so that we can save lives depends on the ability to have confidence and information about what has actually transpired.
I would urge every nation, do your best to collect the data.
Do your best to share that information, he said.
We are doing that.
Shockingly, many people in media are taking the Chinese numbers at face value.
They're blaming Trump.
They're mocking him, saying America has done a worse job.
Why would you entertain Chinese propaganda?
It is particularly scary to me when you combine this information with a few other reports.
Notably, that over the past several months, U.S.
law enforcement has arrested several university officials, professors, who were lying about receiving money from the Chinese government.
They lied about it or withheld the information.
We then learned of another story in which the U.S.
has intercepted Chinese biologists, claiming other people wanted them to carry the SARS virus and flu through the United States.
Could it be that there is something nefarious going on?
Well, according to a report from Yahoo News, yes, there's concern that this is bioterror-related.
Many people have been paying attention to what the people in China had to say, and not their government.
From the National Review, Wuhan residents dismiss official coronavirus death toll.
The incinerators have been working around the clock.
Wuhan residents are increasingly skeptical of the Chinese Communist Party's reported coronavirus death count of approximately 2,500 deaths.
This was two days ago, this story.
They say, most people believe the actual number is at least 40,000.
Maybe the authorities are gradually releasing the real figures, intentionally or unintentionally, so that many people will gradually come to accept the reality a Wuhan resident, who gave only his surname Mao, told Radio Free Asia.
A city source added that based on the aggregation of funeral and cremation numbers, authorities likely know the real number and are keeping it under wraps.
Every funeral home reports data on cremations directly to the authorities twice daily, the source said.
This means that each funeral home only knows how many cremations it has conducted, but not the situation at other funeral homes.
The city began lifting its lockdown on Saturday after two months of mandatory shutdown, with a complete lift of restrictions set for April 8th.
Funeral homes in Wuhan have been handing out the cremated remains to families every day, but rumors began circulating after one funeral home received two shipments of 5,000 urns over the course of two days.
According to photos reported by Chinese media outlet Kaisen, which were later censored, reports of the funeral's crematoriums working nonstop also raised questions.
It can't be right, because the incinerators have been working around the clock.
So how can so few people have died?
A man surnamed Zhang told RFA.
Wuhan resident said the government was paying families 3,000 yuan for funeral allowances in exchange for silence.
There have been a lot of funerals in the past few days, and the authorities are handing out 3,000 yuan in hush money to families who get their loved ones' remains laid to rest ahead of King Ming.
Wuhan resident Chen Yaohui said, in reference to the traditional grave-tending festival on April 5th, during the epidemic they transferred cremation workers from around China to Wuhan.
Keep cremate bodies around the clock, he added.
China has used state propaganda in an attempt to avoid blame for spreading of COVID-19, despite reports showing how the government suppressed initial reports to human-to-human transmission and gagged Wuhan labs that discovered the novel virus resembled the deadly SARS virus.
China regime lied about coronavirus for months.
Why are the media believing its statistics now?
An op-ed from The Washington Examiner.
There's partisan play in this.
Many people who don't like Trump are just pretending like China is telling the truth because it makes Trump look worse.
Hillary Clinton, for instance, tweeting, he said he would, you know, he said America would be first, right?
And now according to official reporting, the United States has more confirmed cases than anywhere else.
But I think any smart individual would realize China has it substantially worse.
But of course, the typical detractors tweeted out a bunch of snark and statements believing China.
Writers, celebrities, and politicians have responded to this news with unconcealed glee.
Julia Ioffe of GQ magazine tweeted, Who's the S-hole country now?
Hillary Clinton quipped that Trump did promise America first, and The Verged published a despicable article stating, The coronavirus is now the American virus, which so far has not spurred anguished cries of racism from the media.
The only problem in these statements is that they assume that China is being truthful when it says its coronavirus cases have plateaued at around 80,000.
It's curious that the same media that fact-check the president every time he stubs his toe or makes a joke are willing to accept without any skepticism stats from a communist regime that not only lies habitually, but has recently lied about this very issue.
Now we go on to the more serious matter, the World Health Organization.
The Guardian reported yesterday, coronavirus pandemic far from over in Asia, World Health Organization warns.
Statement comes as China and South Korea delay college exams to keep lid on COVID-19 spread.
Interesting.
The World Health Organization, coming out now, of all times, say it's actually pretty bad in Asia.
It's not over yet.
The World Health Organization on January 15th said that China claims, you know, there's no evidence.
A new study says there's no evidence of human-human transmission.
We also saw this story.
Top World Health Organization doctor Bruce Aylward ends video call after journalist asks about Taiwan status.
For those that aren't familiar, China believes Taiwan is China, and Taiwan believes they are independent.
So China does not take kindly to people saying Taiwan is separate.
When this reporter for Hong Kong Free Press, I believe it's the Hong Kong Free Press, or maybe it's not, I'm sorry, it's from RTHK, maybe it's a different outlet.
When this individual asked the doctor from the World Health Organization, he pretended not to hear her.
And when she said, I'll ask you again, he said, no, that's okay.
I'll take another question.
She then asked him the same question and he hangs up the call.
When she calls him back, he says, we've already talked about China.
This led to major accusations that the World Health Organization is in the pocket of China.
I saw one story, I don't know if it's true, so fact check me on this one.
Japan said that it's the Chinese health organization because they're just going to do whatever China says.
Which brings me to the next major breaking story.
Rick Scott calls for congressional probe into World Health Organization over coronavirus response.
As I mentioned early on, while the World Health Organization was telling us it was fine and there was no human-human transmission, China knew and they were siphoning off supplies from other countries, Australia and Canada notably.
The Hill reports, Senator Rick Scott of Florida Tuesday called for a congressional inquiry into the World Health Organization over its response to the coronavirus, accusing the group of helping communist China cover up the full extent of the virus's spread.
Absolutely.
I believe they did cover it up.
They helped.
Scott, a China critic, has voiced concerns about the relationship between the WHO and Beijing in the past and said the health organization failed to get adequate information from China out to the public.
The mission of the World Health Organization is to get public health information to the world so every country can make the best decisions to keep their citizens safe.
When it comes to coronavirus, the WHO failed.
They need to be held accountable for their role in promoting misinformation and helping communist China cover up a global pandemic, Scott said in a statement.
The Florida Republican went on to accuse the World Health Organization of distributing Chinese propaganda, citing messages where it praised investigations by Chinese authorities into the coronavirus, which first broke out in Wuhan in China.
Scott suggested that the lack of an investigation into China's dubious claims over its numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths cost lives and merited a closer look at the funds the WHO receives from the U.S.
We know Communist China is lying about how many cases and deaths they have, what they knew, and when they knew it.
And the World Health Organization never bothered to investigate further, Scott said.
As soon as Congress is back in session, there should be a hearing, along with a full investigation, to review whether American taxpayers should continue to spend millions of dollars every year to fund an organization that willfully parroted propaganda from the Chinese Communist Party.
We're now hearing that Adam Schiff, Democrat, wants a 9-11-like review of Donald Trump's handling of the coronavirus.
And I'm just shocked by it.
Well, I'm not even shocked by it.
I'm like, yep, here we go, of course.
We should be investigating the World Health Organization.
They parodied these lies.
China lied, and then people died.
And that's a fact, and U.S.
intelligence confirms it.
But the bigger question we have now is the threat of war.
We can probe the World Health Organization.
We can accuse China of lying.
We can take back our manufacturing.
But all of this severs our diplomatic relations.
I'm not going to say that America is at fault for it.
China is.
But as our relations dissolve, there is a very real fear or threat of potential war.
Captain of aircraft carrier pleads for help as virus cases increase on board.
We are not at war, the captain of the carrier carrier theater Roosevelt wrote.
Sailors do not need to die.
If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset, our sailors.
Here's a photo.
It says the aircraft carrier theater Roosevelt arriving in Vietnam this month.
Our military is vulnerable right now.
And it's not, I'm not saying it's weak, but I will say if there ever was a time for a war to begin, for someone else to start one, it would be when our aircraft carriers, at least one of them, has been crippled by this virus.
When you see the stories about China smuggling in these, I mean, these SARS and flu viruses, Experts warning, they fear it could be biosecurity related, which they say, according to Yahoo News, is a reference to bioterror and the intentional misuse of pathogens for nefarious means.
At what point do we say China is crossing a line with their camps?
With their deception?
But it's not just that.
The disinformation campaigns.
The Chinese accounts on social media that are lying to people and spreading misinformation about the severity of this.
Slowing our response.
The fact that we based our response on their BS numbers means we reacted slowly.
Nancy Pelosi wants to blame Trump.
Say he had a delayed response.
Well, sure, maybe.
I mean, I think it's fair to say the Democrats weren't doing anything at all.
They were trying to impeach Trump, and Trump was doing a little bit.
So if you want to criticize Trump, you can say he did bad, they did worse, but they don't even take the majority of the blame.
China does.
The reason why our response was slow, and Italy's, and Spain's, and many other countries, is because China lied to us about the severity of the virus.
They've claimed, oh no, just 80,000, couple thousand dead.
And so naturally, you'll probably see many other countries saying, all right, it's not going to be that bad.
And now we can see nearly 200,000 people in the U.S.
infected.
It is, in my opinion, an absolute absurdity to claim that a country of 1.3 billion people has that less, that many less people infected.
I think it's fair to point out they're an autocratic communist dictatorship, so yeah, they can lock people in their homes.
But we are seeing similar things here in the U.S., or at least an increasing call for them.
We have to make sure that whatever happens, be it war, conflict, crisis, or death, we do not allow our civil liberties to be eroded.
Now if you want to know more about this story, about the Chinese biologists sneaking in, you know, illicitly bringing in these samples, I have a larger video on it at youtube.com slash timcastnews.
We also did a podcast segment about it, youtube.com slash timcastirl.
But I'll give you the quick gist.
They say the FBI warned of concerns over a biosecurity risk from Chinese scientists' research in the U.S.
after they intercepted virus samples carried in luggage a year before the outbreak.
It wasn't just a year before the outbreak.
Apparently, in May of 2018, November of 2018, and in September of 2019, Chinese individuals were intercepted carrying viruses in vials.
That says to me, look, if they're concerned about a malintent, nefarious purpose, we are dangerously close to a real conflict.
Now, I don't know if, you know, traditional warfare can exist in today's day and age.
We're in an internet era, it's very different, but perhaps.
But let's get to the other issue at hand, domestic issues.
While I don't think there's necessarily a reason to believe we're about to see a war, I'm fearful that we're vulnerable and the animosity is escalating.
Kyle Kalinske brought this up, and I mentioned this earlier, so for those on the podcast, you'll hear it again.
He said, I really don't understand the optimism that things will, quote, get back to normal.
What is that based on?
It seems much more likely that there is a distinct before and after, like 9-11.
