The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 519 - The Catch-22 Of COVID-19

00:00:00.000 Five days after President Trump said he hopes the country will reopen again by Easter,

00:00:04.980 the president changed course and announced an extension of federal lockdown guidelines

00:00:09.960 through the end of April, at least. We will examine the catch-22 of COVID-19.

00:00:16.720 Then the World Health Organization continues to bungle coronavirus,

00:00:20.660 but never fails to parrot Chinese Communist Party propaganda. We will take a look at the WHO

00:00:27.560 and why it needs to go. And finally, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio threatens to shut down churches

00:00:33.360 and synagogues permanently if they have the audacity to hold services during the pandemic.

00:00:38.480 All that and more. I'm Michael Knowles, and this is The Michael Knowles Show.

00:00:48.320 You know what a catch-22 is. A catch-22 is a situation where you are damned if you do,

00:00:54.000 and you're damned if you don't. It comes from the very famous novel Catch-22, and specifically what

00:00:59.120 it refers to is a military bureaucratic guideline or loophole or problem, which is that if you don't,

00:01:08.920 if you get drafted, you don't want to go to the war, you don't want to have to go fight,

00:01:11.880 you can claim insanity, and that will get you out of fighting. But the trouble is, if you claim insanity

00:01:18.240 so that you don't want to go fight, then that's actually proof that you're sane, because nobody

00:01:23.000 wants to go fight in the war, so therefore you can't plead insanity, and therefore you have to

00:01:27.120 go fight. It's a catch-22. Either way, you're stuck. That is the situation that the media have

00:01:34.700 put Trump in when it comes to coronavirus. It is the worst position that they have backed him into

00:01:41.140 during his entire presidency. What is the catch-22 here? The catch-22 is if President Trump wants to

00:01:48.320 win in 2020, then he has to restart the economy, because right now we're getting to the point

00:01:53.180 where we're going to have millions and millions of people unemployed. You could have 20% unemployment

00:01:57.640 rate. You could have just absolute misery around the country. Nobody gets elected with those kinds

00:02:04.180 of numbers. But if President Trump restarts the economy, then he's definitely not going to get

00:02:09.200 re-elected, because the left generally, but the media specifically, will blame him for every single

00:02:15.600 death, every, forget death, every sniffle that happens as a result of coronavirus. Even if those

00:02:21.700 numbers of infection, hospitalization, and mortality are dramatically lower than they predicted, even if

00:02:28.400 those numbers are not even particularly uncommon when it comes to diseases and viruses and flu season

00:02:34.640 and the like. Doesn't matter. They'll blame him for every single one. So if he doesn't restart the

00:02:40.760 economy, he can't get re-elected. But if he does restart the economy, he can't get re-elected. At least

00:02:46.780 in all likelihood. At least as far as the media is trying to push it. So he's damned if he does, and he's

00:02:54.600 damned if he doesn't. That is why he's holding these daily press conferences. Okay? He's trying to instill

00:03:02.020 confidence that he's doing the best job that it is possible to do, even if the strategy keeps changing

00:03:09.120 course. Don't forget, I think it was five days ago we were told that we're going to try to reopen the

00:03:14.440 country by Easter. Then yesterday we're told we're going to extend federal guidelines to April 30th,

00:03:19.060 and in some places those guidelines and lockdowns might be extended even further. Places like New

00:03:23.600 York, which is now the center of coronavirus, or Louisiana now, which is blowing up, or other places

00:03:28.900 too. So the strategy in some ways is changing day by day. Initially it's not a big deal, then it's a much

00:03:34.420 bigger deal, then it wasn't as big a deal, now it's sort of a big deal again. But it doesn't matter.

00:03:39.400 Either strategy the media is going to pin him, pin him for. They're going to, they're going to knock

00:03:43.260 him on it. So the key here is to just get in front of it all the time, be making the case to the

00:03:49.360 American people that regardless of what strategy you prefer, he's taking control, he's, he's doing a

00:03:55.140 very good job. So that's the big coronavirus update from the press conference yesterday. The shutdowns

00:04:01.960 are going to continue through at least the end of April. Remember initially the Trump and the

00:04:08.760 federal government said 15 days to slow the virus and in 15 days we'll reassess. Well, uh, 15 days are

00:04:16.200 up. It's March 30th. The 15 days are up. Now we're told we've got another month of 30 days, 31 days to

00:04:24.440 slow the virus. President Trump made the announcement reluctantly, but clearly yesterday.

00:04:32.640 The peak, the highest point of death rates. Remember this is likely to hit in two weeks.

00:04:41.180 Nothing would be worse than declaring victory before the victory is won. That would be the

00:04:48.240 greatest loss of all. Therefore the next two weeks and during this period, it's very important that

00:04:55.440 everyone strongly follow the guidelines, have to follow the guidelines that our great vice president

00:05:03.360 holds up a lot. He's holding that up a lot. He believes in it so strongly. The better you do,

00:05:10.000 the faster this whole nightmare will end. Therefore we will be extending our guidelines to April 30th

00:05:23.040 to slow the spread. You can hear the reluctance in his voice. He's dragging on it. It's like he's

00:05:30.320 trying to look for a way out even as he's saying it. Well, look, we don't want to declare victory

00:05:35.920 before the thing is defeated because that, that would be terrible, right? Is that you're doing a

00:05:40.560 good job at containing the virus. You're doing a great job at testing. Actually, the reason that

00:05:44.880 it now looks like the United States has so many cases is, is just because we're testing, we're

00:05:50.060 testing more than anybody else. And because China's lying and the WHO, the World Health Organization 0.75

00:05:54.820 are covering for them, which we will get to in just a little bit. But the United States doing a very

00:06:00.140 good job now on this virus. So president Trump is saying, well, you don't want it to like it's spiking.

