The Ben Shapiro Show - The Season Of Miracles? | Ep. 979

00:00:00.000 Republicans and Democrats put together the largest spending bill in the history of the world.

00:00:04.000 President Trump suggests reopening the American economy by Easter, and new data emerges suggesting some good news on coronavirus.

00:00:11.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:00:11.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:00:13.000 Today's show is sponsored by ExpressVPN Podcasts.

00:00:20.000 Protect your data from prying eyes at expressvpn.com slash Ben.

00:00:24.000 Not kidding about that.

00:00:25.000 Lots of hackers out there.

00:00:26.000 Expressvpn.com slash Ben.

00:00:29.000 Okay, so a lot of big news happening in the world of coronavirus, which is the only news on planet Earth at this point, obviously.

00:00:36.000 The biggest news, of course, is that very, very late last night, like early morning, the White House and Congress did strike a deal To deliver $2 trillion in government relief to a nation increasingly under lockdown, according to the New York Times, that $2 trillion in relief is only part of the spending here.

00:00:51.000 The fact is that this, which is the biggest, it's not a bailout, but the biggest spending plan in the history of the world.

00:00:57.000 I mean, not just the United States, in the history of the world, is only part of the deal here.

00:01:02.000 The Treasury is also floating about $4 trillion in spending with regard to buying up commercial paper, buying up bank loans, and all of the rest.

00:01:10.000 So what exactly is in this giant rescue bill?

00:01:14.000 Well, a lot.

00:01:15.000 A lot.

00:01:16.000 So according to, first of all, I think it's important to note here that Nancy Pelosi to the last minute was insisting that her holding this thing up over the weekend was a good idea.

00:01:23.000 Hey, the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, she was on TV yesterday suggesting that the bill should have been held up over environmental concerns, of all things.

00:01:30.000 And great legislative leadership here from Nancy Pelosi.

00:01:33.000 Basically, we end up with, effectively, a very, very close cousin to the deal that was rejected several times on Monday by the Democrats.

00:01:41.000 Here was Nancy Pelosi, just before the passage of this deal, insisting the deal had to include environmental protections.

00:01:46.000 Because I don't know about you, but when the entire world economy is on the brink of complete and utter disaster, the thing I am worried most about is forcing airlines I do think that there is a whole concern in our country that if we're giving tens of billions of dollars to the airlines that we could at least have a shared value about what happens to the environment.

00:02:12.000 That is an excuse, not a reason for Senator McConnell to go forward.

00:02:17.000 Some of the other issues, like not fully extending family medical leave, not funding food stamps, I hope that will all change in the next few hours.

00:02:26.000 But they're issues that are central to the well-being of America's families.

00:02:32.000 Okay, I mean, priorities, priorities.

00:02:34.000 The fact that this person was described as a legislative mastermind over the last year is insane to me.

00:02:38.000 A person who surrendered to the squad and then proceeded to run a botched impeachment attempt and then, for no reason at all, held up a rescue package.

00:02:44.000 By the way, it was the prospect of the passage of that rescue package that led to the single greatest jump in the Dow Jones Industrial Average in the history of the Dow Jones Industrial Average yesterday.

00:02:52.000 It jumped over 2,000 points.

00:02:53.000 Well, right now, at this hour, we're still waiting for Nancy Pelosi's go-ahead.

00:02:58.000 She said that the new bipartisan agreement, quote, takes us a long way.

00:03:01.000 She's still gumming up the works at least a little bit, but this thing appears to be a foregone conclusion at this point.

00:03:06.000 So what exactly is in this thing?

00:03:07.000 and legislative text of the agreement to determine a course of action.

00:03:11.000 So she's still gumming up the works at least a little bit, but this thing appears to be a foregone conclusion at this point.

00:03:17.000 So what exactly is in this thing?

00:03:19.000 Well, there are a bunch of major spending provisions.

00:03:22.000 Obviously, the New York Times has a rundown of some of the big provisions.

00:03:26.000 They said the government will send direct payments to taxpayers.

00:03:28.000 Lawmakers have agreed to provide $1,200 in direct payments to taxpayers with incomes up to $75,000 per year.

00:03:34.000 By the way, it's an insane provision.

00:03:36.000 The Democrats basically made it that if you make over $75,000 per year, you're going to have to pay that back to the government.

00:03:41.000 So the government destroyed your job.

00:03:43.000 The government destroyed your business.

00:03:44.000 And now the government's going to sign you a check with the proviso that you have to pay it back if you make more than $75,000 per year.

00:03:49.000 By the way, those are the people who make $75,000 per year.

00:03:53.000 Who are probably, in the long term, going to be hit the hardest.

00:03:55.000 Not because they're the ones making the least money, obviously.

00:03:58.000 They're people who are making less money.

00:04:00.000 But because those are the ones who are going to see the greatest gap between what they were making and what they are currently making.

00:04:04.000 Namely, the difference between $100,000 and zero.

00:04:07.000 As opposed to a person who's already on food stamps or welfare, or a person who's already on unemployment, or a person whose salary may drop from $60,000 to $35,000.

00:04:13.000 If you drop from $75,000 to zero, that is actually a bigger drop.

00:04:15.000 If you drop from $75,000 to zero, that is actually a bigger drop.

00:04:20.000 Now, again, that doesn't mean that poor people don't deserve the money.

00:04:22.000 People who are poor do deserve the money.

00:04:24.000 But the point is, the people who are running the businesses are the people who are hiring the poor people. 0.95

00:04:27.000 And a lot of those people are now being floated basically zero-interest loans that are non-forgivable, according to the federal government.

00:04:34.000 Let's put it this way.

00:04:34.000 If the Republicans had proposed this, everybody would be up in arms.

00:04:37.000 Democrats proposed it.

00:04:38.000 So, of course, it's no big deal at all.

00:04:40.000 Families would receive $500 per child in an attempt to create a safety net for people whose jobs and businesses are affected by the pandemic.

00:04:46.000 By the way, you get no money.

00:04:48.000 None, if you earn more than $99,000 a year.

00:04:51.000 So, you get $1,200 in direct payments, up to $75,000 if you earned $75,000 last year.

00:04:57.000 Which, by the way, that's not what you're earning this year, not in this economy.

00:05:02.000 So, means testing this stuff is very bizarre, okay?

00:05:04.000 And ending for people who earn more than $99,000 a year at all.

00:05:08.000 So, if you earned $100,000, you and your spouse, then presumably, you make nothing.

00:05:13.000 You go home with zero.

00:05:15.000 Unemployment benefits do grow substantially.

00:05:16.000 They go to many more Americans.

00:05:17.000 Lawmakers agreed to a significant expansion of unemployment benefits that would extend jobless insurance by 13 weeks and include a four-month enhancement of benefits.

00:05:24.000 That is not a grave change from over the weekend.

00:05:27.000 Over the weekend, the Republicans were already proposing three months of extension of jobless insurance and enhancement of benefits.

00:05:32.000 It has moved up by one month.

00:05:33.000 Democrats wanted it to be six months.

00:05:35.000 Really, Democrats wanted it to be permanent.

00:05:38.000 The program was broadened to include freelancers, furloughed employees, and gig workers, such as Uber drivers.

00:05:44.000 So, you know, those people need to make money as well, obviously.

00:05:48.000 It's going to be kind of hard to tamp down exactly how much money those people were making in the first place.

00:05:52.000 Small business will receive emergency loans, but only if they keep their workers.

00:05:56.000 So if you're a small business and you're preparing for the future and you're saying to yourself, okay, we're not going to have the same customer base two months from now that we do now, which is obviously true.

00:06:04.000 Then you have to keep your workers in order to receive the loan in the first place, which again is a bizarre situation because it just means mass layoffs in two months.

00:06:12.000 Instead of everybody being laid off right now and then receiving unemployment benefits and then being rehired as appropriate, instead we are now forcing companies to continue to pay their employees who will then be hired at the first moment that that is available.

00:06:24.000 The bill provides federally guaranteed loans available at community banks to small businesses that pledge to not lay off their workers.

00:06:30.000 The loans would be available during an emergency period ending June 30th, And we'll be forgiven if the employer continues to pay workers for the duration of the crisis, but it's unclear exactly how the duration of the crisis is defined exactly.

00:06:42.000 Senator Rubio worked with Democrats to create this program.

00:06:44.000 He said the goal is to keep employees connected to their employers so that people aren't just having to stay home and aren't just feeling the stress of being laid off, but the uncertainty of whether they'll even have a job to go back to.

00:06:52.000 But this doesn't alleviate that because, again, the minute that all of these restrictions are off and we go back to the world in somewhat regular fashion, those jobs are not going to exist anymore.

00:07:01.000 I mean, let's be real about this.

00:07:02.000 If you're in the cruise line industry and you're taking a bailout to keep all of your cruise line employees employed over the next two months, do you really think those people are going to be employed in month three?

00:07:10.000 The answer of course is no, they're not going to be employed in month three, because at that point, I mean, they're gonna get fired, right?

00:07:17.000 I mean, the cruise industry is gonna go the way of the dodo bird, at least for several years here.

00:07:21.000 Distressed companies can receive government bailouts.

00:07:24.000 They're not bailouts, guys.

00:07:25.000 If you shut down a company and then you pay the company, that's not a bailout.

00:07:28.000 But, distressed companies can receive government money with strings attached.