The economic signals point to a depression, not a recession.
That reality hasn't set in.
There's a story from CNN that basically says, I'm out of quarantine, but things haven't gone back to normal.
This woman writes, I have now been out of quarantine for almost 40 days, and life is far from normal.
Even though the virus hit China around Christmas and rose exponentially until mid-February, life as we knew it is just seeing dawn three months later.
On my discharge day before going anywhere, I had to go to my apartment leasing office where I showed the committee a chart of my daily temperature readings and a medical professional checked my temperature so I could get a certificate saying I was free and clear from COVID-19.
This qualified me for a green scan phone code that I had to show before entering any grocery store or taking public transportation.
That code would have turned red if I'd gone out of town or turned off my GPS.
I still carry the code, and show it in some places like malls, but the requirement has become more lax.
Similarly, the security guards sitting at tables outside my apartment complex have become a little less rigorous about taking my temperature every time I come and go from my apartment complex.
She points out.
And it's not definitive.
You know, these things do relax for sure.
But there are measures that will last.
They will be put in place.
Think about it.
There have been people in the U.S.
who have called for us to carry on barcodes or chips or some kind of evidence that we're immune or vaccinated.
And that, to me, is alarming.
It's an alarming violation of our civil liberties.
We're already seeing people demand a suspension of parts of the First Amendment.
You can't assemble.
You can't speak.
You can't worship or gather.
And that's scary too.
I understand an emergency.
But you know what?
I find myself a little surprised to see this.
From Common Dreams, a progressive activist website.
Take this seriously.
Digital rights groups urges Americans to beat back attempts to exploit coronavirus crisis to erode civil liberties.
We shouldn't have to choose between our health and our basic human rights.
Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams.
I 100% agree.
Now I think.
They'll probably start screaming, the orange man is bad and things like that.
And sure, there's problems with Trump.
But we're seeing governors enforce these provisions, these laws, these mandates, edicts, whatever you want to call it.
Maryland just imposed a stay at home order with no expiration.
Virginia's expires June 10th.
Yeah, we're in serious trouble of our civil liberties being eroded.
Like Kyle Kalinske said, this could be a before and after like 9-11 thing.
We might remember what life was like before the coronavirus.
They've already said this is going to come and go in waves.
They've already said, NPR reported, you can get reinfected.
If that's true, then why would any of these emergency decrees evaporate after this?
Dare I say, there's a potential and a fear I have that this never ends.
Like, sure, we'll have elections.
Things will go back to normal, somewhat.
Movie theaters will open up.
But then what?
Do we carry around vaccination cards proving we've had our government-required medication?
Are we going to not be allowed to gather in certain amount of groups?
You know, certain group sizes?
Will they impose temporary quarantines periodically like MIT and Harvard have suggested we might do?
Two months on, one month off.
Will there be a normal, or if the coronavirus becomes a seasonal infection and you can get reinfected, will this be life from now on?
We absolutely must defend our civil liberties.
And again, somewhat surprising to see that I am in agreement with Common Dreams and The Guardian.
We can't let the coronavirus lead to a 9-11 style erosion of civil liberties from Samuel Miller MacDonald.
Now typically, The Guardian writes, you know, weird authoritarian smear pieces.
But this is the left I remember, at least to a certain degree, calling out encroaching government authority and protecting civil rights.
Something weird happened with the rise of these weird social justice authoritarian types where they started embracing it.
Well, maybe the coronavirus has allowed us to shake loose the weird dogmatic ideology that is the intersectional social justice nonsense.
Perhaps all that stuff becomes completely irrelevant when your loved ones are dying and we have a very serious foreign adversary.
Perhaps when the government actually comes out and says, if you want security, you're gonna get it whether you like it or not, people get scared.
All of these people that claimed, you know, that it was violence to say naughty words, where have they gone?
They're slowly evaporating because regular people just don't care anymore.
The real conversation is about whether or not we're going to get sick and die, whether a foreign government is actively trying to cause us harm, and whether or not our civil liberties will be shut down.
And all of this stems from China's lies.
Now, first and foremost, China is at fault.
The government, the Chinese Communist Party, not the individual people who are also victims of the authoritarian regime of China.
First and foremost, we need to get a handle on how to deal with this virus, and that does mean that we will see our civil liberties eroded, and that's scary.
But China's at fault.
And just because, however, they are at fault doesn't mean we ignore what our own government is doing.
So we will be facing a serious moral and principled battle.
on numerous fronts, pushing back against the communist dictatorship of China, defending ourselves, but also making sure we don't give up too much in that fight.
The saying goes, be careful when fighting monsters lest you become one, for when you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back.
Something like that.
While we grapple with this crisis, let's make sure we don't become monsters.
And we absolutely cannot allow the government to impose another Patriot Act-style post-911 absurd encroachment of our civil liberties.
We can recognize that China is a serious threat.
They've been lying and causing us harm.
Maybe civil liberties become, to a certain degree, luxury if we enter a serious conflict.
I don't know, man.
I don't want to give up my freedom in exchange for security.
But you can see, there is a possible reason why China's numbers are low.
Because they're an authoritarian dictatorship.
No, I think they're lying.
Which is also another reason their numbers are low, because they're an authoritarian dictatorship and no one can say otherwise.
People who speak up get disappeared.
Or it's possible they lock their people in cages, and they do.
And that prevents the spread.
But I think their numbers are wrong, and they're authoritarian.
And I don't think it's wise for us to ignore the threat that's growing.
We're going to bring back our manufacturing, we're going to secure our borders, and they're not going to be happy about it.
I hope this de-escalates, but part of me fears it won't.
I'll leave it there.
Next segment will be coming up at youtube.com slash timcastnews at 6pm.
Thanks for hanging out, and I will see you all then.
It's still shocking to me that there are people who don't think the threat of the coronavirus is serious.
It's still shocking me that people are questioning whether or not anything is really going on, because that would imply that Donald Trump himself is in on the conspiracy.
Now, for the most part, there have been many conservatives raising the flag, raising warning flags very, very early on.
Tom Cotton notably saying, we got to get a handle on this banned travel.
We had our first death in the U.S.
February 29th.
We had 889 deaths yesterday.
That's 37 people dying every hour.
So yes, based on CDC estimates, we are now in the mid-range of where the flu would be, based on their estimates.
A lot of people are wondering why it is there's so many hospitals that aren't being overloaded, and there's a few important points to be made.
There's no visitors, so you're not going to see cars in the parking lot.
These hospitals aren't necessarily in hotspots, and they're preparing.
Because people don't seem to understand what exponential growth is.
I'm going to show you the graphs, but the most important thing right now is for everyone who doubts this.
Look, everybody, if you hate Donald Trump and you doubt this, then you need to pay attention to what the doctors are saying.
And if you like Donald Trump and you doubt this, then you need to pay attention to what Trump is saying.
Now, the Daily Mail adds something unnecessary, saying, Trump finally accepts reality.
President warns America next two weeks will be very painful, as expert warns of 100,000 US deaths, but says he wanted to give people hope when challenged on why he took so long to sound the alarm.
I think it's fair to say.
That he was downplaying this a bit early on.
And I've been critical, but I don't want to say that I'm, you know, overly harsh.
I thought he should have been a bit more serious and stern.
But I understand it.
You know, when Donald Trump announced that there would be a travel for, you know, he was restricting travel from people coming from Europe, they said he was inducing, he was inciting panic and that he caused the market to fall.
So there's no safe way to do this.
I do not blame.
Look, you know what, man?
I don't know who else could be president.
I don't know how good of a job they could have done.
We can speculate all day and night and of course people who hate Trump are going to pretend that anybody else would have done a better job.
I don't know that and I'm not going to speculate.
What I can say is this is an act of nature as far as we know right now.
Our best bet is that this is an act of nature.
The virus emerged, it started spreading.
Now I think China is to blame for the most part because they could have stopped this.
We could have gotten a handle on this very early on if they didn't lie and withhold information.
The whistleblowers who got arrested, all of these people.
So I'm not going to blame the President for what's going on.
Now a lot of people don't like the fact that he downplayed this.
I can understand why.
But you've got to understand the President can't induce panic.
If he comes out and says, it's a very serious, dangerous thing, we're worried, people would have freaked, would have been freaking out, the market would have taken a hit, people would have lost their jobs.
They're talking about a rent strike.
It's a very dangerous and difficult position to be in.
But now, Now I think I am more worried about the impact we're going to face here in the U.S.
more than I've ever been so far, even with everything we've seen in foreign countries.
And I'll tell you the reason why.
Donald Trump has, he's essentially pulled down the curtain.
He's straight up saying, you know what?
I wanted to give people hope, but it's going to get bad.
And in these next two weeks, we are going to lose thousands of people.
We lost 889 people just the other day, March 31st, around 37 dead per hour.
So yes, let's read the story.
And we've got news from some other countries, and I got some news on the border security.
Trump is going to be ramping up border security.
President Donald Trump has acknowledged the sobering reality of the sheer number of deaths America faces from coronavirus.
He defended his earlier upbeat statements about the coronavirus as the outbreak began its march across the globe this year, explaining during a briefing that he tries to be a cheerleader for the country.
Trump is trying to defend his prior statements on the coronavirus, even as his team tries to prepare the nation for a death toll and other impacts on the public and the nation's medical system that are set to explode.
The administration released charts showing some of the possible outcomes and rebranded their initial 15 days to slow the spread as 30 days to slow the spread after the initial 15 ended Monday.
He also warned Americans to brace for a hell of a bad two weeks.
Ahead, as the White House projected, there could be 100,000 to 240,000 deaths in the U.S.
from the coronavirus pandemic, even if current social distancing guidelines are maintained.
Trump called it a matter of life and death for Americans to heed his administration's guidelines and predicted the country would soon see a light at the end of the tunnel in a pandemic that the United States has infected more than 189,000 people and killed about 4,000, according to figures compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
I want every American to be prepared for the hard days that lie ahead, Trump said.
This is going to be one of the roughest two or three weeks we've ever had in our country.
We're going to lose thousands of people.
Is Trump lying now?
To the naysayers and people who hate him, is he lying now?
Or is he finally on board?
The Daily Mail says he finally accepts reality, and I don't think that's necessary.
We don't need to play these games.
Now is not the time.
If you want to drag Trump for not, you know, being more serious early on, then you need to point out the media wasn't serious either.
Many Democrats were doing literally nothing while Trump was actually getting started.
The Democrats were focused on impeachment.
I'm not super concerned about all of that when talking about the actual crisis right now.
Of course, on my main channel, I talk about politics, and that's my political channel for the most part.
We're talking about what's going on with the coronavirus.
We need everyone, Democrat, Republican, left, right, whatever, come together.
Because this is going to get really, really bad.
And now you've got Trump basically on board with the worst possible projections.
We really believe we can do better than that, said Dr. Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the White House Coronavirus Task Force.