00:06:04.980 And then we do a really good job of containing it. And then we give up on that good job. And with

00:06:08.340 spikes again, and that, that will look bad for him. He wants to defeat it once and for all,

00:06:12.020 but he's clearly reluctant to do this. That's why he's contradicting his hope and aspiration from

00:06:17.540 just a week ago or less than a week ago. He knows not only have the media put Trump in an impossible

00:06:25.380 situation. Trump knows that the media have put him in an impossible situation. Okay. Fortunately,

00:06:33.500 though, as crafty as the media are, president Trump is pretty clever when it comes to outfoxing the

00:06:40.100 media. That might be his superpower. That's probably the skill that he has best honed over all of these

00:06:46.300 years. And so he has a new strategy for how to outfox them regardless of where they back him into,

00:06:53.660 regardless of what his overall coronavirus strategy is. We'll get to that in one second. First,

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00:08:06.760 using promo code Knowles. So the media put Trump in this terrible position. Trump has a new overall,

00:08:16.400 he has a new like top line strategy here. Even if the actual particular strategy on the virus changes,

00:08:22.660 we're going to keep the quarantines, we're going to not keep the quarantines, we're going to shut down,

00:08:25.880 we're going to reopen. This top line media strategy is that President Trump is going to harp on the

00:08:34.080 media's own alarmist numbers. What factors are you taking into consideration? What can the American

00:08:40.460 people expect? And is it possible that these April 30th guidelines could be extended?

00:08:47.440 Well, we hope not, but we think it's going to, you know, we have aspirational thoughts. We would

00:08:55.220 have loved to have been a little bit sooner, but we have to do it right. We could have done it. We

00:08:59.080 could have done it on Easter, but there was a good chance that if it's coming down or if it's still

00:09:06.000 going up, maybe it's going to be coming down by then, but we just felt it was too soon. We can't

00:09:10.240 take a chance. You know, again, because of what we've done and because of the fact that we've

00:09:15.520 stopped the flow from China so early, because the question is from a lot of my friends, why don't

00:09:21.060 we just wing it? Why didn't we just wing it? And I kept asking and we did models now. Finally,

00:09:26.440 we got these models in and you hear about the 2.2 million people would have died. I don't mean we

00:09:31.640 would have had 2.2 million cases. These are 2.2 million people would have died. 2.2 million people.

00:09:37.960 Listen to how many times he repeats that number, 2.2 million, 2.2 million people. Where's that

00:09:43.020 number coming from? That was the number that was touted by the media from the very beginning

00:09:47.020 that if the coronavirus spreads, then we're going to get 2.2 million people dead in America. Did you

00:09:54.340 believe that number? I was always a little skeptical of that number, but that was the number that we were

00:09:58.460 told by the mainstream media, by the experts, right? You saw the number from Imperial College

00:10:04.700 in the UK. That was that one study that everybody said this is the study about coronavirus. Turns out

00:10:10.720 it looks like there were a lot of pretty serious flaws in that study. It looks like that number

00:10:14.300 might've been high. So then you ask yourself, wait a second, why is Trump of all people trying to tout

00:10:19.900 this very high alarmist number that the mainstream media touted from the beginning, which put him in this

00:10:26.440 bad position in the first place? He's using the number against the media because the press told

00:10:33.100 us 2.2 million puts Trump in a bad position. If he does nothing, every death proves he's heartless and

00:10:38.100 a killer. Then if he shuts down the world economy, he still looks terrible. So what Trump needs to do

00:10:43.500 is take this seriously while still giving himself room to reopen. And the key to that is managing

00:10:49.560 expectations. The way to do that is to use the press's 2.2 million number against them, right?

00:10:56.800 Because what the press wants to do now is say that 20,000, 30,000, 40,000, 50,000 deaths

00:11:04.800 is totally unexpected, unprecedented, impossible to believe. Trump has bungled this. He's got blood on

00:11:14.700 his hands. Now, of course, we know that 37,000 people die each year of the flu or more. Sometimes

00:11:23.420 we know that 38,000 people die in car accidents every year, right? We know that these, these number

00:11:33.740 people, I think, I think the statistic was a person dies every 37 seconds from heart disease.

00:11:38.440 So when you, it's kind of morbid, you don't want to focus on these things a lot, but people die. I mean,

00:11:43.560 7,500 people die a day, I think, in the United States. People die, people are born. We don't

00:11:49.200 like to focus on people dying because it's sad and it makes us contemplate our own mortality and

00:11:54.000 we don't want to have to do that. But because we ignore death so much, then when, when numbers come

00:11:58.760 up, people are shocked. People are shocked to hear that tens of thousands of people every single year

00:12:02.940 die from the flu because we don't talk about it. And the press is trying to use that to their

00:12:07.900 advantage to say, well, if 50,000 people die from coronavirus, this is absolutely shocking and

00:12:14.500 unprecedented. It's not, it would be terribly, terribly sad. 100,000 people would be terribly,

00:12:20.300 terribly sad, but it's not shocking or unprecedented when we were just told that 2.2 million people were

00:12:25.940 going to die. Certainly 100,000 is a lot better than 2.2 million or 200,000 for that matter would be

00:12:33.300 better than 2.2 million. So president Trump is trying to not let the press get away with this.

00:12:38.620 They tout the alarmist number and then they go down an order of magnitude or more than an order

00:12:43.700 of magnitude and try to say that that's just as bad. Trump is going to hammer this number home now

00:12:51.000 to remind people that even 100,000 deaths or more is actually still a great victory in the face of 0.73

00:12:58.860 this horrible Chinese pandemic that threatened to kill so many more people. So that's the number 1.00

00:13:06.500 he's got to keep hammering home. And I think he's going to make the press sorry that they were touting

00:13:11.040 that alarmist, that very likely alarmist figure. Again, I don't know, but judging by the evidence

00:13:18.120 that has come out since that Imperial College study, it would certainly seem that 2.2 million

00:13:22.400 is a very high number. Then president Trump wouldn't let the press get away with another

00:13:27.240 key little talking point that they would try to get away with, which is the unemployment

00:13:32.340 checks. You know, the part of the stimulus bill, the bailout bill, the relief bill, call it whatever

00:13:37.740 you want. Part of that bill was to allow Americans to get more in the way of unemployment benefits.