00:07:31.000 Loans for distressed companies would come from a $425 billion fund controlled by the Federal Reserve.

00:07:36.000 An additional $75 billion would be available for industry-specific loans, including to airlines and hotels.

00:07:41.000 By the way, that was sort of pretty much what was in the weekend bill that Democrats were whining about.

00:07:48.000 The creation of the Federal Reserve Fund was one of the chief sticking points in negotiations because people were worried about the 2008 Wall Street bailout.

00:07:54.000 Democrats pressed for immediate disclosure of recipients and stronger oversight, including installing an inspector general and congressionally appointed board to monitor it, which, again, I don't have any problem with.

00:08:03.000 Companies that benefit could not engage in stock buybacks while receiving government assistance, and for an additional year after that, Okay, I have a question about the additional year after that.

00:08:10.000 It's one thing to say no stock buybacks because we're trying to keep people employed right now. 0.94

00:08:13.000 If you're worried about the stock market, you idiots, you're going to need companies to buy back their own stock if they feel that their stock is undervalued. 0.98

00:08:20.000 That's all a stock buyback is. 0.99

00:08:22.000 If your company is being undervalued on the open market and you wish to regain more control of your company, one of the things that you're going to have to do is buy back stock.

00:08:31.000 Okay, so question.

00:08:32.000 Particularly in a situation where the stock market is falling precipitously.

00:08:35.000 You want 401ks to go back up.

00:08:36.000 You're going to need Amazon to be able to buy back its own stock.

00:08:39.000 Democrats also secured a provision ensuring that Trump's family businesses or those of any other senior government officials cannot receive loan money through the fund.

00:08:46.000 Okay, so question.

00:08:47.000 Why are Trump's employees worse than other employees?

00:08:51.000 It is one thing if he's getting exorbitant money.

00:08:54.000 I mean, we're going to see that through disclosure rules, but I'm just wondering why Trump is being singled out this way.

00:08:57.000 Or, by the way, anybody else who's employed by a business that is connected to one of the senators or congresspeople.

00:09:02.000 There are a lot of employees who are working for businesses that are tangentially connected to members of Congress.

00:09:06.000 Okay, hospitals would receive aid.

00:09:09.000 The agreement includes $100 billion for hospitals and healthcare systems across the nation.

00:09:14.000 And that, of course, was going to be in the bill already.

00:09:16.000 We're going to get to more of what was in the bill.

00:09:19.000 Also, we're going to get to the latest on coronavirus.

00:09:21.000 Generally, there is some good news, possibly.

00:09:23.000 There's also some bad news because this is the situation in which we now live.

00:09:28.000 There is no real good news until we get our arms around this thing.

00:09:31.000 We'll get to more of this in just one second.

00:09:32.000 First, let's talk about keeping your home safe right now.

00:09:35.000 So, I have heard news recently that lots of local law enforcement agencies are just letting people out of jail.

00:09:40.000 Like, they're seriously afraid of coronavirus, and so they are letting people out of jail who have committed crimes.

00:09:45.000 And those people are wandering around And many of them will go back to committing crimes.

00:09:49.000 Wouldn't it be good for you to protect your property at this time?

00:09:51.000 Especially since you are probably on your property.

00:09:53.000 It's good to know what's happening on your property.

00:09:55.000 And this is why you need Ring.

00:09:58.000 Ring gives you protection at every corner, helps you create custom affordable security for your home.

00:10:02.000 Ring detects motion when people come on your property.

00:10:04.000 Ring's video doorbells let you answer the door, check in on your home anytime from anywhere.

00:10:08.000 Ring helps you stay connected to your home anywhere in the world.

00:10:10.000 So if there's a package delivery, a surprise visitor, you're going to get an alert and be able to see, hear, and speak to them all from your phone.

00:10:15.000 I've always been paranoid about security, now more than ever, and this is why I have Ring devices all over my house.

00:10:21.000 I mean, I'm making sure that my property is safe and secure at all times.

00:10:24.000 I have three small children.

00:10:26.000 I want to know what's going on here all the time, and that's why I have Ring.

00:10:28.000 Get a special offer on the Ring Welcome Kit when you go to ring.com slash Ben.

00:10:32.000 The Welcome Kit includes the Ring Video Doorbell 2 and Chime Pro.

00:10:35.000 It's all you need to start building custom security for your home today.

00:10:37.000 Just go to ring.com slash Ben.

00:10:39.000 That is ring.com slash Ben.

00:10:42.000 Okay, so the Senate is also poised to approve Some $350 billion in loans to small business in an effort to keep Americans on payrolls.

00:10:50.000 A major challenge in the negotiations was that $500 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal.

00:10:54.000 The Treasury Secretary will have the authority to directly lend a slice of those funds, so not much changed over the weekend.

00:11:00.000 It was just that Nancy Pelosi held this thing up for basically no reason, because we're always going to tack on more spending after this. 0.99

00:11:05.000 Meanwhile, in other financial news, U.S.

00:11:08.000 three-month Treasuries have now dipped below zero.

00:11:10.000 We now have negative interest rates on three-month Treasury bonds, which is to say that the demand for Bonds in the short term is extraordinarily high.

00:11:19.000 Also, the Federal Reserve is currently attempting to push banks to lend.

00:11:23.000 The way they do that is basically by charging banks to stow their money with the Federal Reserve.

00:11:28.000 They're telling them, don't stow your money here, right?

00:11:30.000 Go lend it out.

00:11:31.000 The problem is, I mean, beyond the obvious, which is making sure that people who are already in hock because of the current shutdown don't get foreclosed upon, don't have their loans recalled.

00:11:41.000 Aside from that, who's lending money to start a business at this point?

00:11:44.000 Who's gonna start a business in this climate?

00:11:46.000 I mean, very, very difficult to imagine a lot of people who are looking to take out new loans from banks to start a business, for example.

00:11:53.000 The problem right now is that the underlying economic issue is, in fact, the virus itself, and that is not going to be healed.

00:11:58.000 So, the government has done, at this point, basically what it appears it can do to hold everything in place for the moment.

00:12:06.000 Now the question becomes, what's the next step?

00:12:08.000 How do we get out of all of this?

00:12:10.000 How do we move beyond what is going on right now?

00:12:13.000 And key to that question is going to be how fast we get our arms around coronavirus itself.

00:12:19.000 There is an open debate that is breaking out right now about just how deadly COVID-19 is.

00:12:23.000 And that open debate is worth having because, again, the data that we have are insufficient.

00:12:28.000 And we have to determine exactly what the risk levels are so we can determine exactly how fast people can go to work, how fast we can transition from a sort of Chinese lockdown style to South Korean style with heavy testing and people working.

00:12:40.000 If they are healthy, how fast we can get a test that is available to check your antibodies to see if you already had coronavirus and now you're immune to the virus itself.

00:12:49.000 And so, bottom line is that we are short on data.

00:12:52.000 As data comes in, then we are going to know more about how fast we can get people back to work at this point.

00:12:58.000 As I said, there may be some good news, and there may not be some good news, and we just don't know at this point.

00:13:02.000 So, for the sort of pessimistic view on how deadly this virus is, there's a professor in Britain named Hugh Montgomery, and he put out a viral video explaining how deadly coronavirus is.

00:13:12.000 This professor is an intensive care specialist based in London.

00:13:15.000 Here is how he explained how deadly the pandemic could be.

00:13:19.000 Normal flu, if I get that, I'm going to infect on average about 1.3, 1.4 people, OK?

00:13:26.000 If there was such a division.

00:13:28.000 Yeah.

00:13:28.000 And if those 1.3, 1.4 people gave it to the next lot, that's the second time it gets passed on.

00:13:33.000 By the time that's happened ten times, I've been responsible for about 14, 1, 4 cases of flu.

00:13:42.000 This coronavirus is very, very infectious, so every person passes it to three.

00:13:47.000 Now, that doesn't sound like much of a difference, but if each of those three passes it to three, and that happens at 10 layers, I have been responsible for infecting 59,000 people.

00:13:58.000 Okay, so the question is, number one, the infection rate?

00:14:02.000 And the second question is, what is the death rate?

00:14:06.000 So in order to determine the death rate, the question is not how many people have died versus how many people have tested positive.

00:14:11.000 The question is how many people have died compared to how many people have it.

00:14:14.000 And that's a question we just don't know the answer to at this point.

00:14:17.000 And the reason that we don't know the answer to that at this point is because so many people are asymptomatic, have had coronavirus, and then moved beyond coronavirus, may already be immune to coronavirus.

00:14:25.000 There are a couple of articles today that talk specifically about this question.

00:14:30.000 One is from an Oxford study.

00:14:32.000 There's an Oxford study that just came out.

00:14:34.000 So everybody has been citing a different study, the Imperial College study from Britain, that suggests there'd be like 2.2 million deaths in the United States if we just allowed everybody to run out and associate with one another.

00:14:46.000 There's another study that has now come out, modeling by researchers at the University of Oxford.

00:14:51.000 And the team at Oxford's Evolutionary Ecology of Infectious Disease Lab says that half of the UK may have already been infected with coronavirus.

00:14:59.000 Okay, well that would actually be good news.

00:15:01.000 Everybody's freaking out, oh my god, that's great.

00:15:03.000 No, that would be good news, because the number of dead people compared with the number of people in ICUs, compared with the number of people who have it in Britain, would then be a much, much smaller number.