That would require all Americans to take seriously their role in preventing the spread of the disease, added Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government's top infectious disease expert.
This is a number that we need to anticipate, but we don't necessarily have to accept it as being inevitable.
I'm not about bad news.
I want to give people hope, Trump said.
He brought up people who said he was advocating, let it rip, let it ride, and do nothing, that he says would have resulted in 2.2 million deaths.
Trump, who has championed himself as a wartime president due to the outbreak, said during his daily White House briefing, we lose more here, potentially, than you lose in world wars.
He added that 116,000 U.S.
citizens died in World War I, 405,000 deaths in the second.
They don't say U.S.
citizens for the second one, so I think it's total deaths.
The President's comments come as the number of U.S.
infections rose to more than 189,000, with over 4,000 fatal victims of the deadly disease.
The rising numbers are beginning to dwarf the 2,996 people killed during the September 11,
2001 attacks. It was an abrupt reversal for the Republican president who spent much of the last
week targeting April 12th as the day he wanted to see Americans pack the pews for Easter Sunday
Come on, let's be honest.
If there is no light at the end of the tunnel, people freak out and things fall apart.
We need to make sure the system keeps functioning and what little bit is left of our economy functions so that the hospitals can work.
But now we're hearing that many of the frontline hospital workers are going to see a pay cut.
You know why?
Because the economy is shut down.
These hospitals can't just magically pay people.
And doctors and nurses need money too.
Now I will say this is the biggest slap in the face for the universal healthcare people when you start to realize how much we struggle to maintain this healthcare system as it is, especially in an outbreak.
You've got New York offering up, you know, their emergency services to illegal immigrants.
And I'll make sure I'll stress that we have to treat them.
You know, pragmatically, because we want to stop the spread of this, but also because they're human beings.
We must save their lives.
It's a moral imperative.
But we have to reconcile after the fact that we cannot be the world's hospital.
We can't guarantee everyone access to hospitals.
It's just not possible.
And we need to wonder why these people are coming here in the first place.
We know why.
But we can't just say, you know what, we're gonna leave it be, let you stay, because soon it'll be, you know, look, if Trump is saying 100,000 to 240,000 people are gonna lose their lives, we are going to see a reckoning from the left, the urban left.
We've already seen them rushing to buy weapons, and now they're gonna start asking questions about why their loved one, their friend, their family member, was not able to get an ICU bed or was being treated in the hallway.
We're seeing these videos emerge now of some hospitals in New York, I believe it's New York, where they don't have rooms.
So they're putting people on ventilators in beds, in hallways.
And when you show up with your family member and they say, why?
They're going to ask why.
And people are going to look to this news and say, why were we giving our healthcare system to people who are not citizens?
And then people are going to demand action.
I think we're going to see a hard turn right.
100%.
It is so easy to be a social justice leftist when you live in a safety bubble.
Trump also acknowledged he was probably distracted by the Democratic impeachment, which culminated in his Senate trial in early February.
So basically, Trump here goes on to say that he doesn't want to think he was distracted, but he likely was.
He was thinking about it.
And he doesn't think he could have done a better job with or without it.
That is a lot of credit for Trump to give to the Democrats.
I gotta say, Mitch McConnell said, we were all distracted by this.
The impeachment was a hoax, waste of time, blah, blah, blah.
I don't think he said hoax.
Trump said that.
But for Trump to say, no, no, even with the impeachment, you know, I did the best I could.
And even if there was no impeachment, I wouldn't have done, you know, I couldn't have done any better.
He's given a free pass to Democrats.
You know, they wasted our time.
At a time when he was talking about this, whether he downplayed it or not, they were impeaching him.
I'm going to show you a chart here because they show us, you know, we've seen the flatten the curve.
Charts.
But now they put some numbers on it, so I hope you understand why the numbers are so different.
If there's no intervention, they project 1.5 to 2.2 million dead.
But flattening the curve, 100,000 to 240,000 dead.
The reason is, the mortality rate is going to be exceptionally low in the U.S.
because we have excellent healthcare in this country, especially relative to other countries.
But if we run out of space, we run out of beds, then you will see the mortality rate spike because people can't get treatment.
So moving down, I want to show you the... Actually, I'm going to show you this.
This is a... From this is a hoax to this is a real pandemic.
The changing of tune of Donald Trump.
Trump never said this was a hoax.
He said the politicization of it was a hoax.
That the Democrats were claiming he was doing a bad job, and that was their new hoax.
Of course, many in the media weaponized that against him.
We can see this.
Around January 31st, he said, we pretty much shut it down coming in from China.
It's going to be fine.
We then see on around February 26th, we're going very substantially down, not up.
And then you can see it actually starts spiking.
And Trump keeps saying, you know, I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn't our fault.
They're calling him out saying he's been downplaying this, and you know what?
He did.
He absolutely did.
Was it the right move?
I don't know, but he did.
Now, to be fair, what were the Democrats doing at the same time?
Nothing.
So, I don't know what you expect.
And the media at the same time, in mid-February, was saying everything was gonna be fine.
So, you know, criticism to go around for everybody, but now is not really the time.
Check this out.
What people don't seem to understand about this is exponential growth.
And this is why it's so frustrating for me to see all these people saying things like, you mean we only have, you know, 4,000 people who have died so far?
But the flu kills, you know, 20,000 people every year!
Why don't we shut things down for that?
So the CDC estimates, depending on which source you use, range from 12,000, 24,000, or as high as around 50,000.
In a year.
Spread out.
With estimates.
Right now we are seeing an exponential growth.
On March 10th, there were 5 people dead.
By March 31st... I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
On March 10th, 5 people had died.
And by March 31st, we had 889 die, and that's in a single day, for a total of 4,076.
It was February 29th, the first death occurred.
In about one month, we have seen 4,000 people die, and the number is going to exponentially increase.
And you know what?
A lot of really stupid people are going out and partying and ignoring this.
It's you guys.
That's why we're being locked down, and that's why people are dying.
I don't know what else you want to hear, but take a look at how, you know, March 16th, we had a few thousand cases.
By the end of the month, we had 189,510.
I don't know what people expect.
I don't know what you want to believe.
I mean, you've got Trump on board saying it's going to get really bad, and it's going to be some of the worst two or three weeks we've seen as a country.
So I don't know who these people are on Twitter casting doubt and refusing to accept this, because it's strange to me.
Like, we've seen it.
It's happening.
I'm hearing from friends of friends, or my friends are telling me about the people they've seen affected.
We've had people come on our live show, Super Chat, saying, like, I got this.
It's bad.
Even in the Donald Trump forum, the donald.win, people are saying, like, my uncle got it, my dad got it, my wife got it, and they're talking about it.
Yet for some reason on Twitter, I still see people saying, like, I don't know about all this.
Doesn't seem to add up to me.
Why?
Like, why are people so hell-bent?
It's like Trump's approval rating's through the roof because of this!
So I don't know why people are so hell-bent on denying what's really happening all around us.
It is bad.
It is.
Now, you know, we saw a video from Project Veritas the other day.
James O'Keefe of Project Veritas went to New Rochelle and got tested.
And he had some people say, one National Guard say, it's just like the flu.
Some doctors say, you know, some people have like a mild cough, it's not so bad, but then others get really sick.
Yeah, welcome to reality.
Most people will get mild symptoms, and in a lot, there are a decent amount of people who are going to die.
What people don't seem to understand is how percentages work.
If half a million people get this and they don't really notice or have mild symptoms, does that make it acceptable that 20,000 or 30,000 people lost their lives?
No!
4,000 people are already dead because of this.
Does it make sense to collapse the entire economy for 4,000 people?
That's a tough question.
Because it's going to get worse than 4,000.
It's going to go up.
Absolutely.
This is called exponential growth.
You see how many people died in a single day?
It's going to get worse.
Today is probably going to be even worse.
So the question is, you can talk about shutting the economy down right now, and we have 4,000 dead.
Was it worth it?
I mean, shutting down the economy could result in people losing their lives.
It could result in these hospitals shuttering and not being able to pay people.
So that's a bad thing, too.
How do we maintain this system while preventing deaths is a very, very difficult question.
Well, let's move on from here, because we can look to the future to see how it's affecting other countries.
In Spain, they see its highest number of deaths for a second day in a row, 864, as the number of cases tops 100,000.
So, We're doing a bit better, I believe, in the mortality rate.
The percentages of people who die relative to who get this, the numbers are lower in the United States.
We have great healthcare.
Spain is a smaller country, and they're seeing 864 deaths.
So yes, the U.S.
is worse.
Yes, the U.S.
is dealing with the most deaths.
But if you were to compare the U.S.
to the entirety of Europe, it would make more sense, in which case Europe is absolutely worse, you know, because the U.S.
is a very, very large country with several states.
But take a look at how many people died in Spain, similar to how many people we saw die yesterday.
So, I'm just letting you know, like, in the next coming weeks, we can likely see numbers, percentage-wise, where Spain is at as the crisis continues to escalate.
Well, the last thing I want to mention is, you know, I'll wrap this stuff up by saying it's time to take it seriously.
Donald Trump just said one of the most sobering things I think I've ever heard, that this is going to be the worst we've seen in two or three weeks.
Is the media going to call him a liar now?
No.
They're dragging him for not saying it sooner.
I'm so sick of it, man.
Daily Mail, I'm...
Well, Trump is going to be sending 500 troops to the Mexican border to aid agents struggling with security efforts amid the coronavirus fight.
And this, I find alarming.
I think we're in serious danger right now.
We've got this aircraft carrier that's full.
Many of the U.S.
military servicemen on it are sick.
And so we are being crippled in many ways.
Our economy is shut down.
We've got border security issues.
We've got a serious struggle to keep things going.
Properly, I should say.
Meanwhile, we see videos coming out of Oakland where people are partying in the street, videos of people on the beach in Florida, videos of people in New York all rushing to take photos of this hospital ship that was coming in, forming large crowds because no one seems to take it seriously.
This is one of the largest vulnerabilities of a free-loving, liberty-minded state.
We don't want to lock people in their homes.
We don't want to barricade or weld their doors shut.
We don't want to throw them in camps.
In fact, that would be unconstitutional and it's horrifying to think, and that's why we criticize China for doing it.
So it's true.
We absolutely give up security in exchange for freedom.
Now I happen to think that's a good thing, within reason.
But you can see the real vulnerabilities we face.
For one, it's likely China's numbers are wrong, and it's much worse than they're letting on, and they have the ability to oppress their people.
So when it comes to stopping people from gathering and spreading the virus, they can easily just barricade their doors shut because in their country, no one's going to stop them.
The Communist Party is an authoritarian dictatorship.
Even with that being true, there are estimates that China already has around 40,000 to 50,000 people dead.
In the United States, we can't do this.
And for good reason.
I'm glad we can't.