00:13:44.620 Trouble is the federal government is not administering them. So ultimately Trump is not responsible

00:13:48.700 for how that's implemented. The states are going to implement the unemployment relief. And if the states

00:13:54.660 mess it up, Trump is going to get the blame. So he's not going to let the press get away with that

00:13:58.180 lie either. Under this plan, the average worker who has lost his or her job will receive 100% of their

00:14:05.340 salary for up to four full months. The bill provides for these unemployment checks to be delivered through

00:14:12.000 the existing state unemployment systems, not us, state. And I was opposed to this method because many of

00:14:19.680 the states have very antiquated computer systems that are 45 years old and they're not prepared

00:14:25.340 to handle this kind of distribution, this kind of money coming in so quickly. They're not set up for

00:14:31.760 that. And I didn't want to do it, but our opponents wanted it. So we did it. And if they don't get their

00:14:40.040 money fast, I'm going to ask that we convene the federal government, that we come back to Congress

00:14:48.600 and we'll do something where we take care of it because we can take care of it very easily and

00:14:52.260 quickly. And I said that, but a lot of these systems are so old and so antiquated at the state level

00:14:57.540 that they're going to have the money. They're going to get the money very quickly, but they're not going

00:15:01.660 to be able to distribute it. So remember what I said, and we will, if we have to call Congress back

00:15:08.200 or find some other way of delivery of the money. Don't blame me. We didn't want it. If they screw

00:15:13.400 it up, it's not my fault. Some people are knocking Trump here because it looks like he's making excuses.

00:15:19.980 That's not what's going on. I mean, maybe he is making excuses if it doesn't work out, but really

00:15:24.740 if the state unemployment stuff doesn't work out, that isn't his fault. What we're really seeing here

00:15:29.640 is that Trump is the most transparent president in American history. And many people don't like that.

00:15:34.980 Actually, the big attack on Trump for his whole presidency is that he's too transparent.

00:15:40.480 He's saying too much of what he thinks. He's tweeting out too much of what comes into his mind.

00:15:44.980 He's talking too much to people. I mean, look, he's holding his own daily press conferences.

00:15:49.860 I bet you, if, if you, if I said, close your eyes right now, picture Stephanie Grisham,

00:15:54.560 the white house press secretary, I'd bet you couldn't do that. We used to know what the press 0.68

00:16:00.540 secretary looked like. We used to know what Sarah Sanders looked like or Josh Earnest or all these

00:16:06.680 guys who were press secretaries. Now we don't because Trump is doing his own press conferences

00:16:11.260 because he's so transparent. Trump is like, if you're a school child, if you're a student,

00:16:17.960 he's showing his work. He's always showing you his work. He's always showing you how we got from this

00:16:22.920 place to that and why he doesn't quite like this, but it's okay. Cause we had to do this to get here.

00:16:26.440 And so he's bringing you in on the whole journey. This is the only way he gets out of this. He's in

00:16:32.940 the impossible situation. He's in the COVID 22, right? The only chance he has of getting out is

00:16:39.160 showing you his work. So he can say here, look, I've done everything I can. If the States screw me

00:16:45.960 on the unemployment relief, you can't blame me for that. I'm telling you, I'm planting in your mind

00:16:51.060 right now. That's not what's going on. I know that a hundred thousand deaths would be absolutely

00:16:56.260 terrible, but what all the experts in the media were saying was 2.2 million deaths. So it's very

00:17:01.860 clear that even a hundred thousand deaths shows that we've done a remarkably good job. He's just

00:17:06.200 showing his work the whole time. It's the only way he's not going to get totally blamed for this

00:17:11.320 thing. And even that might not be enough. So the journalists are giving him absolutely no leeway

00:17:16.740 here. They don't want to give him any breathing room. So a reporter brings up this point that Trump

00:17:21.940 has harped on, that I have harped on, that a lot of other people have harped on, which is that

00:17:25.600 the choice here is not between save lives and make money. Oh my, you're willing to sacrifice lives on

00:17:35.480 the altar of money, you monster, you animal. No, that's not the choice at all. I mean, what is the 1.00

00:17:41.600 economy? The economy is just us, right? The economy is just people doing things. So there are

00:17:46.640 always trade-offs here. So let's say you shut down the entire economy. Maybe you save a life or

00:17:51.600 two, but maybe one or two people kills them, kill themselves because that's what happens during 0.98

00:17:57.780 economic turndowns. And so this report, Trump has made that point. It's a very good point.

00:18:03.780 The reporter asks him, excuse me, Mr. President, you've made that point.

00:18:08.240 What scientific experts are you citing to make that point? Again, trying to back Trump into this

00:18:15.960 corner and take away his political power because we've empowered these scientific dictators 0.80

00:18:21.100 in our culture of technocracy and expertise, Trump totally flips it around on the reporter.

00:18:28.620 You've also said that at one point that you thought more people might die from the economic

00:18:33.300 tragedies and the economic problems in America due to the coronavirus outbreak. What health officials

00:18:38.980 are telling you that? And Dr. Fauci, could you speak to that, the idea that there might be mental

00:18:43.700 health and suicide related to this? Would that outpace at some point the virus's impact on this

00:18:48.860 society? Excuse me, what experts are we talking about here? What a dumb question. But this dumb

00:18:56.600 question highlights the worst instincts of the left in this pandemic. And that instinct is to appoint 0.99

00:19:03.680 public health dictators to make our political decisions for us. Excuse me, duly elected president 0.99

00:19:11.660 and leader of the free world. What does Dr. Fauci say? Who cares what Dr. Fauci says? I like Dr.