00:15:12.000 The death rates would look, if this were the case, the death rates in Britain would look more like the flu, and less like the sort of 1.3% death rate that we're seeing in the United States or the 10% death rate that we are seeing in Italy.

00:15:24.000 In Italy, if the modeling is confirmed in follow-up studies, this is according to New York Magazine, that would mean fewer than 0.01% of those infected require hospital treatment, with a majority showing very minor symptoms or none at all.

00:15:34.000 According to this modeling, the coronavirus arrived in mid-January at the latest and spread undetected for over a month before the first cases were confirmed.

00:15:41.000 Based on a susceptibility-infected recovery model, a commonly used estimate in epidemiology, with data from case and death reports in the UK and Italy, the researchers determined that the initial herd immunity strategy of the UK government actually could have been sound.

00:15:54.000 Meaning they were saying, let everybody out, let everybody infect each other, then we have herd immunity.

00:15:58.000 I'm surprised there's been such unqualified acceptance of the imperial model, said lead researcher Sunetra Gupta, referring to an academic report predicting up to 250,000 people in Britain could be killed if the government maintained its plan to suppress the virus but not get rid of it completely.

00:16:10.000 As of Monday, 87 people in the UK had died from coronavirus out of a total of 90,436 tests, some 8,000 were positive.

00:16:19.000 The Oxford team is now working with researchers at the universities of Cambridge and Kent to begin antibody testing as soon as this week.

00:16:24.000 Once there's antibody testing, we're going to know whether a lot of people have had this and are already immune, which is going to be an enormous, enormous change to the data.

00:16:31.000 This will allow us to know exactly how dangerous this virus is because we are operating.

00:16:37.000 We're flying blind a little bit as to how dangerous the virus is based on people who go in for tests are the people most likely to have symptoms.

00:16:42.000 People most likely to have symptoms are the people most likely to go to the ICU.

00:16:45.000 People who go to the ICU are the people most likely to die.

00:16:47.000 So you have this very, very filtered system where the only people who are testing positive are the ones who are going in for the test.

00:16:54.000 But this is asymptomatic, so it's possible a huge percentage of people have this.

00:16:58.000 This is not the only article on this topic today, and this would be hopeful news.

00:17:01.000 What you want right now is lots of people to have already had this and not even known, right?

00:17:05.000 That is best case scenario.

00:17:06.000 Tons of people already have it, already walking around with it, are already immune, and we didn't even know about it.

00:17:11.000 That'd be best case scenario.

00:17:12.000 We're going to get to more Possible good news on coronavirus in just one second.

00:17:16.000 Because these economic problems, they're not going to be healed, right?

00:17:18.000 We can hold place.

00:17:19.000 We can tread water for the moment.

00:17:20.000 We can't do it forever, right?

00:17:22.000 We can't have the Fed floating negative interest rates forever without the dollar being completely undermined and people starting to lose faith in the full faith and credit of the United States.

00:17:30.000 There has to be an underlying economy for people to borrow on the back of.

00:17:33.000 Otherwise, you basically have governments just borrowing from each other.

00:17:36.000 And that right there is essentially a Ponzi scheme.

00:17:39.000 Okay, we're going to get to more of the possible good news in just one second.

00:17:43.000 Let us talk about the fact that if there's something wrong with your car, you probably want to order parts online instead of going into a store.

00:17:49.000 Right now, those stores are probably not even opening.

00:17:51.000 I mean, we got to be engaged in social distancing and be at home anyway.

00:17:54.000 So why exactly would you not order a part from rockauto.com?

00:17:57.000 You should do this even when you can go to a store, but certainly when you can, rockauto.com is your best case solution.

00:18:02.000 Rockauto.com has all the parts you're going to need, the specific part for your car.

00:18:06.000 They have the same prices for specialists and for members of the general public, and they make it really quick and really easy.

00:18:11.000 Also, their prices are fantastic.

00:18:13.000 The rockauto.com catalog is unique, remarkably easy to navigate.

00:18:17.000 They always offer the lowest prices possible, rather than changing prices based on what the market will bear.

00:18:22.000 For example, the Delphi FG 1456 fuel pump assembly for the 2005-2010 Honda Odyssey is $353.99.

00:18:25.000 to 2010 Honda Odyssey is $353.99.

00:18:29.000 At advance, it's only $216.79 at rockauto.com.

00:18:33.000 So you're going to get it cheaper, and you're going to get a better part than the sort of generic part that you might have to get off the shelf.

00:18:37.000 rockauto.com is a family business.

00:18:40.000 Definitely worth supporting in these times.

00:18:41.000 Go to RockAuto.com right now.

00:18:43.000 See all the parts available for your car or truck.

00:18:45.000 Write Shapiro in their How Did You Hear About Us box so they know that we sent you.

00:18:48.000 Go to RockAuto.com right now.

00:18:49.000 See all of those parts.

00:18:51.000 Write this very instant.

00:18:52.000 Okay, so, as I say, it's not just the Oxford study suggesting that there may be tons and tons and tons of people out there who have this thing and don't even know it.

00:18:59.000 There are two doctors, professors of medicine at Stanford.

00:19:03.000 One, his name is Aaron Ben-David, and another one is Jay Bhattacharya.

00:19:07.000 And they have a piece in the Wall Street Journal called, Is the Coronavirus as Deadly as They Say?

00:19:12.000 They say fear of COVID-19 is based on high estimated case fatality rate.

00:19:15.000 2% to 4% of people with confirmed COVID-19 have died, according to the WHO and others.

00:19:20.000 So, if 100 million Americans ultimately get the disease, 2 million to 4 million could die.

00:19:25.000 We believe that estimate is deeply flawed.

00:19:26.000 The true fatality rate is the portion of those infected who die, not the deaths, from identified positive cases, right?

00:19:32.000 This is what I've been saying right here.

00:19:35.000 The question is not how many people die over how many people have been tested positive.

00:19:39.000 The question is how many people die Over how many people have this thing period or have had it in the last couple of months.

00:19:46.000 The degree of bias is uncertain because available data are limited.

00:19:49.000 It could make the difference between an epidemic that kills 20,000 and one that kills 2 million people.

00:19:54.000 The number of actual infections is much larger than the number of cases, then the true fatality rate is much lower.

00:19:59.000 That's not only plausible, but likely, say these two professors of medicine at Stanford.

00:20:03.000 Population samples from China, Italy, Iceland, and the U.S.

00:20:05.000 provide relevant evidence.

00:20:07.000 On or around January 31st, countries sent planes to evacuate citizens from Wuhan, China.

00:20:11.000 When those planes landed, the passengers were tested for COVID-19 and quarantined.

00:20:14.000 After 14 days, the percentage who tested positive was 0.9%.

00:20:18.000 If this was the prevalence in the Greater Wuhan area on January 31st, then with a population of about 20 million, Greater Wuhan had 178,000 infections, about 30-fold more than the number of reported cases.

00:20:30.000 They're saying that the people who are flying, let's say that those people are representative of the general Wuhan population.

00:20:34.000 By the way, it is likely that that is actually under-representative of the generalized Wuhan population, because those are the people who can afford to leave the country and come back to other countries.

00:20:42.000 The fatality rate, according to these stats, would be 10-fold lower than the estimates based on reported cases.

00:20:48.000 Next, the northeastern Italian town of Vaux, near the provincial capital of Padua.

00:20:53.000 On March 6th, all 3,300 people in Vaux were tested.

00:20:56.000 90 were positive.

00:20:57.000 That's a prevalence of 2.7%.

00:20:59.000 If you apply that prevalence to the whole province, which has about a million people, which had 198 reported cases, that means there were actually 26,000 infections at the time.

00:21:07.000 That's more than 130-fold the number of actual reported cases.

00:21:11.000 Since Italy's case fatality rate of 8% is estimated using confirmed cases, the real fatality rate would not be 8%, it would be 0.06%, which is actually lower than the flu fatality rate.

00:21:21.000 The flu fatality rate is 0.1%.

00:21:23.000 In Iceland, Decode Genetics is working with the government to perform widespread testing, say these columnists for the Wall Street Journal and professors of medicine at Stanford.

00:21:29.000 In a sample of nearly 2,000 entirely asymptomatic people, researchers estimated disease prevalence of just over 1%.

00:21:36.000 Iceland's first case was reported on February 28th, weeks behind the U.S.

00:21:40.000 It's plausible that the proportion of the U.S.

00:21:41.000 population that has been infected is double, triple, even 10 times as high as the estimates from Iceland.

00:21:46.000 That also implies a dramatically lower fatality rate.

00:21:49.000 They say the best, albeit very weak evidence in the U.S. comes from the NBA.

00:21:52.000 Between March 11th and 19th, a substantial number of NBA players and teams received testing.

00:21:57.000 By March 19th, 10 out of 450 rostered players were positive.

00:22:01.000 Since not everyone was tested, that represents a lower bound on the prevalence of 2.2%, meaning 10 out of the 450 rostered players were positive.

00:22:10.000 We're positive, but it probably is a much larger number.

00:22:12.000 The NBA isn't a representative population.

00:22:14.000 Contact among players may have facilitated transmission, but we have to extend the lower bound assumption to cities with NBA teams like Memphis or something.

00:22:22.000 We get 990,000 infections in the United States.

00:22:24.000 The number of cases reported in the U.S.

00:22:27.000 was 13,677, 72-fold lower.