But recognize the vulnerability there.
As young people and stupid people go out and party and dance and don't care and spread this, I think it's no surprise that we have more infected and more dead.
Because we're one of the freest countries on the planet.
And we give up our security to an extent in exchange for that freedom.
So I'll tell you what.
With rights come responsibility.
A great comment that somebody posted in the super chat over on our podcast a couple days ago.
So I personally don't want to get sick.
So I'll stay home.
I mean, it's easy for me.
I work from home.
I still have my job.
So I understand that I'm in a privileged position.
But I don't wanna get sick, so I'm not gonna go out.
And I think, I can say this for most people, if you don't care, if you don't take this seriously, then I guess you just do your thing within your constitutional rights to do your thing.
It absolutely is worrying that we're seeing an expansion of the surveillance state.
It's worrying that we're seeing, you know, the First Amendment be trampled on, the right to worship, freedom of speech, and more importantly, the right to peaceably assemble, all being trampled on.
But again, with rights come responsibility.
And we're seeing the hospitals get overwhelmed.
We've seen videos of nurses, like, crying, saying, like, what's happening?
I don't understand.
Being, like, left in a room by yourself as people die.
Yeah, welcome to the medical profession, you know?
And don't ask me, because I don't know.
I'm not down there.
But these people are certainly freaking out.
So to all the people that just want to go party.
It's the wrong decision, and you will get hurt, and don't expect me to pay for it.
This is the universal healthcare problem.
If you want to go out and party amidst a pandemic, that is a decent mortality rate.
And it's not like Ebola or anything, but I think in the U.S.
it's between like .6 and like 1.3 or something, so it's relatively low compared to the rest of the world.
Hey, we've got good healthcare.
But that means flattening the curve makes a lot of sense.
But if you want to go out and party, and then come to the hospital saying, like, please help me, don't be surprised when people roll their eyes.
But I'll tell you one worse.
I'll tell you how it gets worse when the hospital systems are overloaded.
And you're that person who laughed and scoffed and licked a toilet seat?
Don't be surprised when the hospital tells you to get out.
No thank you.
There are people who, through no fault of their own, are at risk of losing their lives, and you licked a toilet.
And now you want us to take responsibility for a mistake you made?
Nobody should die from this, and we want to save every life.
But you have to understand, there comes a point when the hospitals have no room.
So I'll tell you what I think is possible.
These young people who have laughed about it?
There may come a time when one of these people gets sick, shows up to the hospital, and they say, I know who you are.
We have no beds.
I'm sorry.
You have to go.
And that's it.
Worse still...
For all these lefties, you need to realize it's very likely if we do not flatten the curve.
It's really annoying hearing that over and over again.
Flatten the curve!
They say it a million times.
I'm like, yeah, I get it.
But it's true.
If our hospital systems are overloaded, then do not be surprised when these hospitals start implementing some kind of triage system for people who they think deserve it more.
That, to me, is where it gets really scary.
But what more do you expect of hospitals with no space and no capability because healthcare is not infinite?
There's a finite number of doctors.
They can only work so many hours.
They need to get paid.
They need protective equipment.
We need beds, ventilators.
It is all finite.
There will come a time when you will show up to the hospital and they will say, I have no room for you.
And you'll say, why?
There will be a reckoning.
There will be a reckoning for people who say, I paid my taxes, I did everything right, I worked a good job, I had insurance, and I was denied.
And then you'll find that there are some people who did none of those things.
They were irresponsible, they partied, they were eating like crazy, not taking care of themselves, and they got that bed before you.
I'm not saying it's right or wrong that people should or should be denied service.
I'm saying people are going to recognize the harsh realities of the world.
That's just how things play out.
I'll see you all at 1pm on this channel.
Thanks for hanging out.
Progressive YouTube commentator Kyle Kalinske tweeted out recently that a lot of people are talking about things getting back to normal, but he doesn't think that'll happen.
He thinks there's going to be a distinct before and after period, kind of like 9-11, and he's 100% right.
I think Kyle's a good dude, by the way.
Because what we're seeing now is a trampling of the First Amendment across the board and a private media apparatus functioning as an authoritarian attack dog for the establishment and for the government.
Take a look at this tweet here from Oliver Darcy.
He says, New, Facebook's Spox says company is removing a James O'Keefe video posted today for violating its policies on COVID-19 misinfo.
Quote, equating COVID-19 with the common flu could cause people not to take the advice of medical professionals and thus contribute to the virus's spread.
He goes on to say that spokespeople for Twitter and YouTube say the video doesn't break their platform's policy on COVID-19 misinformation.
Why would Oliver Darcy bother reaching out to a Facebook spokesperson about what James O'Keefe had published in his reporting?
James O'Keefe of Project Veritas has gotten us some on-the-ground reporting from New Rochelle.
It's good reporting.
It is what it is.
You don't get to decide whether you like it or you don't.
In the video, James O'Keefe talked to several people, including a person who's with the National Guard, who said that they believed it was just like the common flu.
James O'Keefe was surprised.
He said, we draw no conclusions.
We're just showing you what people are saying.
That's very important!
It's called just, like, general reporting.
You go around, you ask people on the front lines, front lines, how do you feel?
James has also showed his video where people in hospitals are saying it is very serious and people are coming in and dying.
James hasn't presented some biased narrative asserting one thing or the other.
It's a rather nuanced view.
And I see a lot of people appreciating it, saying it's true that some hospitals aren't overloaded and some are.
I'm glad that we can get some field reporting.
And we have another video from James where he recently went and showed us the results from his test.
This is incredible.
We have someone actually showing us video footage of what the process is like to get a test, what the people are saying there, and what you can expect.
Something we used to call journalism.
But now I suppose we get people like Oliver Darcy at the authoritarian attack dog private apparatus for the state, calling up private corporations and getting real journalism removed.
This is not journalism.
Letting us know that you contacted Facebook and got someone removed.
Now, I want to be fair.
I don't know exactly what happened.
I don't want to accuse Oliver of, you know, getting James O'Keefe banned.
But it is a known practice where journalists reach out to people, make an accusation, a very biased one, because they know they'll get a reaction.
I did a story on this where one journalist called several banks and said, why do you support the Proud Boys?
And then sure enough, the Proud Boys end up getting banned from these banks.
It's how the journalists do it.
I don't know if that's what Oliver Darcy is doing.
But we are right now seeing the First Amendment be absolutely crushed, which is why I bring up what Kyle Kalinske said.
We're in serious danger.
We know that we have the serious danger of the coronavirus threat.
Donald Trump has even said it.
So whether or not you trust the media or trust the president, I think it's fair to say we are all on the same page.
We are going to see thousands of people lose their lives, and it could be as high as 240,000 by the current estimates.
We hope it's lower than that, and maybe they're wrong.
But we know the threat is real.
But there's another threat.
We're seeing now several governments restrict freedom of movement, violating the First Amendment's
the freedom to peaceably assemble, the right to freedom of speech is being curtailed because
to an extent that's tied.
It's the First Amendment in general.
We're seeing a lawsuit in Florida demanding that the governor of Florida force mandate
shutting down all their beaches.
We are seeing demands from the left, the government go full authoritarian to stop what is happening.
But it's the big cities, the urban centers that are doing this.
It's Oakland, it's New York.
Yes, there are some pastors in like Louisiana, who have refused to back down.
But rural areas are at less risk.
They're less pop, they're less dense population wise.
So these urban centers are ignoring these orders.
And then people in urban centers are seeing this and demanding the entirety of the government go full on authoritarian.
Now, I believe in responsibility.
I think we have to do what we have to do to stop this thing.
But that's a personal responsibility effort, not a government coming and mandating it.
So, there's a line.
There have been people who have posted that many of us who are liberty-minded are now facing, I think it was Glenn Greenwald who mentioned this, we have a begrudging acceptance of the fact that we have to give in to some security measures because this is getting out of hand and we don't want people to die.
But it also means we need to make sure that our rights are retained, and once this is all over, we are not facing a post-COVID period where the media shuts down legitimate journalism.
I want to stress this, and we're going to show you that we're seeing Media Matters and other leftist organizations try and get Fox News shut down, and they are lying!
It is horrifying how these people are a private arm of the authoritarian state.
I don't think everyone in the government or everything government is bad or authoritarian.
But there are elements that want power.
And there are elements on the left and in the media that want to make sure that power is gotten and our rights are curtailed.
And I'm going to show you.
Now again, I don't know what Oliver Darcy did or said, but the assumption many people have is that he's the reason they got banned in the first place, which we've seen in the past.
To be fair, it's entirely possible that Facebook was talking to people behind the scenes saying, we're gonna ban this, and so Oliver asked what was up.
If he's just reporting information, I don't think it's fair to accuse him necessarily.
But I gotta be honest, I trust Oliver Darcy not that much.
I really, really don't.
And I think there's a strong possibility he did do it, but to be fair, I don't want to drag him for something I can't definitively prove, so I will give him respect in that regard.
Regardless, we are watching Facebook, a major private corporation, Now, I guess you can't see the guy's lips moving.
And I'm curious why Oliver Darcy didn't press them on violating the First Amendment because this is an act or I
should say the First Amendment but freedom of the press to take down legitimate field journalism.
James O'Keefe did not assert anything. The Army National Guard did and James showed us the guy saying it.
Now I guess you can't see the guy's lips moving. I think that's something that James O'Keefe likes to say that we
show you people saying things and their lips are moving.
Well this guy's wearing a mask so you know it doesn't work this time.
But I trust that O'Keefe is doing legitimate work.
James responded, Are you literally calling every tech platform right now and asking why our video reporting on COVID-19 is allowed?
Is that what CNN has sunk to?
We're reporting what we were told on the front lines.
Grab a reporter notebook and do the same.
Put up or shut up.
Again, the assumption is, for those that are biased, and I admit I am a little bit too, that Oliver is instigating this in the first place.
Why would you even bother getting a statement from these companies about this?
It makes no sense.
And if that's the case, is Facebook going to go back and start banning all of the BuzzFeed videos?
Oh, you're going to love this, what I show you next.
What's coming up.
I got some photos for you.
James says, not one word about the ABC Amy Robach scandal.
It was not newsworthy to you, ABC colluded with CBS to fire an innocent woman.
Brian Stelter.
But CNN calls every tech company to try and get a video of us reporting what literal frontline soldiers and workers tell me.
That's where we are.
Now we can see Greg Gutfield going on the offensive.
Greg's a funny guy.
He's a good dude.
Lion scumbag.
Greg Gutfield goes to war with Media Matters employee after the five coronavirus coverage claim.
I use something called NewsGuard.
You hear me talk about it a lot.
The point, the reason I bring it up is it's a check on my bias.
You can see a little green check mark up here in my extensions.
And you can see that the Daily Caller is considered, for the most part, credible.
But they're deceptive sometimes.