00:19:18.020 Fauci. He's doing a fine job, but Dr. Fauci is not the president. Dr. Fauci is not ultimately

00:19:22.960 responsible for making these decisions. And neither are you journalists, because I notice, by the way,

00:19:28.500 the journalists only ever want to hear from the public health officials who back up their own

00:19:32.240 preconceived notions. They never bring on the two scientists from Stanford who said maybe we're

00:19:37.000 overreacting. They never bring on the 2013 Nobel laureate who said we're all going to be fine,

00:19:42.240 stop the alarmism. They never bring on the authors of the Oxford University study, which undercuts the

00:19:48.240 study from Imperial College in which says the mortality rate might be significantly lower from

00:19:53.120 coronavirus. They don't do that. But what they want, they want to pretend that politics is not

00:19:57.840 politics, that we're not just persuading each other and trying to get along with these quest,

00:20:02.260 eternal questions that we're all grappling with. They want to pretend like, like Karl Marx did,

00:20:07.080 that politics is actually just a scientific enterprise, that there's a clear scientific

00:20:11.780 rule. And if you just appoint the right expert, they can be the dictator forever and we'll all

00:20:16.440 have a perfect life. So very dumb question. President Trump totally shuts her down. 1.00

00:20:22.500 Ask Dr. Fauci to come up with his common sense. You're going to have massive depression,

00:20:27.000 meaning mental depression. You can have depression in the economy also, but you're going to have,

00:20:32.260 mental depression for people. You're going to have large numbers of suicides. Take a look at

00:20:37.820 what happens in a really horrible recession or worse. So you're going to have tremendous suicides,

00:20:43.980 but you know what you're going to have more than anything else? Drug addiction. You will see drugs

00:20:48.500 being used like nobody's ever used them before. And people are going to be dying all over the place

00:20:52.780 from drug addiction because you would have people that had a wonderful job at a restaurant or even owned a

00:20:58.560 restaurant. I spoke to great people today that have done a great job. And one day they're at the top

00:21:03.700 of their business. They're celebrity chefs. They've got the most successful restaurants. And in one day

00:21:09.300 they have nothing. They've gotten wiped out one day from our enemy, this invisible, horrible scourge.

00:21:17.240 Of course, the left is falling into the same trap that the public health experts are. They're being

00:21:22.920 myopic. Say, hey, well, what scientific studies can you point to to show that people get depressed

00:21:29.400 when they lose their job in the economy tanks? I don't know. How about common sense? How about

00:21:34.180 our own eyes? How about all of the experience of history? You don't need a scientific paper for that,

00:21:39.540 dummy. Use your brain. And Trump's, oh man, his response here was so important. Because could you 1.00

00:21:45.520 imagine if this reporter, whoever it was, asks Trump, excuse me, can you have Dr. Fauci just talk 1.00

00:21:51.220 about like whether you're an idiot and a liar or not? And imagine if Trump said, okay, sure, Dr. Fauci, 1.00

00:21:56.660 please tell her. Please, oh, oh, exalted Fauci, please tell her that I'm a good president and that

00:22:03.200 I'm allowed to still be president. Give me a break. If he had turned over the microphone at that

00:22:08.640 question to Dr. Birx or Dr. Fauci, we wouldn't have a president because we just, we, because even

00:22:16.700 the right here, even the conservatives, even the duly elected president would buy into the left's

00:22:22.680 premise that actually we're just governed by a bunch of appointed health experts. But we're not.

00:22:28.380 We're governed by the guy that we elected. Why are the ratings so good? The ratings are through the

00:22:34.320 roof. Trump got in trouble for talking about how high his ratings are. He's got like the best ratings

00:22:38.280 on TV. Three reasons here. One, President Trump and the doctors and Fauci and Birx and the other

00:22:45.700 experts and the surgeon general and everybody else are giving people good information. And there's a

00:22:52.080 lot of bad information out there about this virus. People who are giving blazing hot takes that we're

00:22:58.040 all going to die or it's not a big problem at all. Very little in the way of nuance, very little in the

00:23:04.580 way of precise information. So they're giving people good information that's up to date. Two,

00:23:08.280 Trump and the doctors are not scaring people to death. Very important. And three, this is my

00:23:15.300 favorite part. Trump is constantly dunking on the people in the media who are scaring people to death

00:23:22.420 and who are spreading false information. So the best example yesterday, this was egregious even by CNN

00:23:29.500 standards. CNN opens up a question with a false premise about Trump. The premise was that Trump says

00:23:36.240 that he needs the governors to show him gratitude personally for what he's doing. And then President

00:23:42.680 Trump calls out the reporter about this and says, I wasn't just talking about me personally. The

00:23:47.380 reporter then admits that the premise was a lie. And then the CNN reporter carries on with the initial

00:23:55.620 dishonest premise.

00:23:57.060 You were talking about governors of different states and you said, I want them to be appreciative.

00:24:01.580 You also said, if they don't treat you right, I don't call. These are direct, direct quotes,

00:24:06.620 sir. Excuse me. Ready, ready, ready. Take a look at what I said. I want them to be appreciative of me.

00:24:13.180 Okay. And then you cut it off because it's fake news. You and of your administration.

00:24:16.980 Please, let me just finish. You just said it again. And you know, the answer is a lie.

00:24:22.420 You know, I could read your full comments. Let me just say your statement and your response and

00:24:27.420 your answer is a lie because here's the story. You ready? I said, I want you to be appreciative of

00:24:32.420 me. And then you go on and then I go on and you cut it off. But it says, I want them to be

00:24:37.540 appreciative. I don't want them to say things that aren't true. I want them to be appreciative.

00:24:41.360 We've done a great job and I'm not talking about me. I'm talking about Mike Pence,

00:24:44.700 the task force. I'm talking about FEMA, the Army Corps of Engineers. Thank you.

00:24:48.460 Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. And how long did it take that CNN reporter to get to it?

00:24:53.760 Mr. President, you said people have to be really grateful to you and show you appreciation

00:24:57.300 or else you're probably going to withhold money or something from them. He goes,

00:25:00.680 that's not what I said. Mr. President, I could read you verbatim what you said. He goes,

00:25:04.920 it's not what I said. I didn't say it was just about me. Mr. President, it's your own words.

00:25:09.200 Here, I'll read it verbatim. It's not about me. And Trump goes, yeah,

00:25:14.640 thank you. Right. Thanks for reading it. And even that, that national humiliation will not

00:25:21.380 derail the CNN reporter journalist from his dishonest narrative. This is what they're going

00:25:28.900 to do. And by the way, it doesn't matter how much the media undercut their own credibility here.