00:22:30.000 These numbers imply a fatality rate from COVID-19 orders of magnitude smaller than it appears.

00:22:35.000 So how can we reconcile these estimates with epidemiological models, say these columnists?

00:22:39.000 First, the test used to identify cases doesn't catch people who are infected and recovered, because it's not an antibody test.

00:22:45.000 Second, testing rates were woefully low for a long time and typically reserved for the severely ill.

00:22:49.000 Together, these facts imply that the confirmed cases are likely orders of magnitude less than the true number of infections.

00:22:55.000 Epidemiological modelers haven't adequately adapted their estimates to account for these factors at all.

00:23:01.000 They say the epidemic started in China sometime in November or December.

00:23:04.000 cases included a person who traveled from Wuhan January 15th.

00:23:04.000 The first confirmed U.S.

00:23:07.000 It's likely the virus was here before that because tens of thousands of people were traveling from Wuhan to the United States in December.

00:23:13.000 Existing evidence says that this thing is really, really transmissible.

00:23:16.000 An epidemic seed on January 1st implies that by March 9th, about 6 million people in the United States would have been infected.

00:23:23.000 As of March 23rd, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 499 COVID-19 deaths in the U.S.

00:23:29.000 If 6 million cases is accurate, that's a mortality rate of 0.01%, which is one-tenth the mortality rate of the flu.

00:23:37.000 This doesn't mean that COVID-19 is a non-issue.

00:23:39.000 It could be overwhelmed.

00:23:40.000 You could have 20,000 to 40,000 deaths.

00:23:42.000 But that sort of epidemic is far less severe problem than one that kills around 2 million.

00:23:46.000 It means higher infection rate, but also much lower death rate.

00:23:48.000 And you end up with numbers that actually do look like the American flu, according to these comments.

00:23:52.000 Now, again, the data here are insufficient.

00:23:55.000 We just don't know whether this is true or not.

00:23:58.000 But everyone, literally everyone is saying there are many more infected people than have been tested.

00:24:02.000 I mean, that is perfectly obvious.

00:24:03.000 There are many, many more infected people than have been tested.

00:24:06.000 The antibody tests are not ready.

00:24:07.000 So what that would suggest is that it's quite possible you've already had coronavirus and you got over it.

00:24:12.000 Or you had it and never knew you had it.

00:24:14.000 Or you had it, you didn't know you had it, and now you're fine.

00:24:17.000 Right?

00:24:17.000 In other words, the number of people who are dying or ending up in the ICU compared to the actual number, not the tested number, the actual number of people who have had coronavirus, is actually an extraordinarily low percentage.

00:24:28.000 That is a serious possibility.

00:24:29.000 So we're going to wait for more data on that.

00:24:31.000 As I say, I don't know.

00:24:32.000 The hardest three words to say in the English language.

00:24:35.000 You don't know.

00:24:35.000 I don't know.

00:24:36.000 Nobody knows.

00:24:37.000 And to pretend that we absolutely know the death rates is just, it's ridiculous because we don't.

00:24:42.000 Okay, we don't.

00:24:43.000 So for anybody who is out there saying this thing is significantly more deadly than the flu and we know it for certain, Okay, we know for certain that it's overwhelming the healthcare system in Italy.

00:24:52.000 We know it's overwhelming the healthcare system in Spain.

00:24:54.000 We know it's a risk to overwhelm the healthcare system in New York.

00:24:57.000 We do not know the actual death rate of this virus right now.

00:24:59.000 Now, it doesn't mean we shouldn't be panicked, or it doesn't mean we shouldn't be concerned at the very least.

00:25:04.000 It does mean that when all the information comes out, it's going to be fascinating to see what exactly the actual death and infection rates were of this particular disease.

00:25:13.000 Okay, we're gonna give you some more good news in just one second.

00:25:17.000 This isn't possible good news.

00:25:18.000 This is actual, actual good news.

00:25:19.000 We're gonna get to that in just one second.

00:25:21.000 First, let's talk about the fact that everybody needs life insurance.

00:25:25.000 It's just the responsible thing to do, no matter what your situation.

00:25:27.000 The fact is that there's one thing that is inevitable in life, and that is death.

00:25:30.000 And that is why you should be prepared for your family to be able to supplement their income in case, God forbid, something should happen to you.

00:25:35.000 And this is why you need to go over to Policy Genius right now.

00:25:38.000 Policy Genius makes finding the right life insurance a breeze.

00:25:40.000 In minutes, you can compare quotes from top insurers and find your best price.

00:25:44.000 You could save $1,500 or more every year by using PolicyGenius to compare life insurance policies.

00:25:50.000 Once you apply, the PolicyGenius team will handle all the paperwork and the red tape for free.

00:25:54.000 And PolicyGenius doesn't just make life insurance easy.

00:25:56.000 They can also help you find the right home, auto, disability insurance.

00:25:59.000 So, if you don't know what's just around the corner, that's okay.

00:26:02.000 Be prepared for anything with life insurance.

00:26:03.000 In just a few minutes, you can find your best price and apply at PolicyGenius.com.

00:26:08.000 PolicyGenius, because you never know what the future is going to hold, and that is why you should insure against it.

00:26:12.000 By the way, again, they do all sorts of insurance.

00:26:14.000 They do the auto insurance, the disability insurance, they can bundle home and auto.

00:26:17.000 They'll do it all for you quickly and easily and handle all the red tape and paperwork.

00:26:20.000 Policy genius.

00:26:21.000 Everybody gets the future wrong, better get life insurance, right?

00:26:23.000 Policygenius.com.

00:26:25.000 Okay, another piece of good news.

00:26:27.000 The Washington Post is reporting that the coronavirus is not mutating significantly as it circulates through the human population.

00:26:33.000 Very good news.

00:26:34.000 Heavy mutations in coronavirus would mean that a vaccine developed would not actually be supremely effective because it's moved on to a different strain.

00:26:41.000 Scientists who are closely studying the novel pathogen's genetic code say that this thing is not mutating significantly.

00:26:48.000 That relative stability suggests the virus is less likely to become more or less dangerous as it spreads and represents encouraging news for researchers hoping to create a long-lasting vaccine.

00:26:57.000 All viruses do evolve over time, but this thing seems to be a dumb virus in the sense it is not acquiring information all that fast.

00:27:03.000 The new coronavirus has proofreading machinery and that reduces the error rate and thus the pace of mutation.

00:27:09.000 It looks pretty much the same everywhere, and thus it is not adapting to local populations and becoming more and more deadly.

00:27:15.000 SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the disease COVID-19, is similar to coronaviruses that circulate naturally in bats.

00:27:21.000 It probably jumped through a pangolin, which people have been eating. 0.99

00:27:24.000 Don't eat the damned bats and pangolins. 1.00

00:27:26.000 That is not culturally insensitive, you idiots. 1.00

00:27:28.000 Just don't do it. 1.00

00:27:28.000 I don't care if you're white, green, or blue. 1.00

00:27:30.000 Do not eat the damned pangolins. 0.99

00:27:32.000 How many times do we have to do this? 1.00

00:27:33.000 My God.

00:27:34.000 Scientists are now studying more than a thousand different samples of the virus.

00:27:37.000 Peter Thielen, a molecular geneticist at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, who's been studying the virus, told the Washington Post, there are only about four to ten genetic differences between the strains that have infected people in the U.S.

00:27:47.000 and the original virus that spread in Wuhan.

00:27:49.000 So that is very good news.

00:27:50.000 And other piece of good news, the FDA is now accelerating a lot of the treatments that are becoming available to the general public, which is good.

00:27:57.000 I mean, there are a lot of people who literally need treatment, like right now, who are being treated with ventilators who are in grave condition and they need treatment right now.

00:28:05.000 The FDA has begun to allow doctors to treat some patients with the blood plasma of patients who have recovered from coronavirus-caused COVID-19 disease.

00:28:12.000 Their treatment must be approved on a case-by-case basis.

00:28:14.000 Patients have to meet certain conditions according to the FDA.

00:28:16.000 The treatment is considered investigational based on the possibility that convalescent plasma, a portion of whole blood from recovered victims, may contain antibodies to the virus that may be effective against the infections.

00:28:27.000 So if you have the same blood type and the person has recovered from coronavirus, you grab some of their blood, put it in your body.

00:28:32.000 Now their blood is carrying the antibodies to fight off the infection is the idea.

00:28:36.000 The agency stressed, convalescent plasma has not been shown to be effective in every disease studied.

00:28:40.000 The plan is for clinical studies of the procedure to begin.

00:28:42.000 One of the hard things about clinical studies in the midst of a pandemic is that clinical studies generally require a, a, a, compare a, a population, a control population, a population that is not going to get the treatment.

00:28:55.000 How many people are going to volunteer to be part of a study where they're the control population?

00:28:59.000 If you're in serious trouble, the last thing you want to be is part of the control population.

00:29:02.000 You want the treatment.

00:29:03.000 The agency said it's taking this unusual early step because of the rapidly rising numbers of coronavirus patients and deaths in the United States.

00:29:09.000 Blood plasma must be collected only from people who are eligible otherwise to give blood.

00:29:14.000 So, hopefully new treatments coming about.

00:29:16.000 Meanwhile, we're hearing more and more cases of prominent people with coronavirus.

00:29:19.000 There's a basketball player named Carl Anthony Towns.