They don't handle opinion very well or disclose the financing.
But they do correct.
They don't publish fake news.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
NewsGuard says they're good.
NewsGuard gives a better rating to Media Matters, who overtly lies about Fox News.
Why?
I think they're trying to get Fox News damaged.
They've gone after Tucker Carlson's advertisers.
They're doing it again.
Did you know that Tucker Carlson and The Five were one of the first media platforms to call out the threat of the coronavirus?
Greg Gutfield, particularly on January 28th, said our administration isn't doing enough on this.
Incredible.
Meanwhile, what was going on?
The media was telling us over and over again, like the Washington Post, USA Today, that it was just the flu!
Today, Kara Swisher for the New York Ti- I believe it's Kara Swisher, I'm gonna- that's right.
I wanna make sure it's a- Yes, Kara Swisher for the New York Times is claiming that Fox News is doing a really, really bad job.
This is the...
Evil.
You know, it's the banality of evil in a sense.
Like, Kara's just not smart enough to know what's actually going on or do any research.
And there's a lot of people like this.
I'm not trying to insult her for an emotional response.
I'm saying she quite literally doesn't have the ability to do the job of fact-checking.
Because if you're gonna make a claim like Fox News was fake, then you need to go and actually check what was going on.
I do this all the time.
I'm not perfect.
I certainly mess up a lot.
So I'm not gonna pretend like I'm necessarily better than her or that I'm smarter than her in any way.
No, no, no, for sure.
We all get things wrong.
But when I look at what's going on with the media, particularly in this story, I can tell you that she is completely wrong and didn't do any background research.
I believe I have a photo somewhere here.
Yes.
This is a viral meme that's going around.
It's a collage of all the various headlines that were saying the flu was worse than coronavirus.
This is one of my favorite.
Get a grip, America.
The flu is a much bigger threat.
They say we should de-escalate the war on coronavirus from Wired.
Are you nuts?
Coronavirus is scary, but the flu is deadlier, they say.
All of this from all of these different outlets, some of which I believe are... Well, actually, I don't know if some of them are right-leaning.
But we can see that even Snopes, down at the bottom, said the coronavirus has spread quickly.
It is nowhere near as widespread as previous epidemics such as swine flu or Spanish flu.
Flu hitting Arizona despite attention on coronavirus.
That was everyone in the media.
Why isn't Kara Swisher talking about them?
I'll tell you why.
The media's goal, in my opinion, is homogenous, authoritarian support of authoritarianism in general.
Why does James O'Keefe get removed?
Did he say anything wrong?
He actually did not.
He just filmed things on the ground, and they took down legit field reporting.
That's insane.
They go after Fox News, and Fox News absolutely, in certain capacities, did downplay this.
But it was Tucker Carlson and Greg Gutfeld who were ringing the warning bells much earlier than everyone else in media.
Check this out.
Someone posted this.
Hey, this is what you said about the coronavirus on January 28th, which I believe is the first time the five discussed it.
Greg Gutfeld in this clip says, this is a serious threat.
China's locking down their country.
If they're saying we should, the CDC is saying we shouldn't travel to China, shouldn't we restrict travel from China as well?
Greg was calling this out.
On February 4th, the Washington Post says, get a grip.
The flu is worse.
Incredible.
And then Media Matters publishes out-of-context clips to try and make Fox News look like they were the only ones who did it.
And they're trying to get their sponsors removed.
That's their goal.
Let's read this story from Daily Caller.
Fox News host Greg Gutfeld waged a Tuesday afternoon Twitter war with a Media Matters employee who accused him of lying about when Fox News' The Five began taking coronavirus seriously.
Quote, I wonder when The Five sounded the alarm on the virus back in January.
What was Chuck's concern?
Gutfeld said on Tuesday's The Five.
The clip was posted by Andrew Lawrence, Media Matters Deputy Director of Rapid Response, along with the caption, Greg Gutfeld says Fox's The Five sounded the alarm on coronavirus back in January, but he's lying.
Media Matters is lying.
They lie all the time.
You know my favorite thing about Media Matters was?
I had a video where I had a quote from the Star Tribune, a newspaper, an established newspaper in Minnesota.
I read that quote, and they claimed I lied about what the quote was, and they even showed the image of the quote!
It's mind-bogglingly insane.
It's like someone holding a banana in your face and saying, it's not a banana.
But they're trying to demand you look at the truth and then tell you it's not the truth.
That's what they're doing here.
Lawrence posted two other tweets in an attempt to bolster his case, showing Jesse Watters saying, I'm not lying.
It's called the power of positive thinking, and an American needs to wake up to that.
I live in Manhattan.
I got off work the other night, went to the subway.
Asian guy was sitting down next to me, mask on.
What do I do?
Finish the ride, go home and order Chinese food.
I'm not afraid of the coronavirus, and no one else should be afraid of that either.
Jesse Watters was saying, don't be racist.
He wasn't saying there's not a real threat from the coronavirus.
He's saying if you see somebody who's wearing a mask, they're Asian, don't freak out.
Order Chinese food.
It's not that, like, don't do that.
The media said the exact same thing.
I'll go back to the other post.
Check this out.
As the coronavirus spreads, fear is fueling racism and xenophobia.
Why is it that when Jesse Watters says basically the same thing, don't be afraid, you know, you can sit next to somebody, it's not a big deal, you can order Chinese food, they accuse him of downplaying coronavirus?
I hate, you know, it's another day.
Same old, same old.
Me ragging on the media.
What else is new?
It's almost disheartening because what else is there to talk about?
It's every single day there's something else the media is lying about because they don't care about informing you or telling the truth.
They care about spinning a narrative to win.
And that's why you will see all of these stories completely contradictory to what they're reporting now.
On the same day, they'll post something like, this is bad, this is not bad.
You know why they want both factions?
There are people who don't think coronavirus is a big deal.
People who think it is.
They'll write both.
And then you're confused what the editorial mission of the paper is.
Like, I don't understand.
Is it really bad?
And they say, oh, we're just publishing opinion.
And you're confusing everybody.
If you have an editorial stance, take one.
Stop pretending like you're just going to publish whatever.
It's irresponsible to accuse Fox News of doing a bad job, saying they should have known better, when you didn't either.
Let's go back to that story and see what Greg had to say.
Gutfeld promptly fired back, accusing Lawrence of deliberately lying, without checking and instructing him to see his pinned tweet and retract.
He says this Media Matters is deliberately lying.
He could have easily checked, but didn't.
The Fox News host's pinned tweet included the five clip from January 28th, in which Gutfeld and other hosts discussed the need for a travel ban on China because of the coronavirus' rapid spread.
This was January 28th.
What were media hacks who were acting like they're Nostradamus now saying back then?
Zilch.
That's right.
Impeachment.
Orange man bad.
Joe Biden was talking about impeachment.
And climate change.
Donald Trump was forming a task force.
I love this because Jennifer Rubin, the famous fake conservative who claims she's a liberal, said the Donald Trump death toll is the total death toll minus the people who could have been spared if Trump had heeded the warnings or whatever, blah, blah, blah.
Basically saying that Donald Trump is responsible.
And I said, alright, I'm down to use this logic, because if that's Trump's death toll, then the Democrat death toll is literally everyone who died, because while Trump actually did things like the travel ban with China on January 31st, and formed the task force on the 29th, I believe, the Democrats were impeaching him and doing nothing.
It's not like Trump has the sole responsibility of everything happening in this country.
Congress does as well.
And what were they doing?
Impeachment, even though we all knew it would fail.
So sure, if you want to play this pundit game, I got no problem saying, you're right, Trump could have done a better job, he did a bad job, and the Democrats did a substantially worse job.
Who are you going to vote for in November?
Excellent argument, by the way.
Greg Godfield says, hey Andrew Lawrence, care to comment?
We covered the virus early and often retract now.
Of course he won't.
Lawrence responded by reiterating his previous point.
Look at the five's coverage of coronavirus, which you said took coronavirus seriously since January.
Greg responds, you called me a liar when there was footage of me showing the importance it was taken.
You are a lying scumbag for knowing that fact and denying it.
You know you lied, now be a man and admit it.
Doubling down, Lawrence then said, Fox News' coronavirus coverage is going to get people killed.
Oh, so now it's not about Greg Gutfeld, who you lied about.
It's about other hosts that downplayed things.
Okay, Andrew, Media Matters also accused Fox News in January of fear-mongering.
It's incredible!
Media Matters straight up on January 28th said they were showing unfounded footage and they were fear-mongering about China.
Media Matters is going to get people killed.
Probably already did.
That's your fault.
You're in deep, dude, Gutfeld wrote in response.
You lied about my coverage, slandered me in a very vital way, and now you're running from your own claim.
Retract now.
Be a man if that's indeed possible.
Look at the pinned tweet.
You know you effed up.
Fix it now.
Sue him, dude.
Just sue him.
It's time to sue these people.
He lied.
We know he lied.
Here's a video of Greg Gutfeld on the 28th saying it, and the Media Matters guy was saying to the contrary.
There you go.
False statement of fact.
With evidence.
He knows it's wrong, refuses to retract, just sue him.
Sue him and see what you can do.
I have this other story here from Breitbart.
Dr. Anthony Fauci cautions Jim Acosta for taking soundbite out of context.
Well, sort of.
Basically what happened is Jim Acosta asked a question, and then what Dr. Fauci said is it's hard to answer questions because he knows the media will snip the soundbite, take it out of context, and make everyone freak out.
Since this whole thing began, people have been trying to create a fight between Dr. Fauci and Trump, and there isn't one.
I see these sensationalist headlines like, Fauci pours cold water on Trump's plans.
And it's Fauci saying things like, I think Trump is trying to give people hope by, you know, saying he wants to reopen the economy, but we'll see how things play out.
Donald Trump said, look, I want to get things opened early, hopefully by Easter, but I'm going to talk with the health experts and determine what makes the most sense.
What is the media report?
Trump doesn't care about our lives.
Dr. Fauci pours cold water on his plans.
In reality, it was a calm, rational discussion.
This is why Donald Trump's approval rating, once again, is higher than it's ever been.
I kid you not.
The new RCP poll has Trump 0.3% higher than the other day.
It has been going up, up, up.
47.6 approval.
Now, all in all, I'll just show you.
Trump's job approval, 47.6%, higher than it has ever been once again.
And his job on the coronavirus as well is way up now.
Not higher than it's ever been because the coronavirus is, you know, a relatively new phenomenon.
But we see a new poll has come out from Grinnell Seltzer with a 0.2 positive.
This is why the media is floundering, trying to get people like James O'Keefe banned, trying to get Fox News banned.
Right now, I believe most of these networks have stopped covering Trump's press events on the coronavirus.
Why?
The American people were seeing behind the curtain.
The media was lying, taking things out of context, smearing people.
And when they actually got to watch Trump, they said he's doing a good job.