00:25:34.640 Why? Because even if people don't trust the media, the media still have a lot of power

00:25:39.420 to gin up hysteria. Okay. That's not even hypothetical. We saw just this weekend what

00:25:47.680 the press will do to Trump if he just immediately reopens everything. We saw it in their treatment

00:25:52.260 of Jerry Falwell at Liberty University. We'll get to that in a second. We'll get to what's rotten at

00:25:58.720 the core of the World Health Organization. You know, throughout this whole pandemic, people have

00:26:02.580 referred to the WHO, the World Health Organization, as the leading authority. They're not an authority.

00:26:07.840 They're a bunch of hacks. They're in the pocket of the Chinese communist government, and we should 0.99

00:26:11.440 stop funding them. We'll get to why, because no one's talking about that. In just a moment,

00:26:16.540 first, I've got to thank our friends over at OU. I've got to thank you. Thank you so much for

00:26:22.100 watching and listening, especially in your quarantine. If you haven't had a chance to see some of our new

00:26:26.580 content called All Access Live, then you've got to head on over to dailywire.com and check it out.

00:26:31.980 We're going to continue this all of this week at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific. I guess it's

00:26:37.780 technically a show, but it's not really a show. Pretty much, we just turn a camera on and we are

00:26:42.800 hanging out for an hour. I know that we're all like going, getting cabin fever and going crazy

00:26:47.440 in our quarantines. So this show is intended for All Access members, but in time of isolation,

00:26:53.180 we've opened it up to all of our members, not just the All Access ones. So please let us know what

00:26:58.120 you think of it. If you're around at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific tonight, join us on the

00:27:03.420 All Access Live show over at dailywire.com. Head on over to dailywire.com slash subscribe. You know,

00:27:10.460 you will get one of the things you get with that is the Leftist Tears Tumblr. And I've never missed

00:27:15.180 this Tumblr more because when I am at the studio, we've made a rule here to not use any washable dishes

00:27:21.580 or silverware or even the beautiful Leftist Tears Tumblr, just because we don't want to have the PAs

00:27:27.800 cleaning it and spread germs. So I've got to use this trash. I've got to use a disposable coffee 0.81

00:27:33.880 cup. Absolutely awful. I mean, you can't even, if you put Leftist Tears in here, it would just

00:27:39.240 dissolve the bottom and it would just pour right out. You need the Leftist Tears Tumblr. Get your own

00:27:43.900 and then you won't need to worry about spreading germs because it'll just be your own Tumblr.

00:27:47.500 Dailywire.com will be right back with a lot more.

00:27:57.800 It's not a hypothetical question about what the media will do to Trump if he just reopened

00:28:05.960 suddenly. They did it to Jerry Falwell over the weekend and it was fake news. So Jerry Falwell

00:28:11.500 decides that, you know, the original federal guidelines, 15 days to slow the spread. That's

00:28:16.900 fine. We're going to do that, but we're not going to have 15 months to slow the spread. Okay. We got to

00:28:21.820 reopen at some point and he decided to reopen Liberty University. Now, you know, mainstream

00:28:27.800 media, they don't like this. They don't like when you stop listening to them and when you leave your

00:28:31.100 apartment and when you don't just blindly follow whatever they say, even if it's based on the

00:28:35.440 faulty Imperial College study. New York Times. Liberty University brings back its students

00:28:42.620 coronavirus and coronavirus too. Oh gosh, he did. There must be. Coronavirus must be sweeping the

00:28:50.220 university. Must be hundreds of students with it, right? The piece goes on. The decision by the

00:28:55.680 school's president, Jerry Falwell Jr. to partly reopen his evangelical university enraged residents

00:29:01.720 of Lynchburg, Virginia. Residents of Lynchburg, Virginia here being a stand-in for New York Times

00:29:06.560 editorial board members. But then here's the key line, they say. Then students started getting

00:29:12.900 sick. So the rumor started by the mainstream media is that you had 12 students immediately

00:29:19.240 getting coronavirus at Liberty University. That's pretty bad, right? Pretty bad, except it's not true.

00:29:27.800 Jerry Falwell immediately came out and refuted this. He said, we don't have a dozen students with

00:29:34.580 coronavirus running around our campus. We had four students who decided to isolate because they came 0.99

00:29:42.020 from hot spots. Maybe they started to sniffle or something like that, but haven't tested positive for

00:29:47.300 it. We had one student who doesn't even live on campus and is at home. And so it's not even like

00:29:53.960 our decision would affect him who seems to have coronavirus. We had some people who knew a guy who

00:30:01.200 knew a guy who was infected. They're self-quarantining out of an abundance of caution.

00:30:05.540 But the story that the New York Times is running, that now coronavirus is running rampant through

00:30:09.460 Liberty University, just not true. It doesn't matter. If you ask people, hey, what happened when Liberty

00:30:15.600 University reopened? You know the story they're going to, they're going to say, oh, all the kids got

00:30:18.700 coronavirus. That's why we can't reopen anything. That's why we've got to stay in our apartments

00:30:22.520 forever. It isn't true. At least there's no evidence that it's true yet. I guess it could

00:30:27.780 ultimately turn out to be true. I mean, we know how viruses spread. We know that a lot of us are

00:30:32.840 going to get this virus at some point, but it doesn't seem to be true now. I mean, even the

00:30:37.820 idea of flattening the curve, right? Flattening the curve doesn't reduce the number of people who

00:30:42.660 are infected. It just spreads out the number of people who will be infected by this. The idea being

00:30:48.580 that if the curve gets too high, then you're going to overwhelm the hospital systems and that's going to

00:30:54.520 result in more people dying because, you know, they won't, let's say someone gets into a car

00:30:58.100 accident that all the hospital beds are going to be taken up with coronavirus patients. So they're

00:31:01.760 not going to be treated. There's going to be all this fallout too, but that's how the media narrative