00:29:21.000 His mom apparently is on a ventilator now.

00:29:24.000 And we know that there is a person who works for the New York Times who passed away yesterday of coronavirus.

00:29:29.000 There was also a famous Broadway playwright who passed away.

00:29:32.000 He was 81.

00:29:32.000 He was in poor condition already.

00:29:34.000 Prince Charles has tested positive for coronavirus.

00:29:38.000 He'd been experiencing mild symptoms for days.

00:29:40.000 Otherwise, he has remained in good health, according to a statement released by the Prince's official residence.

00:29:45.000 The Duchess of Cornwall has been tested but does not have the virus.

00:29:47.000 That would be referring to Prince Charles' wife.

00:29:49.000 Both are now self-isolating in their home in Scotland.

00:29:53.000 It's not clear exactly when he caught it or how he caught it, but prominent people are going to get this thing.

00:30:00.000 And most of these prominent people are recovering, right?

00:30:02.000 I mean, the vast majority, like Tom Hanks and his wife, recovered.

00:30:04.000 Prince Charles will likely recover.

00:30:07.000 That is some good news.

00:30:08.000 And again, that goes back to what are the actual death rates here versus sort of the assumptions we're making about tests done versus the number of people who actually die from that.

00:30:16.000 Now, meanwhile, this does not mean that you can't overwhelm the system.

00:30:19.000 Two things can be true at once.

00:30:20.000 One, the death rate is a lot lower than we think it is.

00:30:22.000 And two, there are so many cases that the system gets overwhelmed anyway.

00:30:25.000 Right?

00:30:25.000 If the death rate is the same as the flu, 0.1%, but you're getting five times as many people who are getting the disease, that means the system can easily be overwhelmed.

00:30:33.000 That's what you're seeing in Spain and Italy.

00:30:34.000 Spain has now surpassed China's death toll from the new coronavirus, according to the Wall Street Journal.

00:30:39.000 India has implemented the world's most extensive stay-at-home order Wednesday.

00:30:42.000 1.3 billion people locked down in India.

00:30:45.000 I don't even know how you're going to enforce that because so many people there are gravely impoverished.

00:30:48.000 How do they even get food?

00:30:49.000 Absolutely unclear.

00:30:50.000 Health officials in Spain reported 738 fatalities from COVID-19, the pneumonia-like illness caused by the virus, which is the steepest daily increase on a national death toll that has risen to 3,434, surpassing China's.

00:31:03.000 Italy is leading by leaps and bounds.

00:31:05.000 They've got almost 7,000 reported deaths in Italy.

00:31:08.000 And again, they have very high mortality rate from identified cases.

00:31:11.000 And as I keep repeating over, I'm gonna keep repeating it because it makes a difference to you as an individual.

00:31:17.000 Your chances of life after acquiring coronavirus by pretty much all available data are a lot better than the percentages you're seeing in the press, simply because the only percentages available based on available data are the ones based on testing, and testing is not sufficient at this point.

00:31:29.000 Here in the United States, we currently stand at 802 confirmed deaths from coronavirus out of 55,243 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the United States.

00:31:39.000 Meanwhile, in New York, there's been a lot of concern about an astronomical surge.

00:31:45.000 The White House is expressing growing alarm about the coronavirus outbreak in New York City, advising people who have passed through or left the city to place themselves in 14-day quarantine.

00:31:54.000 Dr. Deborah Birx pointed this out.

00:31:56.000 She says, and so did Anthony Fauci, they said anyone who leaves New York should be self-quarantined for 14 days at this point.

00:32:03.000 You got to treat New York like it's basically an epicenter of the disease.

00:32:06.000 Here are Drs.

00:32:07.000 Birx and Fauci talking about self-quarantining.

00:32:10.000 To everyone who has left New York over the last few days, because of the rate of the number of cases, you may have been exposed before you left New York.

00:32:23.000 And I think, like Governor DeSantos has put out today, everybody who was in New York should be self-quarantining for the next 14 days to ensure that the virus doesn't spread to others, no matter where they have gone, whether it's Florida, North Carolina, Okay, so obviously New York City has trouble.

00:32:46.000 We are starting to see... I mean, New York, again, by the numbers, is indeed an epicenter of this virus.

00:32:52.000 If New York were a country, I believe it'd be number five on the list of places in which deaths have occurred thanks to coronavirus at this point.

00:33:00.000 With that said, obviously Andrew Cuomo is livid about this.

00:33:05.000 He says, we haven't flattened the curve.

00:33:06.000 Everybody keeps going out.

00:33:07.000 We got to stop this thing.

00:33:08.000 Here is the governor of New York.

00:33:10.000 Flatten the curve, flatten the curve.

00:33:13.000 We haven't flattened the curve and the curve is actually increasing.

00:33:19.000 That means the number of hospital beds, which is at 53,000 beds, 3,000 ICU beds.

00:33:23.000 53,000 beds, 3,000 ICU beds.

00:33:26.000 The anticipated need now for the height of the curve is 140,000 hospital beds and approximately 40,000 intensive care unit beds.

00:33:38.000 I am.

00:33:40.000 Cuomo also says, you know, when the federal government says they're sending us 400 ventilators, and that's true.

00:33:45.000 Apparently they're sending more than that, but 400 ventilators is what Mike Pence has said.

00:33:48.000 He says we need 30,000 ventilators here.

00:33:50.000 Here's Cuomo complaining about the lack of ventilators being provided by the federal government.

00:33:54.000 FEMA is sending us 400 ventilators.

00:33:58.000 These are on the news this morning.

00:34:01.000 We are sending 400 ventilators to New York.

00:34:04.000 400 ventilators?

00:34:05.000 I need 30,000 ventilators.

00:34:09.000 You want a pat on the back for sending 400 ventilators?

00:34:13.000 What are we going to do with 400 ventilators when we need 30,000 ventilators?

00:34:19.000 You're missing the magnitude of the problem, and the problem is defined by the magnitude.

00:34:27.000 Okay, I just have one question.

00:34:28.000 So the media have been treating Cuomo as though his leadership has been absolutely stellar in New York.

00:34:34.000 I'm just wondering what exactly the leadership has constituted that is vastly different from, say, Gavin Newsom in California.

00:34:39.000 The only difference is that Gavin Newsom hasn't been widely complaining about President Trump over and over and over.

00:34:43.000 The New York Times has an article that says how Cuomo, once on the sidelines, became the politician of the moment.

00:34:49.000 With his coronavirus briefings, Governor Andrew Cuomo has emerged as an authoritative voice in the crisis.

00:34:54.000 Why?

00:34:54.000 I have a question.

00:34:55.000 Like, really, serious question.

00:34:57.000 Why?

00:34:58.000 Like, his pressers are informative.

00:35:00.000 I don't know that they're any more informative than the White House's pressers.

00:35:03.000 All it seems to me is that the media are very happy that Cuomo keeps yelling at the White House.

00:35:08.000 But I'm just wondering, like, he's the governor of a state.

00:35:10.000 Does he think that President Trump just snaps his fingers and then the ventilators magically appear?

00:35:14.000 It's a source of grave irritation to me when members of the media suggest that if only we just did what Cuomo said, if we just nationalized the factories, that overnight Ford, which produces cars, would start producing hundreds of thousands of ventilators.

00:35:29.000 If only that magic man, Andrew Cuomo, were in control of the government and used the power of the federal government.

00:35:34.000 Ventilators would magically begin appearing pop out of nowhere using the Star Trek replicator in New York City hospitals.

00:35:41.000 That's not the way any of this works.

00:35:43.000 And the fact that Cuomo is shouting about this and asking for more things and that Trump is giving them as they come in.

00:35:48.000 I mean, this is why you see even Cuomo will basically say this, right?

00:35:51.000 He on the one hand, he'll say, what are they bragging about 400 ventilators?

00:35:54.000 We need more.

00:35:55.000 And then he'll be like, and yes, they also give us everything we need.

00:35:57.000 They're literally video of him talking about like, whenever we talk with the feds, they basically give us what we ask for so far as they are capable of doing.

00:36:04.000 So my question is, why exactly is Cuomo being hailed as the quote-unquote politician of the moment?

00:36:10.000 Like, why?

00:36:13.000 According to the New York Times, the governor repeatedly assailed the federal response as slow, inefficient, and inadequate, far more aggressively than he had before.

00:36:19.000 Cuomo was once considered a bit player on the national stage, an abrasive presence who made his share of enemies among his Democratic Party peers.

00:36:25.000 But now, he is emerging as the party's most prominent voice in a time of crisis.

00:36:29.000 His briefings, articulate, consistent, often tinged with empathy, have become must-see television.

00:36:35.000 So basically, you like how he is on TV, and thus he is an authoritative voice, and thus he is a great leader. 0.98

00:36:41.000 I'm unaware of how his leadership has radically changed things in New York any differently, again, than Gavin Newsom, my idiot governor here in California, has radically changed things. 0.97

00:36:50.000 Because he hasn't. 0.97

00:36:51.000 I'm sorry, he has not.

00:36:53.000 And he is saying things and he is doing what any normal governor would do under the circumstances, which is you try to get the resources to your state.

00:37:00.000 But complaining about President Trump is not a strategy, nor is it something that fixes things.

00:37:05.000 It is not.

00:37:06.000 And I guess there's this bizarre notion in the media that Trump has like a bunch of ventilators stored in the back room of the White House.