So Fox News is still covering it.
Well, if Fox News won't get in line behind the authoritarian private apparatus for the state, then they're going to try and shut them down with lies and deceit.
So good on you, Kara Swisher, for doing no research and smearing Fox News and ignoring your own, the other side of the industry's downplaying in this virus.
I can't stand the media, man.
And I gotta admit, you know, I'm reading these stories and I was like, oh great, I'm gonna do another video talking about how the media is lying.
But we all get it.
At what point do I just say, like, if it's in the news, it must be wrong?
All right, well, I'll break it down.
I'll pull back a little on the hyperbole.
The reality is, I do use a lot of these sources to verify facts.
But what happens is, it's kind of like Swiss cheese.
You've got a bunch of holes.
The holes are the fake news.
And regular people don't know what the fake news is, so to them, they see a plain sheet.
For me, I look at it, I can see all the pitfalls, all the holes, and I know where the lies are, and I try to navigate that to bring as much, the most accurate depiction of what's going on as I can.
But if I'm going to use the New York Times as a source, and they're likely wrong, What more can you do?
I honestly don't know.
We're in deep trouble, to say the least.
There's something called the Gell-Mann amnesia effect.
For those that aren't familiar, I'll wrap it up with this final thought.
The idea is, let's say you're an expert plumber, and you read a story in the New York Times about plumbing.
And of course, the journalist gets everything wrong.
You say, I'm a plumber, and this is insane.
They have no idea what they're talking about.
You then go to the next story in the New York Times, and it's about foreign policy or coronavirus, and you go, wow, I didn't know that.
But why would you assume those stories are true if the stories they report on that you're an expert on are not true?
The reality is most of their stories are probably fake to varying degrees.
They're probably wrong to varying degrees, misframed, and so it's really hard to break through and figure out what's really going on.
I do my best.
I'll leave it there.
Thanks for hanging out.
Stick around.
Next segment will be up at 4 p.m.
YouTube.com slash TimCast and I will see you all there.
The MyPillow guy, Mike Lindell, recently announced he was switching his factories over to mask production from pillow production.
You might know this guy.
He's the very famous guy who's like, my pillow is the best pillow guaranteed or whatever.
And not bad pillows.
I'll admit I have one.
I like it.
Well, this guy decided to switch his factories up to assist in the national effort of producing masks.
Good on him.
Many other companies have done this and they deserve respect for doing so.
I mean, is he going to make a hard profit selling masks?
Probably not.
He's a pillow guy.
But, you know, maybe there's some personal benefit.
I don't know.
All I really care about is we need masks.
Our frontline medical workers need support.
He's supporting them.
Give the man some credit.
Well, CNN couldn't do it.
The media had to go after him and mock and belittle this guy.
And to me, it's shocking.
Now, they're upset that he was saying things about religion at the podium, saying Trump was giving this guy, you know, space and he shouldn't have done it.
Some people accused Trump of violating the separation of church and state.
Which is absurd.
Trump letting a guy speak, and then the guy saying stuff is not Trump or the government doing it.
You know, there's an argument, sure.
But let's read.
Because Mike Lindell basically calls Jim Acosta evil.
And, uh, I understand.
I do understand.
But I want to make an important point.
They're mad about him and religion?
What about when all these celebrities get up there and preach their social justice ideology?
That's praised.
That's right.
If Donald Trump brought in someone who talked about white privilege, they'd clap and cheer and say, oh, good for you.
That's why I don't care.
It's not about being conservative or being liberal.
It's about, you have a right to express your ideas.
I wouldn't care if a social justice person did it.
You know, fine, whatever.
I'd roll my eyes.
Religious person does it?
Yeah, same.
I roll my eyes.
It's whatever.
You talk about what you want to talk about.
Let's read the story.
This is evil!
MyPillow's Mike Lindell punches back at Jim Acosta, other media critics of White House appearance.
MyPillow founder Mike Lindell hit back at Jim Acosta after Lindell briefly spoke at President Donald Trump's White House coronavirus briefing on Monday and suggested Americans spend some of their quarantine time reading their Bibles and spending time with family.
Acosta called it a PR stunt designed to help his company.
They don't say it about newbounds.
My understanding is that New Balance Shoes did the same thing.
Are they gonna call them out?
What about Facebook?
Announcing that they were stockpiling N95 masks because of the wildfires, and they got a bunch they're gonna donate.
Was that a PR stunt?
Yeah, that's always pointing in one direction, isn't it, Jim?
Lindell, who has temporarily retooled his facilities to produce face masks to fight the coronavirus pandemic, spoke with Fox Business host Lou Dobbs on Tuesday night's edition of Lou Dobbs Tonight.
You mentioned God.
You have the Bible writ large behind you.
I suspect all around you and people of faith do, Dobbs told Lindell before playing a clip of MSNBC's Chris Hayes during his Monday appearance.
Wow, Dobbs said.
The pillow guy reading the Bible.
I'll tell you what, I heard Jim Acosta attack me too, and he was 10 feet from me in the Rose Garden.
Lindahl responded, This is just evil, Lew.
This is evil.
This president has been the best man in charge for such a time as this.
He added, It's just those newscasters, those journalists, and we know who they are.
I am going to say CNN what they did to me.
I am sorry.
I put on a message of hope to the country that God has given us grace on November 8th, 2016.
A nation that turned its back on God, and right now we're part of this big revival.
I'm appalled by the journalists that I see here.
Lindell concluded, I used to think that they are not really that evil.
Well, yes, they are.
It's interesting.
There's an old saying, as it pertains to the left and the right.
The right thinks the left is misguided, and the left thinks the right is evil.
Now we're starting to see, I guess, both think each other is evil.
What he's saying about, you know, them being evil, I find particularly interesting, because what he does when he went to the White House was preach the Bible.
What they see on the left is a guy who's got backwards, archaic beliefs, and religion has done all these bad things.
And when you go to these subreddits and forums and see how they talk about Christianity, it's interesting when the left then excuses Islam.
But the main point I want to get to before I go on to ragging on the media a little bit more, because we'll rag on the New York Times next, The way I see the social justice ideology, it's an ideology.
I see Christianity, it's an ideology.
They very clearly, in the media establishment, support one of these ideologies, and feel it's fair game to go after the other.
But what's strange to me is that Christianity, being an Abrahamic religion, gets torn to shreds like it's okay, and then other religions get a free pass for saying very similar things.
Like I mentioned, if it was a social justice warrior up there on stage, they would have been like, wow, Trump did a great thing.
Well, actually, I take that back.
They would then come out against social justice or something.
But the media has been pretty trashy as of lately.
They've been talking about it quite a bit.
They keep putting up fake news.
Donald Trump reads it.
And then they claim the news they reported is actually fake.
Which brings me to the next story.
How fun is it always to point out the embarrassment the New York Times embarrasses itself?
The Free Beacon reports, the paper of record forced to correct same factual error twice in one week.
Now let me just say...
Fact-checking is a good thing.
Correcting errors is a very good thing.
So, I have no problem pointing out when a news organization corrects things.
It's good.
They should be praised for this, not criticized.
However, fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me.
If the New York Times is repeatedly putting out fake news, y'all got serious fact-checking problems.
Who's running this behind?
Do you even have your articles fact-checked at this point?
They want to smear those they don't like, they target people who believe things they don't like, and then they lie, and they're forced to clarify.
The Free Beacon reports, The New York Times touts itself as a tireless purveyor of facts.
One installment in its latest ad campaign reads, Truth.
It's hard to find.
But the Times' recent coverage of the coronavirus pandemic suggests the so-called paper of record is itself struggling to find the truth.
The Times printed a correction on Tuesday to rectify its reporter's mischaracterization of a coronavirus study by the Society of Critical Care Medicine.
It was the second time in four days the Times had published and subsequently corrected the same error.
The SCCM study estimated that as many as 1 million coronavirus patients could require ventilators over the course of the entire pandemic.
The New York Times, among others, reported that the United States would need 1 million ventilators to adequately care for coronavirus patients.
As it turns out, that's a pretty significant difference.
The New York Times campaign reporter Trip Gabriel promoted, 407 retweets, his colleague's inaccurate reporting as evidence that President Donald Trump's approach to the crisis will doom people to die.
At the time, the article stated incorrectly that the SCCM study indicated the United States could need up to a million machines over the course of the outbreak.
So what does that mean?
Does that mean that some machines will be used more than once?
Does that mean there will be two million people over the period of, you know, let's see what they say.
Several days later, Gabriel posted an addendum.
To clarify, the study by the Society of Critical Care Medicine projected that as many as 1 million people in the U.S.
may need treatment with a ventilator over the course of the pandemic, not that the U.S.
will need 1 million total ventilators.
You see why that's so important?
You may have one ventilator.
But if everybody only uses it for a short period of time, then you can use one ventilator for multiple people.
If we have 100,000 people, and every 10 days someone gets off of it, then there you go.
So there's a lot of questions here.
How long is the duration of the pandemic?
How quick will someone recover from this?
And then how many people can use it?
Here's the correction that printed in the Times that same day.
Here's the correction The Times published on Tuesday after an article in Sunday's print edition cited the same inaccurate characterization of the study's finding to criticize Trump's coronavirus response coordinator, Dr. Deborah Birx.
And here's the point I'm getting at.
You know, maybe you don't care the New York Times has been correcting multiple things.
Maybe it's just more confirmation bias.
We know they're fake news.
But they use the lies and the misrepresentation to smear people they don't like politically.
More importantly, somebody will report the fake news.
A bunch of people will see it and believe it's true.
Then they'll correct the fake news and those people still believe the fake story because they never saw the correction.
They then go on to write more fake news, smearing the president, blaming him for something that makes no sense because they made it up.
And that's how the media world works.
Sure, everyone makes mistakes, they write.
But making the same mistake twice in less than a week, and being forced to run identical corrections days after the fact, that's pretty embarrassing for the New York Times, an institution prone to fits of ostentatious self-regard, which promotes itself with award-winning slogans such as, truth, it's more important now than ever.
As is so often the case when the media messes up, this particular error is the result of a mischaracterization that just happens to make Donald Trump and the Republican Party look bad.
Now isn't that funny?
They say, Mike Lindell, the pillow guy, it's a big PR stunt.
He doesn't actually care, but they don't say anything about Facebook or New Balance.
And of course, when it comes to the New York Times story, it's always flowing in one direction.
When the fake news is fake, it's to make Trump look bad, and the lie travels halfway around the world before the truth can strap on his boots.
On the same day, The Times published its first story on the SCCM study.
The paper also ran an article about major television networks debating whether to stop airing Trump's daily briefings on the coronavirus to prevent the spread of information that doctors and public health officials have called ill-informed, misleading, or downright wrong.
Perhaps the media should get their own houses in order and hunt down the elusive truth about why people, despite Trump's shortcomings, the American people still see the present as a more reliable source than the national media.
