Acting CBP commissioner Mark Morgan on enhanced border security amid COVID-19 pandemic

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Acting CBP commissioner Mark Morgan on enhanced border security amid COVID-19 pandemic

Coronavirus cases spike in Mexico; reaction from acting CBP commissioner Mark Morgan.

This is a rush transcript from "The Ingraham Angle," March 20, 2020. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: I'm Laura Ingraham and this is the Ingraham Angle from Washington tonight. The Trump administration taking bold action against the coronavirus, closing our southern border, I guess we can do that after all, and sending it anyone who crosses it illegally back to Mexico.

We should've already been doing this. Acting CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan is here with that good news. Plus Senator Tom Cotton has a grave warning about our dependency on China. He and I've been talking about this for decades but guess what, I hate to say see, I told you so but see we told you so.

Also imagine, if celebrities thought of anyone else but themselves during this outbreak, that can't be. We got to be joking. Raymond Arroyo is here from New Orleans with the trouble in deeds in Fridays Follies.

But first, a dose of reality. That's the focus of tonight's Angle. All right, today my favorite subject came up again at the Covid-19 briefing or that - are there treatments out there that are already in use with minimal side effects, that could bring relief to our people and our economy?

Well, our own John Roberts pressed doctor Anthony Fauci about the drug we first introduced to the wider public on Monday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN ROBERTS, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Dr. Fauci, this is explained yesterday. There has been some promise hydroxychloroquine, this particular therapy for people who are infected with the coronavirus. Is there any evidence to suggest that as with malaria, it might be used as a prophylaxis against Covid-19.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: The answer is no and - and the evidence that you're talking about John is anecdotal evidence so as the commissioner of FDA and the president mentioned yesterday, we're trying to strike a balance between making something with potential of an effect to the American people available at the same time that we do it under the auspices of the protocol that would give us information to determine if it's truly safe and truly effective.

But the information that you're referring to specifically is anecdotal. It was not done in a controlled clinical trial so you really can't make any definitive statement about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Well, first, I have great respect for Doctor Fauci, his sacrifice for the country but when you hear something is just anecdotal, again aside from the clinical terminology, to most people and we're talking to most people in these press conferences, it just doesn't sound too hopeful or too impressive and anecdotal doesn't really describe the findings of the world's top researchers, who just a few days ago published results of their first study on hydroxychloroquine and hydroxychloroquine with azithromycin.

A lot of you probably have taken Z-packs over the years. Well, check out their findings. This is in a long study. Despite its small sample size, our survey shows that hydroxychloroquine treatment is significantly associated, the word significantly there with viral load reduction or disappearance in Covid-19 patients and it's effect is reinforced by azithromycin.

Now look at this chart that accompanied the report. The blue line is the control group OK, say they took nothing so bad for them they all have the virus even after 6 days. The red represents those who received hydroxychloroquine so some improvement so only what is it, 40 percent or so still had the virus but look at the yellow line.

Now the yellow line represents the patients at the end of day 5 only who were on a protocol that included hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin. Now the researchers in this study and they're all incredibly prominent epidemiologist and researchers, dozens and dozens.

They understood when they undertook this project, they were tasked by the French government to do this. They understood the severity of the global crisis we're all facing and they also understood the risk to millions - millions of people around the world including our health care workers and they concluded as a result of all this thinking and what they looked at the following.

We therefore recommend that Covid-19 patients be treated with hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin to cure their infection and to limit the transmission of the virus to other people in order to curb the spread of Covid-19 in the world.

Now, I understand that we want our own data that is a large controlled study, I understand that's necessary. And the Trump administration is 100 percent correct. At the same time and recognizing the benefits already reported in the use of this drug and the drug combo that we just mentioned.

Now by the way hydroxychloroquine, lot of people don't understand this but it does not need to be approved by the FDA in order to be administered by doctors for off-label use because as I said before, we don't have to go over it but it's prescribed for anti-malarial use and also for lupus in some cases.

Our physicians are already using it in our major hospitals for Covid patients. They also used it successfully in some cases against SARS which had a higher mortality rate. The president as usual has sharp instincts. He sees things that sometimes the intellectuals and academics, they might get lost in some of the details but he has sharp instincts about things.

And he's pushing to get millions of doses now into the United States.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: That I'm a big fan of. We'll see what happens and we all understand what the doctor said is 100 percent correct surely but we've you know, I've seen things that are impressive. We will see. It's very effective. It's a strong - strong drug.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: I can also report tonight that another drug is also showing significant promise in the fight against Covid-19. It's called Actamra. It's an IL6 or an antilukin-6. It's an anti-inflammatory prescribed mostly for rheumatoid arthritis. Again an off-label use is being implemented now by the Chinese who are finding that it works very well against Covid-19.

Pharmaceutical giants Roche and Sanofi make different versions of this drug. Our doctors and our hospitals need all the ammo they can get to fight this disease. We want fewer people to need ventilators, right?

We need to reduce that that absolute necessity to have vents in our ICUs because we have a critical shortage. We need to get people home to quarantine if they're sick then we need after a necessary amount of time, we need to get those people healthy and back to work.

As soon as they're medically cleared. Again, I respect all the professionals who are working on this and they're working ridiculous hours and I respect Doctor Fauci, an enormous amount.

And I realize in an ideal world, we want everything buttoned up and as perfect as far as randomized trials go but our country needs solutions and hope now. And old bureaucracies have to give way to fast action. The president understands this. We can't stay in our homes for ever. America wants to get back to work. And that's the Angle.

All right, joining me now is Doctor William Grace an oncologist at Lenox Hill hospital in New York City. Doctor, what's the best way to keep people - keep infected people away from those with compromised immune systems? Is it the mass shut down that we're seeing or is it a focus on those compromised population?

DR. WILLIAM GRACE, ONCOLOGIST LENOX HILL HOSPITAL: Well, we know - we've had the understanding that the old people seem to have a compromised immune systems and I think it's just the opposite. It's a paradigm change.

They have the more mature immune systems even though their bodies may be weak and their immune systems are actually quite strong and it's the strength of that immunity that causes the damage to the lungs and the deaths in these cases.

Hence the reason why hydroxychloroquine, an immunosuppressive agent is beneficial it by two mechanisms. Suppressing the immune response and number two, acting to suppress the replication of the virus. That's why the anti- inflammatory drugs you just mentioned before I came on, is working in China because it's cutting down what we call the cytokine storm, the inflammatory storm that the virus causes in the percentage of people and those are the people who go on to die.

So that's why you see that it's - it's the immune system that's causing most of the deaths.

INGRAHAM: Yes, so again it's counterintuitive doctor, from what a lot of people thought including myself you know. Full - full disclosure. I was confused until one of these doctors explained this to me today about Actamra and also the hydroxychloroquine with azithromycin.

So an older person's response, it's powerful to a foreign agent coming into their body and this is a new foreign agent coming into the body so their immune response goes crazy so you need to drop that down in order to prevent the damage, is that correct?

GRACE: Yes. That's correct and in addition, hydroxychloroquine also inhibits viral replication.

INGRAHAM: Doctor Grace, there are a lot of skeptics and I understand it's great to be skeptical but there are a lot of skeptics out there about this drug that is currently in use in the United States. CNN in particular. Watch.

All right, they're accusing Trump sorry, of peddling false hope with hydroxychloroquine. For the past two days, Trump has said he was dispensing a game changer breakthrough on treatments. It's holding out the promise of hope and optimism to shift attention from the reality of alarming rises in infections, a building economic crisis, a shortage of ventilators, the federal government's botched coronavirus testing rollout, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

Is it just false hope or do we have at least, you know, examples in our country right now of this working including in your hospital?

GRACE: Laura, you saw the curves that you just put on showing the difference of viral free curves of those who had standard therapy, those who had hydroxychloroquine and those who had the combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin where all those who got the combination were basically virus free by Day 5.

And the results of those tests that show that hydroxychloroquine alone and the synergism between hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin, the results of that testing, there was only one chance in 10,000 that that could have happened by chance alone.

That's highly significant data. You know we look at data today. We accept one chance in 20 of having it by chance alone as being statistically significant. One chance in 10.000 is huge and the president is exactly right. This is going to help a lot of people.

By the way the tension you show of - you saw between Anthony Fauci and the president today, both can have their cake and eat it too because you can take the seriously ill people and treat them off-label with the combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin and then you can take those people who are not so seriously ill and put them on whatever randomized trial you want.

And as many limbs as you want because there'll be plenty of patients out there that will be sick and not so serious than they're in danger of dying.

INGRAHAM: Well and some of the researchers are saying it's a - I mean it can be prescribed widely as prophylactic, a preventative against getting the virus at all. So the only problem I have is when Fauci says, oh, it's just anecdotal and it's kind of a blow off.

I mean, I get it. They want a 2000 person controlled, randomized trial, I understand that but this is an emergency and it's working for a lot of people.

GRACE: Well, when this whole problem with Covid-19 is over, we'll talk about the same problems exist in cancer where you have breakthrough therapies identified by people's you know, very outstanding people and it's - it's called anecdotal and it's just forgotten and buried.

But let's get rid of Covid-19 first and I think the President is exactly right on this and so is Dr. Fauci. We can have our cake and we can eat it too.

INGRAHAM: Well, Dr. Grace has been at the forefront of so many different off-label uses of medical - of medical technology and medicines, that the experts are aren't yet on to. I know that for a fact. Dr. Grace, thanks so much.

GRACE: Thank you Laura and thank you again for having me on.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: China is blaming the coronavirus get this, on an America, it's an American disease, it was introduced to the country by the U.S. army members who visited the Wuhan province in October. Did you really start this disease and give it to China?

MARK ESPER, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: No, that's - that's completely absurd. You know, look if the Chinese government had been more transparent early on, all the nations in the world would have been able to get our arms around this and contain it in China where it began and prevent its propagation around the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Defense Secretary Mark Esper earlier today, laying out what we've been telling you for weeks. China has some responsibility here, don't you think? They knew back in December, probably even earlier that this could be a massive health crisis for the world but instead of just trying to warn the rest of us, they engaged in a massive cover up.

Our economy is in terrific shape because of it and if we're not careful China will do even more damage. According to The Washington Post, Beijing is preparing to use the crisis to advance China's economic strategy against the U.S.

Several Chinese company agencies and officials are talking publicly about how China can take advantage of being the first country to start recovering from the novel coronavirus to take over the industries of the future.

Now we're already way to our line on China in key industries. I've been talking about this only for 20 years on television and poopooed for most of it. Medical supplies, technologies, rare earth material, space weaponry but by the way, they threaten to cut off bio medicines and pharmaceuticals just last week.

Nice people. Joining me now is Marc Thiessen former White House speech writer, Fox news contributor who's been doing great work on this. Marc, what do we need to do right now, right now to you know pull off the blinders on China and begin to decouple ourselves from this communist regime?

MARC THIESSEN, COLUMNIST, "WASHINGTON POST": Well yes, first thing we have to do is we have to get out of this recession and pass the recovery bill so that we can - so that we can get through this and American businesses and American families can get back to the prosperity that they had before the Covid virus was unleashed by China.

But when that's done, we've got a look back at who is responsible for the unbelievable economic damage that we're suffering today. The reason we are going into a deep recession, the reason why our economy is in free fall is because the communist Chinese regime was more interested in suppressing the truth than suppressing a virus.

They - they knew as you pointed out, in December, they knew that there was human to human transmission because medical workers were getting sick but on January 14, the Chinese told the World Health Organization that there was no evidence of human to human transmission when they knew it wasn't true.

Couple of days later, they had a banquet in Wuhan. Tens of thousands of families share - had a lunar new year banquet sharing food with each other and then they let 5 million people leave Wuhan province and travel all over China and spread this thing all over the world.

So the reason we are in the situation right now, there was an - Axios reported this morning but there's a new study that found that if they had acted just three weeks earlier, 95 percent reduction in the number of cases would have been.

So we need to hold you know, we're about to spend $ 1 trillion to $2 trillion. We need to send the bill to Beijing for that. Donald Trump needs to tell the Chinese, you're paying for the damage to our economy.