00:37:11.000 And Trump is saying to Cuomo, well, if you're just nice to me, I'll release the ventilators.

00:37:15.000 And Cuomo's like, I'm not going to be nice to you.

00:37:16.000 I'm not going to do that.

00:37:17.000 I mean, no, that's not what's going on here, guys.

00:37:20.000 We're trying to marshal the resources.

00:37:21.000 And Cuomo yelling about it ain't going to change anything.

00:37:24.000 Meanwhile, in New York, some New York City doctors are saying we're already at the breaking point in terms of the number of ICU beds available, in terms of the number of ventilators available.

00:37:32.000 It is certainly true.

00:37:33.000 I asked my doctor wife this yesterday.

00:37:35.000 It is certainly true that if Hospitals around the country were prepared for a pandemic.

00:37:42.000 They would have had a lot more ventilators on hand, but nobody had ever really thought that a pandemic like this was going to come.

00:37:47.000 I mean, it is a sort of black swan event.

00:37:49.000 Here's a New York City doctor explaining we're already at the breaking point in New York City.

00:37:52.000 The reality is that what we're seeing right now in our emergency rooms is dire.

00:37:56.000 Last week when I went to work, we talked about the one or two patients amongst the dozens of others that might have been a COVID, a coronavirus patient.

00:38:03.000 This week in my shift yesterday, nearly every single patient that I took care of was coronavirus and many of them extremely severe.

00:38:10.000 Many were put on breathing tubes, many decompensated quite quickly.

00:38:15.000 There is a very different air this week than there was last week and Quite honestly, you know, think about the fact that our first New York City case was on March 1st.

00:38:25.000 That's just over three weeks ago.

00:38:26.000 To think that we'll be in any place to lift these restrictionary measures by Easter in just, you know, in two or three weeks, for me, seems completely magical thinking.

00:38:39.000 Okay, so there obviously is a lot of alarm in New York City.

00:38:41.000 There should be a lot of alarm in New York City.

00:38:44.000 And again, I don't know how that, like, makes Cuomo a great leader or anything, but everybody's doing their best.

00:38:48.000 Look, we're all muddling through, and that's basically the theme here.

00:38:51.000 Now, President Trump, for his part, he is saying, listen, at a certain point here, we're going to have to think about how we open up the economy again, because we cannot do this interminably.

00:38:58.000 And people were getting very angry at Trump yesterday about this.

00:39:01.000 How could Trump say this sort of stuff?

00:39:02.000 How could Trump talk about reopening the economy when we haven't even reached the peak yet?

00:39:06.000 And the answer is, you have to talk about it before we reach the peak.

00:39:08.000 We have to have some metric of how we go back to work.

00:39:12.000 That metric has to be established.

00:39:13.000 Now, that does not mean, I've been saying this for a long time, that does not mean a date's certain.

00:39:16.000 It doesn't mean you say, we're all going back to work May 1st.

00:39:19.000 We don't have the data for that yet.

00:39:20.000 What we do need is a formula from the federal government for exactly what boxes need to be checked so that we can start going back to work.

00:39:29.000 We're gonna get to this in just one second.

00:39:31.000 You know, the strategy of how we go back to work and how we make all of this happen.

00:39:35.000 But first, if you haven't had a chance to see some of our new content, we have a new thing.

00:39:38.000 It's called All Access Live.

00:39:40.000 You should head on over to dailywire.com and check it out.

00:39:42.000 Jeremy, Boring, and I kicked it off last week.

00:39:44.000 All the other hosts have done live streams over at dailywire.com.

00:39:46.000 I did one on Monday.

00:39:47.000 It was great fun.

00:39:48.000 I literally sat here in a short-sleeved shirt.

00:39:50.000 I know they exist.

00:39:51.000 I wear them.

00:39:53.000 And played some music for y'all, y'all.

00:39:55.000 And we all hung out together, took some questions.

00:39:57.000 It was a lot of fun.

00:39:58.000 All Access Live is a lot more laid back than our Normal programming.

00:40:00.000 It's less focused on bringing you news and information.

00:40:02.000 We're not just hanging out with you at the end of a long day and hanging out together since we are all locked up in our homes at this point.

00:40:08.000 I think it's coming from a positive, heartfelt place, and I think everybody is enjoying it a lot.

00:40:11.000 The show is intended for all AXS members in the long term, but right now, during the national emergency and this time of sort of social isolation, we've opened it up to all of our members, and in doing so, we've accelerated the launch, so please let us know what you think of it.

00:40:23.000 If you're around at 8 p.m.

00:40:24.000 Eastern, 5 p.m.

00:40:24.000 Pacific tonight, Join us on All Access Live over at dailywire.com.

00:40:28.000 Do you know who's hosting it tonight?

00:40:29.000 It was Knowles last night.

00:40:30.000 So I assume that it's, I guess Matt Walsh is doing an All Access Live tonight.

00:40:33.000 So you can hang out with Matt and get your morose and depressing answers from Matt Walsh, as well as religiously strict answers from Matt Walsh tonight over at dailywire.com.

00:40:44.000 It really is a party, at least as much of a party as it can be in the midst of a global pandemic.

00:40:44.000 You should join us.

00:40:48.000 Come hang out with us over at dailywire.com.

00:40:50.000 We are the largest, fastest-growing conservative podcast and radio show in the nation.

00:40:53.000 Okay, so President Trump yesterday was getting himself in supposed hot water for suggesting that we have to reopen the economy at some point now. 0.97

00:41:09.000 Now listen, President Trump uses his Twitter in, I just repeat, very, very dumb ways.

00:41:18.000 The president today tweeted this out about Mitt Romney. 0.96

00:41:19.000 Mitt Romney tested negative for coronavirus and Trump tweeted out, This is really great news.

00:41:24.000 I'm so happy I can barely speak.

00:41:25.000 He may have been a terrible presidential candidate and an even worse U.S.

00:41:28.000 Senator, but he is a rhino and I like him a lot. 0.99

00:41:32.000 Really?

00:41:33.000 Really?

00:41:35.000 Presidential leadership right there.

00:41:37.000 Solid stuff.

00:41:38.000 Shut down the Twitter!

00:41:38.000 Shut it down!

00:41:39.000 Okay?

00:41:40.000 It's not helpful.

00:41:41.000 It's just not helpful at all.

00:41:43.000 But, with that said, did President Trump do anything wrong when he suggested that he wants us to go back to work?

00:41:50.000 That he would like to see an end to this thing?

00:41:53.000 No.

00:41:54.000 I mean, I think that that makes perfect sense.

00:41:56.000 President Trump said yesterday that shutting everything down is one of the most difficult decisions he's ever made.

00:42:00.000 Well, it should be.

00:42:01.000 It's the most consequential economic decision in the history of mankind.

00:42:04.000 So I would assume it's one of the most difficult decisions he's ever made.

00:42:07.000 Here's President Trump yesterday.

00:42:10.000 A few people walk into the Oval Office and say, sir, we have to close up the country.

00:42:14.000 I said, what are you talking about?

00:42:16.000 And that, Mr. President, Must have been a very difficult thing to accept.

00:42:22.000 One of the most difficult decisions I've ever made because I knew that when you do it, as soon as you do it, you're going to drop.

00:42:31.000 I mean, they're talking about 20 or 25 points of GDP.

00:42:34.000 Nobody's ever heard of 25 points.

00:42:36.000 If we went down a point, that's a big deal.

00:42:38.000 Now, all of a sudden, you're basically turning off the country.

00:42:43.000 I said, this has never been done before.

00:42:44.000 What are you talking about?

00:42:47.000 Okay, and then President Trump says that he would love to be ready to go by Easter.

00:42:50.000 And this was the one that got everybody crazy, is that he said, by Easter, I would love to see us back out and working.

00:42:55.000 That'd be by April 12th.

00:42:56.000 Now, some people were saying, he's saying a date's certain.

00:42:59.000 It's a date.

00:42:59.000 Listen, do I think it's smart for the president to actually put a date on the calendar?

00:43:02.000 I don't think it's actually smart for the president to do that because either we hit the date or we don't hit the date.

00:43:07.000 If we don't hit the date, then the suggestion is going to be that Trump blew it.

00:43:09.000 And if we do hit the date, then the suggestion is going to be that Trump accelerated beyond what the evidence showed.

00:43:14.000 You know, saying that this is a matter of weeks, not months, which he said on Monday, I thought I was all in favor of that.

00:43:18.000 Him saying weeks, not months, I think is good.

00:43:19.000 Him saying a date certain or at least suggesting even a date really isn't a date certain.

00:43:23.000 But suggesting a date, I think, sets up an unrealistic expectation.

00:43:26.000 But here is President Trump saying he'd love to be ready to go by Easter.

00:43:29.000 I'd love to have it open by Easter.

00:43:33.000 OK, I would love to have it open by Easter.

00:43:36.000 I will tell you that right now.

00:43:38.000 I would love to have that.

00:43:40.000 It's such an important day for other reasons, but I'll make it an important day for this too.

00:43:44.000 I would love to have the country opened up and just raring to go by Easter.

00:43:52.000 Okay, he was getting all sorts of flack for this.

00:43:55.000 And he was asked specifically about, you know, whether this is realistic or not.

00:43:58.000 And it was more about, like, what he feels, because President Trump just says things.

00:44:03.000 But when he says that we could lose more people to a recession than to coronavirus and people lose their minds about this, he says we could see mass suicides, we could see...