Why indeed?
And then they link to the glorious meme, which you can barely see on the screen, but I'm going to open it up because I love, love showing this.
It's time to shut down the lies.
Media wasn't exactly, what did it say?
Barbara Boland says, media wasn't exactly on the ball either.
I love this image.
Screenshot it.
All the different stories that were downplaying the coronavirus, and they want to misrepresent data to make Trump look bad.
It's just, you know, I think my problem is, I think that I read all of this news, and I remember it.
You know, I remember when they write these stories saying, don't worry about it.
I remember when BuzzFeed wrote in January.
And then the story comes out a week later, and I'm like, that's contradictory.
Not just that, I remember when they write the story later on, and when I ask for a correction, they tell me to go F myself.
I've reached out to BuzzFeed before and saying, here's proof, your story's fake, can you correct it?
And they say, no.
They won't do it.
They don't care.
They're there to make content, they need a good clickable link.
Yeah, same is true for me.
I'm not that much better compared to many of these companies.
You look at my content, you'll see I got that flashy title and headline and thumbnail and all that stuff.
Well, in these videos, I don't really do fancy thumbnails.
But I try to correct my mistakes when I make them.
Absolutely, 100% of the time.
And I don't always get it, but I try to.
And when people message me, sometimes even in bad faith, I put their links in my video.
I had one guy hit me up saying I was wrong, so I put a link to his video response in mine saying, look, I do not think I'm the smartest person in the world.
And while I still may think they're wrong, I think it's healthy that you think for yourself and that you check out other content and you recognize that.
It's the best I can do.
Them, on the other hand, they will say they're the authorities on truth.
Nah, they're not.
Neither am I. Just read as much as you can.
I'll leave it there.
Next segment's coming up in a few minutes, and I will see you all shortly.
Our First Amendment rights are being eroded, trampled on, destroyed, and I am very worried that once this all ends, hopefully it will, I'm worried that our rights will be suppressed.
You know, it's going to be like a pre-911, post-911 thing.
We're going to have our rights stripped.
Right now you've got the government saying you can't assemble, you can't go in groups.
We understand why.
We agree with it.
We're scared.
The virus is dangerous, and it really is, and we should be worried.
But should we give up our rights?
Perhaps there is some responsibility we must take to protect each other in these trying times, but there needs to be time limits on these things, and we need to make sure we stay vigilant.
Seattle Police Chief, call 911 when you hear hate speech.
Here it comes.
Under the pretext of the coronavirus, our rights will be ripped away faster than you realize.
The Daily Caller reports, Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best told city residents Monday to call 911 if they hear racist name-calling.
As Washington state continues to battle new coronavirus infections, Best decided to focus on hate speech.
How do you call the cops on someone for speaking?
We have a first amendment right to say what we want.
If somebody wants to be a jerk and say mean things, they're allowed to do it.
I don't like it.
I wouldn't want to hang out with them.
But they're allowed to do it.
You see where this is going.
They say, quote, Washington State is no place for hate.
In a show of solidarity, Lori Matsukawa joined me to remind everyone that hate has no place in our community.
Report hate, including racist name-calling, to 911.
We are here to help and will respond to investigate.
Investigate what?
Free speech?
Why would you call 911?
It's not even an emergency.
You're gonna displace firefighters and cops for this?
Apparently so.
Let's see what else they have.
I got a couple other stories as well.
Matsukawa, a former local news personality, has joined Best in Air campaign, according to Reason.com.
Hate crimes have no place in our community.
We are all trying to deal with COVID-19, the public health crisis, together.
If you are a victim of a hate crime or hate-based harassment, please call 911.
We will document and investigate every reported hate crime.
Even racist name-calling should be reported to the police.
If you aren't sure if a hate crime occurred, call 911.
Yes, that's what the police should be dealing with.
Great.
Seattle is known for its progressive policies and its public school board recently declared math to be racist.
Oh, that's great.
The Seattle Police Officers Guild, SPOG, is very concerned about the coronavirus pandemic and has criticized the decision of the local national public radio station to stop airing the regular coronavirus task force briefings from Washington.
In light of the recent decisions made by a public news affiliate, SPOG will be live-streaming all the White House's press COVID-19 briefings on our social media channels.
SPOG President Mike Solin said in a statement, Well, it's not just what's happening in Seattle.
I understand why they want to enforce these rules, right?
Cuomo says NYPD needs to enforce social distancing rules.
I get it.
People are ignoring it.
They're breaking the rules, they're going out, they're partying, and it's going to result in people getting hurt, getting sick, and it's going to make the problem worse for everybody.
But I am worried.
The Hill reports, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo called on the New York City Police to do more to enforce social distancing measures, saying he may be forced to mandate social distancing by law.
Cuomo on Tuesday said young people are not abiding by social distancing guidelines, which is forcing him to consider drastic actions.
The NYPD has to get more aggressive, period, period, Cuomo said, referring to the New York Police Department.
If you're going to force me into a position where I have to mandate it and make it a law, a social distancing law, which I think is absurd, but it has to be enforced.
Cuomo said he is closing all the city's playgrounds because voluntary compliance did not work.
He said he had been warning for weeks that playgrounds would be shut if people did not follow the social distancing guidelines to reduce density in the city.
I've said this 100 different ways, but compliance is still not where it should be.
How reckless and irresponsible and selfish for people not to do it on their own.
I mean, what else do you have to know?
What else do you have to hear?
Who else has to die for you to understand you have a responsibility in this, he asked.
Cuomo said open spaces at local parks will remain open so people can get outside and exercise.
And you know what?
People are going to be cheering for him.
They're going to be agreeing with him.
They're going to be calling for it.
And in fact, in Florida, someone's already suing the government, demanding they shut down beaches.
The First Amendment gets trampled on, and this is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause.
We have another story here.
This is from the Christian Post.
Citing First Amendment, outspoken minority of pastors refuse to close churches amid pandemic.
It seems to me the Christian Post definitely wants to distance themselves from many of these pastors who are not abiding by social distancing.
Because, as far as I can tell, we've seen a large variety of stories where churches have done, like, tele-worship of some sort, or drive-thru worship, or communion by the door.
You can come and they maintain their distances, but there have been several... There's been a minority of individuals who refuse.
Here's the thing.
I think they're allowed to do it.
This is the challenge.
It's the First Amendment.
You have a right to worship.
You have a right to speech.
You have a right to assembly.
The Christian Post reports, citing First Amendment rights, an outspoken minority of pastors across the country are resisting calls from federal and local government authorities to close their churches amid the new coronavirus pandemic, despite facing fines and arrest.
Some legal experts, however, disagree with using the First Amendment as a defense for disobeying government authorities in the throes of a pandemic.
On Monday, Pastor Rodney Howard-Brown, leader of Revival International Ministries and the River at Tampa Bay Church in Florida, became the first high-profile pastor in the burgeoning movement to insist his First Amendment rights were being violated after he was arrested for leading two large worship services on Sunday.
Howard Brown was charged with unlawful assembly.
Can that be?
Is it possible?
And violation of public health emergency rules, both second-degree misdemeanors, for intentionally and repeatedly hosting church services with hundreds of members in attendance, despite knowing he was in violation of a stay-at-home order issued by Governor Ron DeSantis of South Florida.
The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office said, With legal help from the Liberty Council, a non-profit litigation firm, Howard Brown has decided to fight the charges.
I know the Sheriff said we can't hide behind the First Amendment, but we can because I was sworn in as a citizen of the Constitutional Republic of the United States and I raised my hand to pledge to defend the Constitution of America against enemies foreign and domestic.
He said during a Facebook Live broadcast Monday night.
The nation is under attack, and whatever you give up this side, you will never get it back.
If we give up our rights now, don't be surprised if you don't get them back.
They probably won't come back.
If it's true what they're saying about a two-year-long period of two months on, one month off, then people will get into this habit and we will lose all of our rights.
There is a conundrum, however.
The coronavirus is going to kill a lot of people unless we do this.
So you can choose to distrust the government, which is another serious problem.
The government is telling us these things.
Donald Trump is.
Dr. Fauci.
They're telling us that people, millions, could lose their lives.
And we don't want to be responsible for that.
But it also means we just trust them.
Do they have any hard evidence that those numbers are accurate?
We just don't know.
We know that China lied about it.
Could be worse than we know.
In which case, do we just trust the government?
Great moral and ethical conundrums that I just can't answer.
There's a limit.
I'll put it this way.
For me, I will absolutely abide by all of these rules, but if there becomes an extended period, and uncertainty, and a lack of, and a mistrust, and after several months there's no answers, I'm gonna stop.
I'm not gonna.
Right?
It's hard to know where the line is, but there needs to be an expiration for this.
Virginia says June 10th.
Seems like a long ways away.
And maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe I should say it could be A decently long period.
Six, seven months?
I don't know.
I'll play it by year.
I'm willing to do what I have to do to be responsible to maintain and protect the rights, which means having a responsibility to my community and this country to do what the right thing is.
If Trump and his task force say this is the best option, I will give them the benefit of the doubt.
For now.
And I want to see that in the future, they give us, you know, the evidence we need, or they relax these things when the time comes.
I guess the bigger challenge right now is, does the government have the power to do this?
They've already taken away our First Amendment.
And if we let them do it now, they can do it later.
Perhaps the real issue is that we need to resist this, even with all the detriments that come with it.
I just, honestly, This is why so many people don't want to make the hard decision.
It's easy to make the choice for yourself to say, I won't, I won't do this.
But how do you make the call for everyone else?
And that's the hard part.
If you come out and say everyone should be allowed to gather if they want, then you're responsible when people lose their lives.
If you come out and say no one should be allowed to travel or gather, then you are responsible for shutting down someone's constitutional rights.
Nobody wants to be the person, that's why I keep saying I don't know.
I know one thing, I would just leave and take care of myself and perhaps that's a bigger problem.
He argued it makes no sense that churches are being closed while stores like Walmart, Costco, and Lowe's Home Improvement were being allowed to operate.
Restaurants, he highlighted, are also being allowed to serve takeout despite a clear risk to spreading the virus.
As long as you keep Lowe's open and Walmart open, and Costco and every other place, and you go in there, talk about social distancing, I mean, it's insane.
There's so many holes in this thing.
Even the people who deliver the food.
How do you know where the food's been cooked?
Who's making it?
How do you know that they don't have the virus?
Somebody said, well, they're gonna catch it at the church.
I beg to differ.
They're at a church one Sunday morning, and six and a half days a week, they're everywhere else.
How do you know it wasn't the last trolley where you put your groceries in that wasn't infected?
How do you know it wasn't the last restroom you went into?
You don't actually know.
I know America is fighting with each other right now, which is the whole narrative, man.
Divide and conquer, he said.
You know what?