00:31:05.200 has shifted. It went from 2.2 million people are going to die to some hospitals are going to be

00:31:09.840 overrun. It doesn't matter. It's the same narrative. And, and they're, they're trying to tell you every

00:31:14.380 time we test, they say we need more tests, but then the moment you get more tests, then obviously you

00:31:19.900 get more diagnoses. And when you get more diagnoses, they say we're losing the battle against

00:31:24.120 coronavirus. So many little COVID-22s here that are tripping up conservatives who are trying to do a

00:31:32.260 good job and, and fight this virus. That's, that's what Trump is up against. He knows that those are

00:31:36.400 going to be the headlines, which is why he's trying to zigzag his strategy a little bit here, all the

00:31:40.980 while showing you the work, all the while showing you the impossible situation that he has been put

00:31:46.020 in. And guess what? Most people approve of what he's doing. We showed you a poll last week. Gallup

00:31:51.900 polling showed most people approve. Other polls have shown it. Now we have one from the Washington

00:31:55.800 Post and ABC News, two outlets that don't particularly care for Donald Trump. This new

00:32:02.080 poll from them asked the question, do you approve or disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling his

00:32:07.300 job as president? So this is overall approval rating. 48% of respondents said they approve. 46% said

00:32:14.820 they disapprove. So he's still under 50 here, but more approved than disapprove. 34% approve strongly.

00:32:22.280 15% approve somewhat. 35% disapprove strongly. 11% disapprove somewhat. 6% have no opinion. By the way,

00:32:29.080 who are those people? Who has no opinion about Donald Trump? You've got to be locked in a bunker away

00:32:33.640 somewhere if you don't. Then the poll gets to, do you approve or disapprove of the way Trump is handling

00:32:39.400 the coronavirus outbreak. 51% of respondents approve. 45% do not approve. So now he's totally

00:32:47.520 above water. Here he's even above the 50% mark. Most people, even people who don't like the job he's

00:32:54.600 doing as president, like the job he's doing on coronavirus. And in that environment, even Joe Biden,

00:33:02.780 the presumptive Democratic nominee, the guy who, if he can make it, I guess is going to run against

00:33:08.140 Donald Trump in November. Even he is giving president Trump some credit on the coronavirus

00:33:13.480 when Chuck Todd, left-wing hack, asks Biden if Trump has blood on his hands for his handling of

00:33:22.580 coronavirus. Biden, much wiser, looking at those poll numbers, says, whoa, Chuck, what are you talking

00:33:28.260 about? Calm down there. You know, your campaign put out, you're in a critique of president Trump and

00:33:33.300 says if he doesn't do these things, you know, he could, he could cost lives. Do you think there's

00:33:37.800 already, do you think there is blood on the president's hands considering the slow response

00:33:41.680 or is that too, too harsh of a criticism? I think that's a little too harsh. I think what's

00:33:46.780 happening is the failure to, as I watched a prelim to your show where someone said that,

00:33:54.520 made the phrase, use the phrase that the president just thinks out loud. He should stop thinking out

00:34:00.760 loud and start thinking deeply. He should start listening to the scientists before he speaks.

00:34:05.560 He should listen to the health experts. Okay. First of all, President Trump clearly is listening

00:34:10.600 to the health experts. He's holding daily press conferences with two of the most prominent public

00:34:15.780 health experts in the entire country. And he's letting them speak and he's regularly deferring to

00:34:19.900 them. Not on every question, but on a great many questions. That's why Fauci and Birx are now

00:34:24.260 international celebrities. Second, Joe Biden criticizing anybody for speaking before he thinks

00:34:31.500 is the most pot, kettily sort of situation I've heard of in weeks. All right. Probably not what

00:34:38.800 Joe should be doing. So why is Joe giving Trump credit here? He's giving Trump credit because Joe

00:34:43.740 Biden was dead wrong on coronavirus. And to use Chuck Todd's question, if Joe Biden had been permitted

00:34:51.640 to follow the policy that he wanted to follow, he would have blood on his hands because when Donald

00:34:56.840 Trump issued the travel ban from China way, way back at the end of January, right, probably the

00:35:02.600 single most important thing he could have done to stop the spread. Just look at Italy. If you want to

00:35:06.480 see another example, Joe Biden criticized him for it, said he wouldn't have done it, called him

00:35:11.600 xenophobic. So Biden knows he's in a bad spot here. He knows Trump is popular on Wu flu, despite being

00:35:19.000 backed into this catch 22. So Joe is going to play this fairly neutral. You know, Trump has managed to

00:35:26.920 stay popular during the coronavirus, not through any reasonable way. There is no reasonable way,

00:35:35.780 right? There is no way to kind of pick just one strategy and go for it. And that's how you would

00:35:41.200 stay popular. That has been closed off to him. So he's managed to stay popular pretty much through

00:35:46.440 sheer force of will. He's managed to stay popular through daily press briefings. By the way,

00:35:51.200 the daily press briefings coincide with when that approval rating started to go up again.

00:35:55.020 And it's blunted the best attack that Democrats have on him. We've got to get to why the World

00:36:00.000 Health Organization is a totally corrupt institution that does not deserve our defense. First, let's try

00:36:07.220 to get to a couple of questions from listeners. I see you're popping up from SW. After all the positive

00:36:11.200 news for Andy Cuomo, older brother to Fredo, governor of New York, any thoughts on him being

00:36:16.520 Biden's vice president? Or could Andy even hop into the race this late? I don't think he'll be Biden's

00:36:22.940 vice president. I think Biden needs a woman, ideally a black woman, because he knows that the Democrats

00:36:28.500 are obsessed with racial and sexual identity politics. And Joe Biden is an old white guy. So 0.97

00:36:33.620 even though Andy Cuomo might have a lot of energy, he'd probably be a pretty strong candidate.

00:36:38.260 I don't think he would be the VP. Also, Joe Biden doesn't need to win New York. He'll win New York.

00:36:44.600 He doesn't need any help doing that, rather. Now, could Andy Cuomo get into the race this late?