00:44:10.000 Renewed opioid epidemic.

00:44:13.000 There is, you know, some evidence to show that depressed economic circumstances do lead to poorer life outcomes.

00:44:18.000 So when President Trump says we'll lose more people to the recession than to coronavirus, we don't know.

00:44:22.000 Well, honestly, we don't.

00:44:24.000 But to pretend that there are not real life consequences to the greatest economic downturn in the history of mankind would be obviously foolhardy.

00:44:30.000 Here is Trump saying, obviously, we're going to need to come up with a solution here.

00:44:33.000 We'll lose.

00:44:34.000 Otherwise, we're going to lose a lot of people, on the other hand, to a failing economy.

00:44:39.000 You're going to lose a number of people to the flu.

00:44:41.000 But you're going to lose more people by putting a country into a massive recession or depression.

00:44:49.000 You're going to lose people.

00:44:50.000 You're going to have suicides by the thousands.

00:44:54.000 You're going to have all sorts of things happen.

00:44:56.000 You're going to have instability.

00:44:57.000 You can't just come in and say, let's close up the United States of America, the biggest, the most successful country in the world by far.

00:45:06.000 Okay, so these are serious concerns.

00:45:08.000 Dr. Anthony Fauci was asked about this, and he said, like, what's the evidence for Easter?

00:45:12.000 And Fauci gave the right answer, which is, we don't have evidence for Easter, he's just being aspirational, which is obviously true, right?

00:45:17.000 Trump is just saying, I'd love to have it open by Easter, but Trump says a lot of stuff.

00:45:20.000 Here's Dr. Anthony Fauci sort of softening the blow a little bit.

00:45:24.000 It's a back and forth.

00:45:25.000 The president clearly listens.

00:45:27.000 I mean, he has this aspirational goal of hoping that we might be able to do it by a certain date.

00:45:34.000 We talked to him about that.

00:45:35.000 We say we need to be flexible.

00:45:37.000 He realizes that and he accepts that.

00:45:39.000 I mean, he doesn't want to give up his aspirational goal, but he's flexible enough to say, OK, let's look at it on a day by day basis.

00:45:48.000 We say and we will give him data to inform the decision.

00:45:55.000 By the way, what Fauci is saying right there gives the lie to the entire Democratic line, which is that Trump's leadership is terrible and that he is unsafe.

00:46:03.000 Joe Biden has been pitching that, right?

00:46:04.000 Joe Biden, who can't string a sentence together at this point.

00:46:07.000 Joe Biden, yesterday, he was on TV saying that Trump should start listening to the experts and stop talking.

00:46:12.000 There is Fauci literally saying he's listening to us, and he is trying to give hope to the American people.

00:46:17.000 And here is Joe Biden saying he should listen to the experts at peanut butter.

00:46:23.000 He should stop talking and start listening to the medical experts.

00:46:26.000 You talk about having an economic crisis.

00:46:29.000 You run an economic crisis.

00:46:30.000 Watch this spike.

00:46:31.000 Watch the number of dead go up.

00:46:33.000 Watch the number of people who, in fact, connect with this virus.

00:46:36.000 When are you going to be able to open the economy?

00:46:38.000 Look, we all want the economy to open as rapidly as possible.

00:46:41.000 The way to do that is let's take care of the medical side of this immediately.

00:46:46.000 One of the things, he's not responsible for the coronavirus, but he's responsible for the delay in taking the actions that need to be taken as far back as January.

00:46:56.000 Okay, well, here's the bottom line.

00:46:57.000 He's dealing with all that, and we should try and set up a formula.

00:47:00.000 Now, the next responsibility of the government, obviously, is to set up that formula.

00:47:04.000 How many beds do we need?

00:47:05.000 How many ventilators?

00:47:06.000 We're only going to know that once we have better data via testing.

00:47:09.000 When are those tests going to be available?

00:47:11.000 According to Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former FDA commissioner, we should have 75,000 tests a day ready to go by the end of next week, which is going to make a rather large difference in terms of our data.

00:47:20.000 By the way, when you talk about expertise, Joe Biden, You should at least know where to cough.

00:47:26.000 And when you're corrected about where to cough, you should take it seriously.

00:47:28.000 Joe Biden was on with Jake Tapper yesterday, and he coughed into his hand, and Jake Tapper had to correct him on the proper coughing technique.

00:47:36.000 I've not talked to any individual.

00:47:38.000 Excuse me.

00:47:39.000 You know, you're supposed to cough into your elbow.

00:47:41.000 I don't know, sir.

00:47:42.000 I learned that actually covering your White House.

00:47:45.000 No, actually that's true, but fortunately I'm alone in my home, but that's okay.

00:47:50.000 I agree.

00:47:51.000 You're right.

00:47:52.000 It's kind of old school to do it with your hand.

00:47:54.000 Do it into your elbow.

00:47:54.000 You're supposed to do it.

00:47:56.000 Okay, there he is listening to the experts, Joe Biden.

00:47:59.000 Okay, meanwhile, right now, what we are finding is that the, so the expectation at the beginning of the day is that the House was simply going to pass this thing, right?

00:48:07.000 The House was going to pass this bipartisan bill that was negotiated by the Democrats.

00:48:12.000 It was.

00:48:13.000 Chuck Schumer was the lead negotiator on it over the weekend.

00:48:16.000 Nancy Pelosi ain't gonna vote on it today. 0.99

00:48:18.000 She's going to hold it up another day. 0.99

00:48:20.000 Brilliant negotiation strategy from Nancy Pelosi.

00:48:23.000 We're in the middle of a global pandemic and an economic meltdown in which literally millions of people are going to lose their job.

00:48:29.000 And Nancy Pelosi is holding this thing up again today. 1.00

00:48:31.000 That is the latest news.

00:48:33.000 Seriously.

00:48:33.000 I mean, I don't know what she thinks her strategy here is.

00:48:37.000 Also, apparently Andrew Cuomo was ripping into the Senate bill.

00:48:41.000 He said it was a drop in the bucket compared to the need.

00:48:44.000 And he's ripping Schumer by implication.

00:48:47.000 The House will not pass the coronavirus bill today, according to Chad Pergram, who is reporting over at Fox News.

00:48:53.000 Already gaveled in, gaveled out of pro forma session.

00:48:57.000 Senior sources say House will not meet again later today.

00:49:00.000 Acting with all the alacrity necessary in the midst of a global pandemic.

00:49:04.000 I mean, it's just unbelievable.

00:49:05.000 Playing politics at this point?

00:49:06.000 Playing politics?

00:49:08.000 Just insane.

00:49:09.000 Insane.

00:49:10.000 So, something will pass in the next couple of days, but everybody should keep in mind, you know, when we go through the list of errors that happen in the midst of all of this, the list of political failures that happen in the midst of all this, yes, The Trump administration is going to come in for some criticism over lack of testing and ventilator production early on.

00:49:26.000 By the way, if Trump had said, we need a global lockdown in January, Democrats would have said that he's an actual dictator.

00:49:30.000 So let's just keep that in mind, right?

00:49:32.000 The counterfactual where Trump says, we need to ramp up production and we need to shut everything down, go home for two weeks.

00:49:37.000 Does anyone really think that in the beginning of February, when all the media were proclaiming that this was not actually that grave of a threat, including the folks over at Vox.com, do you think anybody would have gone along with that?

00:49:46.000 With that said, that was a failure.

00:49:48.000 Now, we are experiencing the failure that attends to a Democratic Party that is much more driven by pleasing its radical base On environmental issues than on saving the economy.

00:49:57.000 Okay, time for a thing that I like and then we'll do a quick thing that I hate.

00:50:01.000 So, things that I like.

00:50:03.000 As you all know, we're really grateful for our sponsors here over at dailywire.com.

00:50:07.000 One of our chief sponsors is Birchgold.

00:50:08.000 If ever there has been a time to think about diversifying into gold, now might be the time.

00:50:12.000 Goldman Sachs is actually encouraging people to diversify into gold.

00:50:15.000 I had a chance to sit down late last week with a spokesperson for Birchgold and here is what that sounded like.

00:50:22.000 Folks, today for Things I Like, one of the things that I like are our sponsors here at the Ben Shapiro Show.

00:50:26.000 Obviously, in chaotic times, we rely a lot on our sponsors, and we ask that you patronize our sponsors.

00:50:31.000 But the folks over at Birchgold Group are some of the most trustworthy people I know, and they are very trustworthy, obviously, when it comes to diversification and putting some of your money into precious metals.

00:50:39.000 Joining us on the line is Philip Patrick, precious metals specialist for Birchgold Group.

00:50:43.000 Phil, thanks so much for joining the show.

00:50:44.000 Really appreciate it.

00:50:46.000 Thank you for having me, Ben.

00:50:47.000 Thank you.

00:50:48.000 So let's start off with a quick market analysis.

00:50:50.000 Obviously, the coronavirus has absolutely tanked the market.

00:50:52.000 That's not a shock.

00:50:53.000 It's an exogenous shock to the market.

00:50:55.000 Plus, the governments around the world are basically shutting down nearly every business.

00:50:59.000 People are being told to stay home.

00:51:01.000 But are there underlying market fundamentals that we should have been concerned about even before this with regard to the economy?

00:51:08.000 The answer is yes and you and I have discussed this I think in the past but you know that the issues that we have today in the markets I think certainly predate the coronavirus.