It's a good point.
But I'll push back.
There are some things we can't close, and that does give us a risk of infection.
And there are some things we can close.
I guess the bigger issue is that churches have larger congregations and would be a hotspot for transmission.
So therein lies the big challenge.
Walmart certainly is.
You know, Lowe's certainly is.
But people need these things to survive.
I guess the challenge is, people have a right to worship.
And does that make church an essential service?
For a lot of people, it really is.
So what do you do?
I don't like the idea of the government being told they get a free pass on curtailing our rights.
I don't.
Don't look at me, man.
I'm not going to be your thought leader on this one.
I'll point it out.
I'll point out my fears, but I can't make the decision, which is why I never want to be a leader of any of these groups or make these choices, because someone will have to.
I got one more segment for you in a few minutes, and I will see you all shortly.
Good news, everybody!
Adam Schiff is drafting legislation to set up a 9-11-style commission to review the coronavirus response, because that's what the American people want.
More scandals, investigations, public hearings, and the orange man is bad.
Well, I can't say I'm surprised it's Adam Schiff's thing, but, um...
You know, we went through all of this for three years, and because of this, because of their nonsense, we were distracted a bit on the coronavirus.
Now, Trump actually gave the Democrats a bit of a free pass on this one, saying when he was asked about it, he said maybe he was a little distracted, but he doesn't think he could have done a better job even if they didn't impeach him.
Trump's a bigger man than me in that regard, I guess, and that's surprising because I've got a lot of criticism for his arrogance and his ego.
But he gave it up.
And I think, you know what?
I can respect that.
He doesn't want to just say the Democrats are bad, like some people do.
Although he does.
He does.
Don't get me wrong.
But he did walk it back a little bit.
It's not.
You know what, man?
They're going to do it again.
If you thought it was going to end with impeachment, then you would be wrong.
The Hill reports.
Rep Adam Schiff is drafting legislation that would set up an independent commission
that would investigate why the country was unprepared for the coronavirus pandemic,
saying, after Pearl Harbor and 9-11, we looked at what went wrong to learn from our mistakes.
The House Intelligence Committee chairman said in a tweet, once we've recovered,
we need a nonpartisan commission to review our response and how we can better prepare for the next pandemic.
Oh, I love it!
I hope in the review they call you to testify and ask why you were giving these speeches for an impeachment you knew would fail with dubious evidence at a time when we should have been preparing for the coronavirus.
I hope he calls himself.
I hope other people, the Republicans, demand that he testify.
And I hope this time the Senate actually gets on board with it.
Schiff did not give specifics regarding when the legislation will be dropped, but suggested it would be after Congress finishes the task at hand, mulling a series of stimulus packages aimed at alleviating the economic impact of the pandemic.
Sources familiar with the legislation told NBC News, the legislation is very preliminary.
You know that Adam Schiff was still investigating Donald Trump after the impeachment ended?
Apparently he had a series of investigations because the only thing they have is media lies and investigations.
We will need to delay the work of the Commission until the crisis has been abated to ensure that it does not interfere with the agencies that are leading the response, Schiff told the Washington Post.
But that should not prevent us from beginning to identify where we got it wrong and how we can be prepared for the next pandemic.
You know, on the surface, it sounds like a good idea.
But you know what it's gonna do?
Did we really do a bad job?
Was it Trump's fault?
You know what I think an honest review would find?
Trump may have been bad, but the Democrats did less.
So if you have a real criticism, you can talk to them about it.
Why were you focused on impeachment instead of the real problems Americans faced?
The administration has come under scrutiny in the past month for what critics call a late response to the virus.
Critics have also pointed out that in 2018, the administration disbanded the National Security Council unit focused on pandemic preparedness.
I don't know if that's true because I've seen an AP fact check pushing back on it, but I'll tell you what.
You want to investigate the president again?
I don't care at this point.
Good.
Give the president bigger and bigger ratings.
He'll raise more and more money.
It's what keeps happening.
They don't learn.
They seriously don't learn.
You know what Adam Schiff is doing?
He's putting his hand in the fire, saying ow, and then putting it right back in.
He wants to investigate Trump's response?
Trump's approval rating is higher than it has ever been right now.
You know, it's getting boring for me to say.
I'm actually contemplating why I'm even bothering to talk about any of this.
Yes, yes, yes, we get it.
Once again, Donald Trump's approval rating has spiked.
Now look, His approval rating has dipped periodically, but it's been an upward trend.
So what am I supposed to do?
Donald Trump's approval rating went down a little bit today, but it's still higher than it usually is?
That's not news.
It is news when it breaks a new record, and it's broken a new record for the past three days in a row.
47.3, or was it 47.0, 47.3, 47.6, great.
There's your news.
And the Democrats think they're going to investigate and impeach this guy.
And when it comes to the coronavirus, Donald Trump's approval rating is completely above board.
Every single poll they have available.
We got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 available polls.
In the aggregate, Donald Trump's handling of coronavirus, 50.2% approval plus about 4 percentage points.
Adam Schiff wants to investigate though.
You know what?
Let me make a prediction for you.
Donald Trump, second quarter fundraise haul.
$200 million.
Maybe it's a little high.
Donald Trump, Q3 fundraising haul.
$250 million.
You know why?
I'm not making those numbers up.
GOP online fundraising platform raises nearly $130 million for Republicans in the first quarter.
Okay, so maybe not Trump, but like the GOP fundraising is going to be through the roof.
Right now, Democrats are coming around to supporting the president.
That's why his approval rating is going up.
You need to get independents and Democratic voters to support you because the Republicans almost exclusively do.
And he is.
He's winning them over.
So his approval rating on everything is up.
The economy, even though the economy is bad, up.
And they're raising money.
The Hill reports, Man, you gotta be kidding me.
In red, the GOP's digital fundraising clearinghouse raised more than $129 million for Republicans
in the first three months of the year, nearly doubling its fundraising from the final quarter
of 2019.
Man, you gotta be kidding me.
And I think impeachment is to blame for sure, because it's the first quarter, so it includes
the impeachment months.
The group's president, Garrett Lansing, said in a memo that the $129.6 million total was
powered by roughly 1 million donors who each gave 3.2 times an average.
The average contribution size was 39.83, he said.
WinRed, which launched last summer as the GOP's answer to the Democratic fundraising behemoth ActBlue, was met with a measure of skepticism last year from some in the party.
Republicans are counting on the platform to raise money ahead of the November elections as President Trump seeks a second term and House Republicans grapple with a series of high-profile retirements.
That is a threat for the GOP, mind you.
In the third quarter of 2019, WinRed's first full fundraising period, it reported raising only about $31 million for Republicans.
That number more than doubled in the fourth quarter of the year to $70 million.
But the nine-figure fundraising haul in the first quarter of 2020 suggests that it has gained traction among Republicans.
Lansing said that some 787 campaigns are actively using WinRed in their fundraising efforts.
In the memo, Lansing acknowledged a broad disruption to traditional fundraising in the last few weeks, as the coronavirus pandemic has caused businesses to close, markets to reel, and workers to be laid off.
But he also said that WinRed helped bring some stability to GOP campaigns due to recurring donations, those in which donors agree to make weekly or monthly contributions through the platform.
It's very similar to what the Democrats have been doing.
About $29 million of the $129.6 million came from such recurring donations, Lansing wrote.
WinRed centralizes Republican fundraising efforts by creating an online portal donors can use to contribute to the candidate or political committee of their choice.
Democrats have used a similar platform, ActBlue, since 2004, allowing the parties, candidates, and committees to rake in billions of dollars over the years.
WinRed's structure also allows cash-flush groups like Trump's campaign to direct small-dollar donors to down-ballot campaigns that may be in need of funding.
Donald Trump's support.
Through the roof.
Cash in pocket.
New technological platforms.
Raising tons of money for the GOP.
And I was talking to a friend and they were asking me about liberals and who you're going to be on board for.
Are you going to vote for Biden?
Are you going to vote for Trump?
I mentioned this the other day.
I got a message from somebody.
I told them, basically, to wrap this up really quickly.
Who's there to vote for?
Biden is not a viable candidate.
That's absurd.
Don't even pretend like you can vote for the guy.
And Trump has been winning over independents and Democrats, and it depends on what happens with this crisis.
But yeah, Donald Trump is more deserving of re-election, or of the election in 2020 than anyone else.
But I got a call from somebody.
I'm sorry, I text.
Asking me if I would support a certain Democrat.
I don't want to name them because I want to let them be private.
But I did mention this the other day, but for those that didn't hear.
They asked me if I would consider supporting their fight against a Republican, and I said, no.
Well, as much as I don't much care for the Republicans, like, you know, a lot of their policies don't resonate with me.
On principles and a lot of cultural issues, we agree, but those aren't even policy issues.
It's tribalism.
It's ridiculous.
I said, look, man, I don't want to go anywhere near the Democrats because I'm worried that if I empower these people in the House, they're going to—and this is a departure for me because I've made several donations to Democrats in the past.
I said, I worry that I empower them to do this.
I didn't say this specifically, but here we are.
I was like, after the years of scandals and investigations, I do not want to empower this party.
The moderates in the House claimed they were going to fight for kitchen table issues.
If they actually had, perhaps they could have seen the coronavirus coming.
Instead, they all got on board, bent the knee for impeachment, and now here we are.
So no.
As much as I think, you know, this guy seemed like an okay dude, I'm sorry.
You put a D in front of your name and you can just back off.
I don't have anything to do with that.
You wasted our time.
This is your obsession.
A commission to review the coronavirus response.
What's the response that people like?
Most people like what Trump is doing.
And now the media is shutting off Donald Trump's press events because they realized that Trump was breaking through.
And people are starting to realize, the orange man, He's bad, but he's not that bad.
He's not.
And when it comes to coronavirus, it's actually kind of good.
But they can't accept it, because it means they lose.
And the activists and the manipulators and the deceivers in the media just want to win.
It's tribalism.
You know, I was recently talking with a certain political pundit.
We're talking about what it means to be liberal or conservative.
And he was like, you're not really a conservative guy or anything like that.
And I'm like, you know, but that's not the issue.
If we come to an agreement that the polls show Trump is doing well, that does not make either of us conservative.
It makes us somebody reading a fact.
If I say Trump is not that bad, it doesn't make me a conservative.
It makes me someone who's rather ambivalent.
Now, if I came out and said, I believe social programs are good and important things in this country.
Guess what?
That's a liberal position, but the liberals are gone.
They don't exist anymore.
You've got the far left progressives and you've got passive people just saying, Oh, I guess I don't like Trump because the media told them to.
And when it comes to Trump, it's like, yeah, he's got some problems.
Not that bad though.
You know what I mean?
I don't know what we can expect other than what the Democrats have kept doing, and so we're gonna get the investigations.
I hope you're all ready for it, and it's gonna be mind-numbing.