00:36:49.620 Look, Joe Biden is in bad shape, okay? He doesn't look good. He's forgetting his name. He's forgetting

00:36:56.200 his boss's name. He doesn't seem to have any energy. We're in the midst of a global pandemic that

00:37:02.380 targets people who are exactly in Joe Biden's demographic. There's a world in which he just

00:37:08.140 doesn't have the stamina to actually be the nominee. And in that case, you'd get into a pretty

00:37:12.800 crazy convention. Maybe they go with Bernie. Maybe the Wicked Witch of the West swoops in there and 0.99

00:37:17.800 takes the nomination at the last minute. Or maybe a young up-and-coming, he's not that young, but he

00:37:23.380 is a more energetic, more youthful candidate like Andy Cuomo, who obviously has designs on the

00:37:28.320 presidency. Maybe he swoops in at the last minute. I think there's a better shot that he could pop in

00:37:32.520 and try to make a play for the big job than that he would be the VP. Another question from AC.

00:37:37.600 Michael, fellow Sicilian here, how do you feel about what's happening to your ancestors?

00:37:41.360 You're talking about my friends back across in the old country. Well, it's kind of interesting

00:37:46.780 because generally in Italy, the southern part of Italy is considered the poor part, the less

00:37:51.860 prestigious part, the less posh part. And the north, specifically Milan, fashion capital of Italy,

00:37:57.980 and industrial capital of Italy, that's considered the nicer area. And yet, what's being hit most?

00:38:03.900 Milan, Lombardy, the north of Italy is being hit much harder on coronavirus than those backward 1.00

00:38:09.340 Sicilians where my ancestors come from are. Shows you one of the weaknesses of globalization because 1.00

00:38:15.280 it was Lombardy that decided to import a ton of very low-wage Chinese workers to man their factories.

00:38:22.180 And when they didn't cut all that off, you saw an influx of, obviously, this Chinese pandemic 1.00

00:38:26.700 come in specifically there. The other thing that it shows you is that America is a different

00:38:31.880 country from Italy. Okay, we've got a different population. Dr. Birx made this point yesterday.

00:38:35.920 Different population, different demographic. Our population is not as old. Our population,

00:38:44.380 especially among the old people, do not smoke as much. I mean, Italians just smoke cigarettes 1.00

00:38:48.340 all the time. So respiratory diseases really affect them. It shows you the differences in countries, 0.82

00:38:54.120 not just from the globalization standpoint and how we got the disease, but how people are treating it

00:38:59.220 as well. Speaking of globalization, the WHO. World Health Organization is a mouthpiece for the Chinese 1.00

00:39:07.420 Communist Party. Take a look at how this WHO hack refuses to answer a question about Taiwan, which is

00:39:16.300 independent from China, but not totally independent from China. And China wants to completely take it over.

00:39:21.120 However, he's asked a question about Taiwan. He pretends not even to hear it.

00:39:25.660 The WHO considered Taiwan's membership.

00:39:38.020 Hello?

00:39:40.220 I couldn't hear your question.

00:39:42.400 Okay, yeah. Let me repeat the question.

00:39:44.660 No, that's okay. Let's move to another one then.

00:39:46.620 Wait, wait, hold on. You, you didn't hear the, and he says this, this is so spooky.

00:39:51.800 Shows you that these weirdo bureaucrat mouthpieces for communist dictators are, 0.66

00:39:58.840 they're so cold-blooded, man, like ice running through their veins. Just completely straight face. 0.83

00:40:05.140 Not answering that, not answering that, not answering that. Sorry, I didn't hear your question.

00:40:08.380 Okay, I'll repeat it. No, that's okay. Let's move on. Well, how do you know you want to move on to

00:40:12.840 the next question if you didn't hear the first question? Now, this journalist, to her credit,

00:40:16.820 persists.

00:40:17.900 I'm actually curious on talking about Taiwan as well, on Taiwan's case.

00:40:28.520 We decided to give Dr. Alward another call to follow up.

00:40:32.200 And I just want to see if you can comment a bit on how Taiwan has done so far in terms of

00:40:37.720 containing the virus. Well, we've already talked about China. And, you know, when you look across

00:40:44.380 all the different areas of China, they've actually all done quite a good job. So with that, I'd like

00:40:50.460 to thank you very much for inviting us to participate. And, and good luck as you go forward

00:40:56.140 with the battle in Hong Kong. Yes, thank you. Man, that is so spooky, isn't it? Thank you so much.

00:41:02.200 Thank you. Yes, we've talked about China, which owns Taiwan. Taiwan is just part of China,

00:41:07.740 our pay masters. Hi, no, what are you talking, I'm not a marionette for the communist government.

00:41:11.640 What are you, blah, blah, blah. Okay, goodbye. Goodbye. Talk to you later. Really spooky stuff.

00:41:17.100 How and why did this happen? Why, why is the WHO, the World Health Organization,

00:41:22.960 mouthpiece for communist China?

00:41:24.180 So it looks like China knew about this virus now as early as mid-October. Initially, we thought it was

00:41:32.720 January, then December, then November. Now it looks like mid-October. China covered it up. It

00:41:37.260 punished whistleblowers. It silenced journalists who reported on it. WHO consistently praised the CCP,

00:41:44.040 the Communist Party of China, for its transparency, quote, and leadership, saying its actions were

00:41:51.300 making us safer. WHO experts didn't even go to China until February 10th. China knew about this

00:42:00.200 since mid-October. WHO did not want any part of it. The most aggressive campaign the WHO has waged

00:42:07.220 during this whole epidemic is to stop people from calling this the Chinese coronavirus. And you think,

00:42:13.180 wait, why is the WHO telling me what language to use? They actually had this campaign,

00:42:17.120 don't call it the Chinese coronavirus, don't call it the Wuhan virus, parroting the Chinese 1.00

00:42:21.000 communist line. So who is the WHO? The WHO. Why is the WHO so bad? WHO is a division of the United

00:42:27.860 Nations, which there tells you enough about them, you know, already tampers our expectations.

00:42:33.020 Why is it so bad? The Federalists had a good piece on this. So bad because the head of it

00:42:37.140 is a prop for Chinese communists. Tedros Adhanom Ghebrezius, former job was in the Marxist government

00:42:46.460 of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front. As the Washington Post reported, China worked,

00:42:52.080 quote, tirelessly behind the scenes to install this guy as the head of the WHO. China has been

00:42:57.620 working for years behind the scenes to take over international institutions to try to ease

00:43:02.880 their normalization. They're a Chinese dictatorship, a communist dictatorship, but they're trying to 0.53

00:43:09.660 enter the world as this kind of international, wonderful, democratic country. The China already

00:43:17.540 runs four of the UN's specialized agencies. No other country controls more than one. Clear takeaway

00:43:24.060 here, okay? We give the WHO half billion dollars a year. We are by far the biggest contributor to the WHO.

00:43:31.700 And yet the WHO is a mouthpiece for China. We need to defund WHO until its China patsy leader 1.00

00:43:41.480 is ousted. We should cut off their money. I know there's this idea that Trump is going to cut money

00:43:46.700 from the WHO, the World Health Organization. That's going to compromise public health. It won't.

00:43:51.240 They're useless. They do nothing. They're worse than useless. They help communist thugs cover up the 0.99

00:43:56.560 worst pandemic we've seen in our lifetimes. Get rid of them. Get rid of the money. Oust the leader. 1.00

00:44:03.100 It's done. Enough of them. In the meantime, we need to remain very skeptical of anything they say.

00:44:07.180 Before we go, I've got to get to Bill de Blasio. Bill de Blasio now is telling people to stay in their

00:44:12.900 homes. Even when it comes to churches and synagogues, he says, I want to say to all those who are preparing

00:44:18.740 the potential of religious services this weekend, if you go to your synagogue, if you go to your church

00:44:22.880 and attempt to hold services after having been told so often not to, our enforcement agents will

00:44:28.160 have no choice but to shut down those services. But he didn't just say he would shut them down

00:44:32.200 for a week or so. He threatened to shut them down permanently.

00:44:35.640 He has been instructed that if they see worship services going on, they will go to the officials

00:44:44.520 of that congregation. They'll inform them they need to stop the services and disperse. If that does not

00:44:50.600 happen, they will take additional action up to the point of fines and potentially closing the

00:44:57.400 building permanently. Closing it permanently. De Blasio is unabashedly anti-religious. Most evidence

00:45:06.340 seems to suggest he's an atheist. He sort of pushed back on the atheist thing, but he says he doesn't

00:45:11.680 have a religion. He doesn't have a church. He doesn't like it. He's a commie. So generally,

00:45:17.980 they're not particularly traditionally religious people, that's a bridge too far to shut down the

00:45:24.540 churches permanently. If de Blasio permanently forced churches to close, the most measured and

00:45:33.840 reasonable response would be to riot. Now I say would be to riot because Christians, as a rule, 1.00

00:45:41.900 don't riot. Jews don't either. It's so interesting that in his line here about shutting down these 0.99

00:45:50.420 religious services, he only targets two religions. He says, if you go to your synagogue, if you go to

00:45:57.360 your church. What's missing here? Notice any religious service that he left out. Hmm. I notice a

00:46:06.660 particular religion of peace that he refused to name here, that he refused to threaten. He's only

00:46:11.420 threatening the Jews and the Christians. He's not threatening other religious groups. The reason I

00:46:19.560 suspect is that he's not afraid of any reprisals from Christians or Jews. He thinks they're just 0.95

00:46:25.840 going to take it. And I don't know. He clearly has some particular antipathy toward Christians and

00:46:32.780 Jews that he doesn't have towards, say, Muslims or Hindus or other groups as well. That is a step too 0.92

00:46:40.980 far. This country, if it is founded on any one thing in particular, it is on the ability to practice

00:46:49.440 your religion. It's what the pilgrims came over on the Mayflower for. We have no established church 0.99

00:46:56.160 at the federal level. All sorts of different religions have thrived in America. We're much more

00:47:01.680 religious than the rest of the Western world. Religion really matters. It is completely gratuitous 1.00

00:47:07.600 and unnecessary to threaten to permanently shut down religious institutions. If the government were

00:47:15.900 to do that, the government would be illegitimate. Very extreme position they're trying to put everybody

00:47:23.560 in now. Very tough for those of us on the receiving end of it to react. You got to be careful not to

00:47:30.900 allow yourself to be backed as they want us to be into an impossible situation. There are ways to

00:47:36.920 get out of this, but you've got to be very careful because at this point, we're not just talking about

00:47:41.600 a public health pandemic. We're talking about a highly politicized agenda that is being pushed

00:47:47.620 to advance political goals. All right, that's our show. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael

00:47:51.780 Knowles Show. I'll see you tomorrow.

00:47:52.980 If you enjoyed this episode, and frankly, even if you didn't, don't forget to subscribe.

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00:48:14.480 Also, be sure to check out the other Daily Wire podcasts, including The Ben Shapiro Show,

00:48:19.120 The Andrew Klavan Show, and The Matt Walsh Show. The Michael Knowles Show is produced by Ben Davies

00:48:24.760 and directed by Mike Joyner. Executive producer, Jeremy Boren. Supervising producers, Mathis Glover

00:48:31.240 and Robert Sterling. Technical producer, Austin Stevens. Assistant director, Pavel Widowski. Editor and

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00:48:45.440 assistant, Ryan Love. The Michael Knowles Show is a Daily Wire production. Copyright Daily Wire 2020.

00:48:51.940 You know, The Matt Walsh Show, it's not just another show about politics. I think there are enough of

00:48:56.200 those already out there. We talk about culture because culture drives politics and it drives

00:49:01.220 everything else. So my main focuses are life, family, faith. Those are fundamental. And that's

00:49:08.560 what this show is about. I hope you'll give it a listen.

The Michael Knowles Show - March 30, 2020

Ep. 519 - The Catch-22 Of COVID-19

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