INGRAHAM: Well, they're blaming us for it. By the way, in line with what you're saying, Ian Bremmer who - like I've had him on my podcast before in radio show over the years but he actually is urging America to kind of lean in to our reliance on China. Check it out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

IAN BREMMER, EURASIA GROUP PRESIDENT: If you're fighting a war, you need allies, right? And the war was a global war, it's not against China. It's against the virus and you know almost all of our medical equipment, the supply chain comes from China.

2008, the Americans were leading. 2020, we're not. The Chinese are the ones that are offering medical assistance and we're sitting here without the ability provide it for our own people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Marc, is that the real lesson from this that look, China does it matter, it's not that they cheated, stole our technology, ripped off our IP, all the ways that they subsidize their state industries, were irresponsible with a virus and then blamed our military for it.

The lesson is look at how great China is. I don't get this.

THIESSEN: Well, the best rebuttal to that is that the Chinese just threatened the Trump administration that you better be careful about calling this a Chinese virus because you may find out that we're going to cut off all of your pharmaceutical supplies and plunge you even into an even worse epidemic.

That was on the - that was on the state - the state mouth piece, Xinhua news service so they're actually threatening. We depend on China for about 90 percent of our antibiotics.

INGRAHAM: It's got to end. That has to end. We cannot be reliant on them for any essential goods at all and if it means we -

THIESSEN: And 5G.

INGRAHAM: No, we're not -

THIESSEN: They're dominating 5G.

INGRAHAM: Huawei - but I'm telling you Marc, Europe is completely supplicating it themselves, if that's even a word at this. They're just completely bowing down to China because China rolls in with medical supplies and the eurozone is thank you master. Thank you for your help and - and China looks like the white knight.

So this is the situation we've gotten ourselves into with China.

THIESSEN: We need social distancing and economic distancing from China in key areas and when this is all done, Laura, you know after - after 911, the Congress passed a bill that removed sovereign immunity from Saudi Arabia so the people can sue them over 911.

We should strip kind of sovereign immunity so that amid all these businesses that are getting crushed because of this virus right now can sue China for damages because the Chinese regime, unleashed this virus on the American people.

INGRAHAM: What do you think about the Trump administration trying to increase the - only some Republicans I hope not, to try and increase the number of EB5 visas for Chinese investors so it lowers the threshold of money they have to bring into the United States and makes it easier for them to come up and - come in and probably by some of our companies on the cheap.

What are your thoughts on that? Increasing the number of EB5 visas for China after all of this?

THIESSEN: We need to have a broad policy of strategic disengagement from China in key sectors where our national security is involved, where we're supposed - where American investment is supporting the people's Liberation Army, creating internal repression.

You know and this is something also we have to remember is that the way China - we're now discovering something after September 11, 2001, we learned a lesson which is what happened 3000 miles away can affect us here at home.

Then it was a very a virulent ideology that led to a terrorist attack. Now it's an actual virus but the way the Chinese people treat their own people affects the health and safety of our country so we have to have - we have to put freedom back at the center of our foreign policy, Laura.

INGRAHAM: Yes, we can't - we can't do this to our country and our small business, our families. Every time China decides, well, we're just not going to share information with you. We just can't do this. This cannot be the new normal where this is just what we do and we all stay in our houses for Lord knows how long.

It just can't happen. It's ridiculous.

THIESSEN: If we want to get our sneakers and our clothes at Walmart, made in China, I got no problem with that. I don't want my antibiotic supply to be dependent on China. Anti-depressants, heparin, you know, Alzheimer drugs, all these things that we're so dependent on, strategic 5G, the backbone of the 21st century economy and China - and China is in in the lead on it.

How did we allow that to happen? The greatest innovative free market country in the world and a communist dictatorship is leading the technology - technological revolution.

INGRAHAM: It has a lot of people, you know the answer Marc, a lot of people who are making a lot of money. Billions and billions of dollars by parking it in China and doing deals with - with the Chinese government and they look the other way on all this stuff for years and years and they call the rest of us a bunch of xenophobes and China bashers.

And what we really were, we're pro American worker, that's what we were. So Marc, I loved your column. I tweeted it and posted it.

THIESSEN: Thank you Laura, appreciate it.

INGRAHAM: So thanks so much for coming on tonight.

THIESSEN: Thanks for having me.

INGRAHAM: You stay safe out there. All right and coming up, Trump's move to close the U.S. - Mexico border comes just in the nick of time. I'm going to explain why Mexico's coronavirus outbreak could be worse than Italy's before Mark Morgan responds. You don't want to miss it. Coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: These massive flows place a vast burden on our health care system. By doing a global pandemic, they threaten to create a perfect storm that would spread the infection to our border agents, migrants and to the public at large.

Left unchecked, this would cripple our immigration system, overwhelm our healthcare system and severely damage our national security. We're not going to let that happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Yes. President Trump closing the U.S. - Mexico border to fight coronavirus. Remember, when people said you couldn't close the border. I guess they were wrong. Allowing only essential travel and of course trade. Now we warned you earlier this week about a potential nightmare unfolding at our southern border and now it's even more urgent.

In the last week the number of confirmed cases in Mexico quadrupled from about 40 to more than 160 and that's only what the official stats tell us. The Mexican government doesn't seem to care much at all. Why they did close public schools. There are no travel restrictions and only limited screenings of any travelers and large gatherings concerts and so forth are still happening.

now what you have here are the ingredients, a lot of the epidemiologists are saying for an epic disaster. Now here's how one of Mexico's top epidemiologist put it. From my perspective, we have all the conditions of this to turn into a tragedy similar to Italy if not worse.

So now imagine what would happen at our own border if Mexico overtook Italy as the deadly hot spot for Covid-19 acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf painted a pretty dire picture, earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHAD WOLF, ACTING SECRETARY, HOMELAND SECURITY: The outbreak on our southern border would likely increase the strain on health systems in our border communities, taking away important in life saving resources from American citizens.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Joining me now is acting CBP commissioner Mark Morgan. Commissioner Morgan, the border is closing but does that mean enforcement is enhanced and more boots around the ground or how was - how are we closing the border and places where I was, I mean it's pretty desolate?

MARK MORGAN, ACTING CBP COMMISSIONER: So all that has happened but Laura, I do think words matter and so because it means something different to certain people so we're really not closing the border. As you just said in your opening, we're absolutely limiting and taking reasonable restrictions to contain and mitigate.

But it's still going to be open to essential travel and cargo. Commercial trade is going to continue to flow but this president, this is the first time that this has ever happened that we've taken these authorities and applied them and we're doing it both at the northern border and the southern border.

Again, this is a bold, aggressive action but it's yet common sense and it's exactly what we need to do.

INGRAHAM: Well Mark, we've talked about this before and of course we're not talking about the normal entrant - entry points into the country where people have to you know, meet a border patrol official, a customs official, we're not talking about that.

We're talking about people who just you know walk across the border, little fence where we don't have the wall yet or people who float across the Rio Grande. Now let me just understand us because when we were in Del Rio last year, people were floating the Rio Grande and it was very narrow in the places we were and shallow in some places.

But still water moves. They were just turning themselves into border patrol and then getting bust to a different part of Texas and then ultimately released into the country. I understand that we've also gotten rid of or suspended all asylum applications in between ports of entry, is that correct?

MORGAN: Laura, you're absolutely right. That's the game changer and that's a bold aggressive action that this president took today and announced. With the CDC order, what they have said is that exactly what you've been saying, Laura.

We've been part of the task force from day one and we've been talking with CDC and other health care providers and today they gave the final order that allowed CBP to do just what you've described.

Now when they enter it legally, we don't know anything about them. They have no documentation. We don't know anything about their -

INGRAHAM: But they should never, yes.

MORGAN: Now instead of taking them in--

INGRAHAM: Yes, I'm just saying, we should have done this -- we should never have taken them in. The point is, this is what we saw when we were there. But I just want to remind everyone, the reason that these family units could come by the thousands into the United States, just crossing the Rio Grande and being released, is because the Trump administration was sued, and liberal judges put in injunctions stopping the administration from sending people immediately back, correct? So that was liberal judges who at the time were endangering our health security, and just our school resources, and everything else. So this is something the Trump administration has tried to do before and judges stopped them. But now suddenly everyone is a border hawk because they're like, well, my life might be in jeopardy now.

MORGAN: Well, Laura, you're spot on. And this is another -- today, right now, this is not about immigration. What this is about is borders matter, though. And that's what we're seeing right now. So the unprecedented bold action this president has taken is first and foremost because it's a healthcare crisis. And we need to protect -- for me, I want to protect the men and the women of the CBP and the American people. And with this bold action, the immigrants themselves are actually going to be protected as well. So now once they come across illegally, the men and women of the CBP, now the authority, we're turning around right there and returning them to Mexico.

INGRAHAM: You like the world "bold," Mark. You said bold, very bold. It is bold. But it was bold last year when the administration did this. They tried to stop this nonsense a year ago. And again, Trump was way ahead of the curve on this border problem. And now all these other people are coming along to the view.

However, Commissioner Morgan, Joe Biden just eight days ago was tweeting this. He said, "A wall will not stop the coronavirus. Banning all travel from Europe or any part of the world will not stop it. This disease could impact every nation and any person on the planet. We need a plan to combat it." So Joe Biden wouldn't have done any of this. So we would have had more people flooding in from affected areas.

MORGAN: But Laura, just nine months, just nine months, in 30 days, because of the tactics that we've taken, and again, I'll say it, because of the bold action this president had taken.

(LAUGHTER)

INGRAHAM: A drinking game here.

MORGAN: -- in a single month, right, in a single month we've reduced that flow by 100,000. That's right now, in this pandemic that we're in, this health crisis, that's 100,000 less individuals that would have been illegally entering our country. That is absolutely a game changer. And the wall is a part of that.

INGRAHAM: We need all of that. And this has to be a lesson for going forward. We don't need T.B. coming into our country. We don't need our schools -- these people who are losing their jobs all over the country, we don't need a flood of new workers into America. We need people back to work as soon as medically possible, as soon as it's OK health-wise.

Commissioner Morgan, great to see you. Stay safe out there, and all our love to the Border Patrol. They're amazing people. I had a chance to meet so many of them over the last several years. You take care.

MORGAN: I'll pass it along.

INGRAHAM: All right.

And in moments, is the coronavirus causing the Internet to overload? Uh-oh. Plus, the quarantine is bringing out, well, not the best in certain celebrities. And wait until you see who CNN trotted out as its expert on COVID-19. Raymond Arroyo breaks it all down on Friday Follies next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: It's Friday, and that means it's time for, oh, Friday Follies. Of course. Quarantine is getting to some celebs, and broadband is narrowing? For all the details, we're joined by Raymond Arroyo, FOX News contributor, who is sheltering in place, although that's not the right terminology, Raymond, in New Orleans, and the author of "Will Wilder 3" out in paperback next week.

Raymond, we're seeing reports about strains on the Internet in Europe. What would happen here in the United States if families stuck together for all this time started losing their broadband?

RAYMOND ARROYO, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Laura, with hundreds of millions of people using broadband for work, classes, gaming, video, there were concerns that it could break the Internet in Europe. Verizon claims its network usage is up 75 percent. So to lighten the load, YouTube and Netflix have agreed to reduce streaming quality in Europe for 30 days. The U.S. could impose similar limitations if this quarantine drags on. As an example of what you can expect at home, this is how Disney Plus's Mandalorian looks in high definition. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(MUSIC)

(END VIDEO CLIP).

ARROYO: Now Laura, this is how the same clip could look in standard def at low resolution. Look at baby Yoda here.

INGRAHAM: What?

(LAUGHTER)

ARROYO: It's not going to be that bad, Laura. But there are concerns that this could happen, and some of our favorite shows might see a decrease in the quality. There's only so much broadband to go around.

INGRAHAM: Now the coronavirus quarantine has inspired some strange programming, and experts that you don't expect I've noticed, Raymond. So tell us about the CNN coronavirus town hall.

ARROYO: Yes, you'd expect a network to actually feature doctors, elected officials --

INGRAHAM: They do.

ARROYO: -- first responders. Yes, but CNN gave us Sean Penn the other night looking like he's fighting some type of virus, Laura. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEAN PENN, ACTOR: We're all fighting as one species. Any little activity that has happened has happened far too late. But it's really time to give the military the full breadth command and control of this operation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Are you -- wait a second.

ARROYO: Laura, it's unbelievable.

INGRAHAM: That was not Sean Penn.

ARROYO: Yes, it was. This is odd times at Ridgemont High. Can you believe this guy is calling for the military to come in and take over? Remember, he was a close friend of Hugo Chavez.

INGRAHAM: They love dictatorships.

ARROYO: So this isn't too far out of the mark, right. Exactly.

INGRAHAM: Raymond, they love -- there are a lot of liberals who are a little bit happy that people are stuck in their homes and they're not polluting the environment, they're not driving, they're not traveling. They're just not living their normal lives. And a lot of people are afraid, understandably, and they're waiting for someone to help them and rescue them. Liberals like that.

ARROYO: But martial law -- look, in 2010, Penn helped Haiti, OK? So this is not a relief organization, though. This is a pandemic. It's a different fight.

Laura, Penn is not the only celebrity acting out in very strange ways during this quarantine. Gal Gadot, she got her friends together, or Gal Gadot, Wonder Woman herself, she got her celebrity friends together to join her in a cover of John Lennon's "Imagine."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Imagine there's no heaven.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's easy if you try.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No hell below us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Above us only sky.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Imagine all the people.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Living for today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Oh, my God.

ARROYO: This is so painful, Laura. Talk about off key, and not just their singing. It's so out of touch. Who during an epidemic like this wants to hear people talking about no heaven or imagining no heaven? It's ridiculous. And when they talk about -- go ahead.

INGRAHAM: Sorry. Remember, Raymond, imagine basically there's no country. That's part --

ARROYO: Right.

INGRAHAM: It's a beautiful, I love the melody, but I've never liked the lyrics.

ARROYO: I hate this song. I think it's a pagan litany. I can't stand it. And these celebrities singing about imagine no possessions while they're on their ranches in Malibu, it sticks in my craw and in those who are unemployed right now. It's ridiculous.

INGRAHAM: Imagine no possessions from Sun Valley, Idaho.

ARROYO: Right, exactly.

INGRAHAM: Or imagine no possession as I hop the G-5 to wherever. OK.

ARROYO: Laura, some of these celebrities are using their platforms, like Ariana Grande, to encourage young people to social distance. That's a good thing. Some people are doing read-alongs for kids and families. I'm doing one tomorrow on Facebook. That's great. That's positive. But it's when you look closer at people like Josh Gad. Frankly, this is one of the most indulgent, absurd things I've ever seen. He was Olaf the Snowman in "Frozen" and he seems to be melting now. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSH GAD, ACTOR: Cry for a second. And I was going to do it by myself, and then I thought, you know what? It's important for everybody to understand that we're all going through so much uncertainty right now. We're going to get through it. And it's hard, and I'm emotional.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARROYO: This is so indulgent, Laura. Watching this guy emote -- people don't need this. I was with waiters and waitresses today who were laid off. How dare he cry when the residual checks are rolling in and we're just emoting for the cameras. It's really embarrassing, Laura, particularly those who are suffering.

INGRAHAM: When you said he played Olaf, I thought he was going to show up in a snowman costume. I was disappointed it was just the hoodie.

ARROYO: At this point, I'd like to kick over a snowman after watching that. He's frozen in my house.

Look, I wrote up a list of films that people might want to consider, Laura. It's on FOXnews.com. They might want to consider watching, including "The Passion of the Christ," which is streaming on FOX Nation. And I did an exclusive interview with Jim Caviezel where he reveals all kinds of behind the scenes secrets. It will enrich the viewing experience and, I think, make for a good evening for a whole family, particularly it being Lent.

INGRAHAM: And I think that's fantastic, at FOXNation.com, you can sign up there. And Raymond, I saw a picture, I don't know if you or Rebecca sent it to me, of your whole family playing monopoly. And I did see one participant or player cheating, OK? There was something being done --

ARROYO: I don't know who that could be. I don't know who that could be.

INGRAHAM: Raymond, stay safe without restaurants that you actually can go into, but lots of good take out in New Orleans. So have fun this weekend.

ARROYO: And go get your food via takeout. It's good for those businesses. We've got to keep them going.

INGRAHAM: God bless those restaurateurs and all the workers. We want them back to work as soon as feasible possible. All right, Raymond, thanks so much.

And up ahead, Senator Tom Cotton has a plan to claw back those industries from China. He joins us next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: Earlier in the show, we laid out why we need to start decoupling ourselves from China. I've been talking about this for many years, but now more than ever, especially when it comes to medicine and medical supplies.

My next guest has introduced legislation to bring those industries back home. Joining me now is Senator Tom Cotton from the great state of Arkansas. Senator, how are you going to get those companies to start producing here, because the message from all the globalists is always, then it is going to cost 10 times more, until you have trillions of dollars lost in the economy because of this shut down of the American economy because we can't protect our people. But how do you do it? How do you get them back?

SEN. TOM COTTON, (R-AR): Laura, I think most Americans are shocked when they've learned in recent days that so many of our basic drugs are made in China -- antibiotics, penicillin, ibuprofen, to say nothing of dozens of ingredients that go into finished products.

So what we're going to do is both help create supply here and create demand. So the demand is going to come through the federal government's purchasing power. The Department of Defense, the V.A., Medicare, Medicaid, and others agencies purchase an immense amount of drugs, many of which, unfortunately, originate in China. In a few years, we're going to say that ends. There can be no more drugs from China purchased by the federal government.

And second, we're going to give incentives for manufacturers and entrepreneurs to locate pharmaceutical factories here in the United States, for example, by allowing them to mediately expense the cost of building the factories and buying that equipment. And I think that you can produce generic drugs that have been around a long time in places like rural Arkansas just as you can in rural China. It's not going to be that much more expensive, and we can see that it is going to make us much safer and much more secure.

INGRAHAM: And Senator Cotton, we're going to need jobs. We're going to have an enormous unemployment role if people are really going to be staying in their houses longer than a few weeks. Even with a few weeks we're going to have a lot of damage done. So we need these jobs.

And with that having been said, back in 2018, "The New York Times," which is often not too anti-China, to put it lightly, they were reporting on the following. "For over a year the Chinese government has withheld lab samples of a rapidly evolving influenza virus from the United States -- specimens needed to develop vaccines and treatments. Despite persistent requests from government officials and research institutions, China has not provided samples of the dangerous virus, a type of bird flu call H7N9."

So shouldn't we have been on notice that you can't really trust the Chinese to give us the information we need about critical points such as these horrible health scares and possible epidemics?

COTTON: Yes, Laura, we definitely should have been on notice going back decades. It was never a smart idea to outsource our basic industrial productivity to a country like China. We need that in America. And unfortunately, though, it's not just China. China is just in the last two weeks threatened to withhold basic drugs. But other countries, including allied countries in the face of a global pandemic are also withholding basic pharmaceutical ingredients, basic medical supplies and devices. That's why it's so vital that we have that productive capacity here in the United States for our safety and for jobs.

INGRAHAM: Real quick, Senator, this is Governor Cuomo in New York, who has been pretty good in trying to be positive in a very horrific situation in New York given the number of infections and deaths. This is what he said about the N95 mask situation. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): If I had a New York state defense production act, I would use it. We need masks. If you're making clothing, figure out if you can make masks. I'll fund it. So I'm doing everything I can to increase the production. That's besides having people all over the globe trying to buy product.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Buying product on the open market, 3M, Honeywell among the companies that do make these masks, but they make them in China for the most part, correct?

COTTON: Yes, unfortunately too much of that capacity is in China. I agree with Governor Cuomo, companies should start looking into that kind of crash course for manufacturing what we need here until we can get a long-term solution on the backend of this crisis.

INGRAHAM: There are actually seamstresses who are taking up a mask making operation to try to help out, that's how the desperate the situation is for our health care workers. We've got to do whatever we can to get them the protection they need. Senator Cotton, thanks so much.

Coming up in New York City, they show us how to jump germs? Stay there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: All right, it's time for the Last Bite.

Well, even the criminals in New York are worried about germs?

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