00:51:18.000 We've been at the longest bull run in market history and we've been there for really the last 10 months or so.

00:51:25.000 So I think Timing for a while now has suggested corrections on the cards.

00:51:31.000 The bubble really, I would say, has been fueled over the last 11 years really by policy, right?

00:51:37.000 Low interest rates, pumping money through the markets, through quantitative easing, corporate buybacks at the highest levels in history.

00:51:47.000 What I will say about the coronavirus is, look, if you'd asked me at the beginning of the year when I felt the markets would correct, my feeling was later in the year, right?

00:51:57.000 Third or fourth quarter.

00:51:59.000 What I think it's done is acted as a black swan, if you will, this unforeseen event and essentially become a catalyst.

00:52:06.000 I think it's pulled the timeframes forward and I think ultimately exacerbated the issue.

00:52:12.000 And for me, this is really, really important.

00:52:16.000 I think what's happened is we've turned from a financial crisis to an economic crisis.

00:52:22.000 2008 was clearly a financial crisis, right?

00:52:24.000 And what happened?

00:52:25.000 The government stimulated, right?

00:52:27.000 Pumped money through the markets, dropped interest rates, and it ultimately pulled us out.

00:52:32.000 We've tried that today.

00:52:33.000 I mean, the Fed just pumped a ton of money through the markets.

00:52:36.000 Biggest rate cut since 2008.

00:52:38.000 It had no effect.

00:52:40.000 The market kept spiraling down.

00:52:42.000 This has really become an economic crisis, and I think it's fairly obvious, right?

00:52:46.000 You left your house in 2008.

00:52:49.000 People were spending.

00:52:50.000 They were in bars and coffee shops and restaurants.

00:52:52.000 Today it's a ghost town here in the United States and globally.

00:52:56.000 That significantly exacerbates the issue, right?

00:53:00.000 Millions of jobs are at risk.

00:53:01.000 People not spending.

00:53:03.000 It creates a major, major issue.

00:53:05.000 We're sitting with Phil Patrick.

00:53:06.000 Title is Precious Metals Specialist for Birch Gold Group.

00:53:09.000 So, Phil, where do you think stocks go from here?

00:53:11.000 There's sort of a consensus that the bottom has not been found yet.

00:53:14.000 Although, who the hell knows?

00:53:15.000 Because I thought the bottom was at 23,000.

00:53:18.000 Now it's been dropping below 20,000.

00:53:19.000 It's bouncing around 1,500, 2,000 points a day.

00:53:23.000 It's really difficult to tell where the bottom of the market is and to tell people to buy stock in a volatile market is always a difficult thing.

00:53:29.000 So, where do you think the stock market is going?

00:53:32.000 Yeah, I mean, you hit the nail on the head.

00:53:34.000 It's very, very difficult to predict because, quite frankly, we haven't been in this territory at least for a hundred years, I would say.

00:53:41.000 So, it's tough to predict.

00:53:44.000 What I can say is just looking at things, this could potentially be the tip of the iceberg.

00:53:49.000 We look at the 2008 crash, right?

00:53:51.000 Back then, at its high point, the Dow dropped 50%.

00:53:55.000 We're down today roughly from the highs about 30%.

00:54:00.000 So what that tells me is this matches what we saw back in 2008.

00:54:04.000 There's potentially another 20% downside.

00:54:07.000 My concern, however, is this could be, and we sort of addressed this a moment ago, but it could be much, much worse than 2008.

00:54:15.000 And something I look at, and I think I've mentioned before on the show, is cyclically adjusted PE ratios, price-to-earnings ratios.

00:54:24.000 Even with the downside that we've seen, the cyclically adjusted price-to-earning ratio is roughly about 23 today.

00:54:32.000 The historical average sits at about 16.

00:54:35.000 What that means is if we just go to an average multiple in the markets, it puts us down 31% from where we are today, and that's just an average.

00:54:45.000 In theory, depending on how bad this gets, how long it takes us to get out of this, it could be much, much worse.

00:54:51.000 And to reiterate a point, What tools do we have available?

00:54:56.000 We've shot our bullets and they're not working.

00:54:58.000 We don't have the same tools to pull us out like we did back in 08.

00:55:02.000 Will this be a three to five year recovery like we saw back in 08?

00:55:06.000 Or will it be a 25 year recovery like we saw during the Great Depression?

00:55:10.000 The answer is nobody knows, but it doesn't look good.

00:55:14.000 So, Phil, where do you see gold prices going from here?

00:55:16.000 Conversely, obviously, as the market sinks, a lot of people have been looking for safe haven in gold.

00:55:20.000 Where do you see the gold price going?

00:55:22.000 Look, um...

00:55:24.000 Right now, I think pricing is still relatively low, right?

00:55:28.000 Everyone looks shorter term, but I think you've got to pull it back.

00:55:31.000 Gold today in the $1,400 range.

00:55:34.000 Back in 2011, so after the OA crash, gold and silver went on a bull run and they hit their peaks in 2011.

00:55:41.000 Gold back then was trading close to, it was in the high, mid to high $1,900 range.

00:55:44.000 We're at $1,400 today, or in the $1,400 range.

00:55:46.000 We're at $1,400 today or in the $1,400 range.

00:55:49.000 Silver today in the $12 range, it was $48 back then.

00:55:53.000 The point being, we're significantly down from our all-time highs.

00:55:57.000 There's a lot of value there.

00:56:01.000 Citigroup are one that have predicted gold could hit $2,000 an ounce as soon as the next 12 months.

00:56:08.000 It feels like we're heading towards that.

00:56:10.000 I think we've got a long way to go from here.

00:56:12.000 So with all of the chaos, what exactly have been the last two weeks at Birch Gold Group?

00:56:17.000 I have to imagine that it's been rather chaotic.

00:56:20.000 Yeah, that's the perfect word. 0.99

00:56:22.000 Chaotic, to say the least.

00:56:23.000 Look, as a company, given the climate, we've had our best month on record and we're already there and we're not even at the end of the month.

00:56:32.000 Just from an individual standpoint, it's absolutely crazy.

00:56:36.000 The ones I feel sorry for are the processors in our IRA department.

00:56:41.000 They're non-stop, And actually, we're hitting the other end.

00:56:44.000 Fidelity, Charles Schwab, the companies that we're helping to roll funds over from, their hold times are an hour and a half right now.

00:56:51.000 So I think a lot of people are sort of – I think it's craziness all over.

00:56:55.000 It's not just us.

00:56:56.000 The big institutions are getting hit.

00:56:57.000 People are trying to pull their money out.

00:57:00.000 It's rough, but I can't complain.

00:57:03.000 Well, we really appreciate your time.

00:57:05.000 Philip Patrick, Birch Gold Group.

00:57:07.000 He's a precious metals specialist.

00:57:08.000 As you know, Birch Gold is a sponsor of the program.

00:57:11.000 Make no bones about that.

00:57:12.000 They're the people I would trust with precious metals investing.

00:57:14.000 I'm not somebody who says liquidate all of your stock holdings, but if you've got money lying around, you're looking to invest, you would want to diversify, it would have been good to do so, you know, a couple of months ago.

00:57:21.000 Text Ben to 474747 today.

00:57:24.000 See how simple and straightforward these moves can be before you get all of your questions answered.

00:57:28.000 Phil, thanks so much for your time.

00:57:30.000 Thank you for having me.

00:57:30.000 Thanks, Ben.

00:57:33.000 All righty.

00:57:33.000 So we have run out of time on today's show, but we'll be back here a little bit later today with two additional hours of content, including apparently the L.A.

00:57:40.000 Sheriff has ordered gun stores closed as non-essential businesses while they're releasing people from jail.

00:57:45.000 So good news happening out there.

00:57:47.000 Great governance happening across the country.

00:57:49.000 We'll bring you all of the updates a little bit later today with two additional hours of content.

00:57:52.000 If not, then we'll see you here tomorrow.

00:57:53.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:57:54.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:57:59.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Colton Haas.

00:58:02.000 Directed by Mike Joyner.

00:58:03.000 Executive producer Jeremy Boring.

00:58:05.000 Supervising producer Mathis Glover and Robert Sterling.

00:58:07.000 Assistant director Pavel Lydowsky.

00:58:09.000 Technical producer Austin Stevens.

00:58:11.000 Playback and media operated by Nick Sheehan.

00:58:13.000 Associate producer Katie Swinnerton.

00:58:15.000 Edited by Adam Sajovic.

00:58:17.000 Audio is mixed by Mike Koromina.

00:58:18.000 Hair and makeup is by Nika Geneva.

00:58:20.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire production.

00:58:22.000 Copyright Daily Wire 2020.

00:58:25.000 The market jumps 2,000 points.

00:58:27.000 Scientific studies show coronavirus hope on the horizon.

00:58:30.000 A new drug is helping patients.

00:58:31.000 And President Trump is calling for America to reopen by Easter Sunday.

00:58:35.000 We will examine all the excellent news after weeks of apocalyptic headlines.

00:58:40.000 Then the Trump administration announces the largest stimulus package in American history.

00:58:45.000 Bernie refuses to drop out of the race.

00:58:47.000 And Sleepy Joe somehow manages to deteriorate even further on national television.

The Ben Shapiro Show - March 25, 2020

The Season Of Miracles? | Ep. 979

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript