Coronavirus task force member Adm. Brett Giroir reacts to new study on hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin
Using medications off-label is all about risk-benefit, says Adm. Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health.
This is a rush transcript from "The Ingraham Angle” March 27, 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. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is still demanding the 30,000 ventilators. But does he really need that many? What does that say? Rudy Giuliani is here on that and state's preparedness in general.
Plus, you'd think that Pelosi and her friends would be thrilled with the $2 trillion, with a T, aid package, but no, that's just a drop in the bucket, you see. You're not going to believe what the left with the tin cup out still wants money for. We're going to expose it all with Congressman Lee Zeldin.
And Joe Biden is the gift that keeps on gaffing? Yes. It's time for "Friday Follies" with Raymond Arroyo, and boy, do we need that tonight. And in moments, we're going to talk to Admiral Brett Giroir from the White House Coronavirus Task Force.
But first, welcome to the end of day-11. Seems like day-50 of our national shutdown because of a virus that arrived here via China. The President officially activated his authority under the Defense Production Act on the issue of ventilator production today. But GM had earlier pledged to manufacture ventilators without a government edict, but the White House wasn't happy with the details.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're not looking to be ripped off on price. We don't want prices to be double, triple what they should be. So General Motors, we'll see what happens. But now they're talking. But they weren't talking in the right way at the beginning, and that was not right to the country.
(END VIDEO CLIP) INGRAHAM: "The Art of the Deal" - it's always "The Art of the Deal." I love it. I think this was Trump's best briefer on the virus, without a doubt today. Now, because of the Imperial College modeling, we've been talking to you about this all week before it was even raised in the national media.
The modeling for this disease has been revised downward, as you'll recall. Well, there is an enormous amount of disagreement regarding some of the very high estimates for ventilator and ICU bed needs in the United States, especially in those hardest hit areas.
Now, remember, the concern about this virus, in addition to the claims of mortality rate, was always that the virus would overwhelm and even maybe collapse our medical system. And there are good indications, however, now that even in New York City - again, where things are so tough - the system will bend but not break when all is said and done. And that would be a very good thing. Now, earlier in the day, Governor Andrew Cuomo defended his ventilator projections.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): Well, maybe you don't need 30,000. Well, look, I don't have a crystal ball. Everybody is entitled to their own opinion. But I don't operate here on opinion. I operate on facts and on data and on numbers and on projections. All the projections say you could have an apex needing 140,000 beds and about 40,000 ventilators.
(END VIDEO CLIP) INGRAHAM: Actually, that's not true. The new projections do not say that, but we're going to discuss this data with our own experts in a moment.
Now, New York remains at the epicenter of the COVID spread, adding 3,585 cases today. That's up from the state's previous 24-hour period. Other hot spots like New Orleans and LA are chalking up significant increases. LA has seen 678 new cases in the last 48 hours.
New Orleans now has the most positive cases per capita of any U.S. city. But it's important to note, as we discussed this tonight, in New York, the rate of hospitalization required for those testing positive continues to decline. That's a good thing.
And a new study - this is really big. This just broke tonight -from the French research team that was led by the renowned epidemiologist, Didier Raoult, just posted online, this study offers more hope that the combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin is helping COVID-19 patients.
Now, this was a study of 80 patients, more than double the size Professor Oz's (ph) earlier study had, but it's still not controlled. Nevertheless, 54 of the patients had CT scans for COVID pneumonia. Only three of them required an ICU, and the median age was 52, that's fairly young. About two- thirds or so had underlying medical conditions, and the results were stunning.
This is what it said, in part. "By administrating hydroxychloroquine combined with azithromycin, we were able to observe an improvement in all cases, except in one patient who arrived with an advanced form, who was over the age of 86 and in whom the evolution was irreversible. For all other patients in this cohort of 80 people, the combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin resulted in a clinical improvement that appeared significant when compared to the natural evolution in patients with a definite outcome, as described in the literature."
Now, there's a lot to this. We're going to run through this with "The Ingraham Angle" medicine cabinet, as I'd like to call them, our medical experts, in just a few moments. And there also seems to be good news on the mortality rate front.
Now, it may not be high as originally thought. We talked about that denominator. The bigger the denominator gets of people who are tested, the more information we are finding out about the true mortality numbers.
So, a little over three weeks ago, the World Health Organization initially pegged the Wuhan virus's fatality rate at 3.4 percent. That is a staggering number. And that - it means, again, the total number of deaths divided by the total number of people who tested positive.
Now, it varies by country, and it depends how many people are tested, though. Well, in the United States right now, it stands at about 1.4 percent mortality rate, and we're still ramping up testing, although testing is sky-high now compared, of course, to the way it was just a few weeks ago.
In Germany, where they've been testing 500,000 people a week, if you can believe it, the mortality rate is 0.5 percent. Now, it's critical to remember, the WHO's figure leaves out, doesn't include, people with minimal symptoms or who are asymptomatic. That means they didn't have any symptoms at all and just walked around undiagnosed. So, figuring out that number is crucial to determining how deadly the coronavirus really is.
So what do scientists think here? Well, this is from Dr. Fauci, who wrote last month, "If one assumes that the number of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times as high as the number of reported cases, the case fatality rate may be considerably less than 1 percent," and "COVID-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of the severe seasonal influenza pandemic." Well, the seasonal flu's mortality rate is just 0.1 percent.
So, again, we've gone from possibly 3.4 percent, which is millions dying, to perhaps closer to 0.1 percent. Do you see why it's important to let the data come in? Even CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta had to admit today that as bad as things can get, and they are getting pretty bad, especially in New York and some of these other hot spots, we do need to keep our perspective here.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: The vast majority of people, even if you're elderly, aren't going to need hospitalization. The vast majority are going to recover. The vast majority are not going to die. So you're still significantly more likely to get through this than not--
(END VIDEO CLIP) INGRAHAM: Now, finally, the President dismissed the idea that he should just be in the White House, hunkering down, meeting with his team, and not visit those who, at this point, given everything they are doing for us, could actually use a morale boost.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Given that older Americans are advised to stay at home and avoid travel, is it absolutely necessary for you to go to Norfolk, Virginia tomorrow to wave goodbye to the ship?
TRUMP: No. No. But I have spirit for the country. I mean, we have sailors, we have doctors on that ship. I think it's a good thing when I go over there and I say thank you - it doesn't mean I'm going to be hugging people and it doesn't mean that I'm going to be shaking people's hands. But I think it sends a signal, when the President is able to go there and say thank you--
(END VIDEO CLIP) INGRAHAM: I think that answer was one of the reasons I was getting pinged all day long from people who are sometimes not the biggest Trump fans were saying, this was his best moment. Yes, you bet, they need a morale boost. Got to be careful, but go be as close to the people as is medically advised.
The medical community, coast-to-coast, you think about the first responders, they are working in these hazardous conditions. They need our support, they need to see their leaders, state, local, federal - again, safe distances. And they need our prayers.
There's going to be a time for a full analysis in the end of all this - after all of this is, I hope, behind us. Who was prepared? Who wasn't? Which mistakes were made? Which weren't? Which states responded properly, made the right calculations or revised them, and which didn't? And which projections were right and which were wrong? But already we're seeing that there is ample evidence, at times, to question the experts, who had everyone freaking out that millions of Americans could be dead by summer.
In the meantime, let's keep going in the right direction, move forward. And when necessary, if necessary, revise our data, revise our outlook, and revise our plans so we can restart our country at some point, we hope, very soon.
And those are my thoughts at the end of America's shutdown, day 11.
Now, joining me now is Admiral Brett Giroir, who is the White House Coronavirus Task Force member, Assistant Secretary for Health at HHS.
Admiral, I need to ask you about this brand new study. I know you're not an epidemiologist, but you just heard me talk about it. It's not controlled, but it is clear from this - the renowned epidemiologist and his team in Marseille that this hydroxy-azithro combo seems to be working. So why are doctors and nurses and pharmacists today getting mixed messages, at times, from the administration on the need for a controlled study?
ADMIRAL BRETT GIROIR, WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS TASK FORCE: Well, thank you, Laura. It's great to be here. I don't think there is mixed messages at all. In order to be absolutely certain that the drug combination works or one of the other drugs work, sure, you need a controlled study. But hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine are both approved medications in the United States. And it is perfectly reasonable for a physician with a patient, particularly one being sick, to prescribe that.
And as you described, the study that was published tonight was on 80 patients. It was not controlled. But it's again another piece of suggestive evidence that hydroxychloroquine or its related drug, chloroquine, has antiviral properties, and we need to look at that seriously.
INGRAHAM: But this is where you see this - the tension, Admiral, in the medical community. People are not sure what to do because you have governors issuing these edicts. I mean, it's scary for these physicians and pharmacists saying, you may not administer this in an off-label use manner if you're not part of a controlled study. And I'm talking to infectious disease doctors every day and from around the world, not just in the United States. This is their go-to combo in most patients. Period.
GIROIR: You have to understand that medicines are used off-label every day in this country. And that doesn't mean it's unsafe. That just means that it hasn't gone through the 10 years of study to be absolutely approved by the FDA. And it's all about risk-benefit.
I'm an intensive care physician. It's different if you have a young, healthy person who is mildly ill. Sure, you don't want to give them a drug that hasn't been proven. But if you have a person who is in an ICU or who is ill or has risk factors and you have a drug that may work, that we have dozens of years of experience with, it's a very reasonable option. And I think that's a decision between the doctor and the patient and the patient's family. And that's the way it should be.
INGRAHAM: Admiral, let's see interesting things in other countries as well. Really cool stuff coming out of Iceland. Germany, as well. They've done a lot of random testing of people, and a lot of testing. And as they do more testing, they're finding that a lot of people are building up, perhaps, herd immunity to this disease, and also, assuming that these numbers are correct, that the mortality rate is not as horrific as perhaps originally thought. Your view on that so far?
GIROIR: I lose track of time, but it's been probably four or five weeks after I briefed Congress with Secretary Azar. I came out in an interview and they asked me what the mortality rate was right after the WHO said 3 to 4 percent. And I said, all the models suggest it's between 0.1 and 1 percent, and it's probably somewhere in the middle of that, because, as you said, we have a denominator problem.
In other countries, they only tested just the sickest. So if you just test the sickest, the mortality is higher. So I think it is tracking. And I don't mean to minimize it. A mortality rate of 0.2 or 0.4 percent is still very dangerous.
And whatever the number is, we do need to be careful because we know that the elderly or those with chronic conditions may have a much higher mortality rate. But I think it's right. We've all said it. Dr. Fauci said it. I said it. All of these CDC models suggest that the mortality is going to be much lower than what 1 percent.
INGRAHAM: But people are freaking out. But honestly - but people are freaking out. When they hear millions could be dead by the time this thing runs its course - I mean - and you wonder people are going to get toilet paper by the three dozens and--
GIROIR: Well, of course.
INGRAHAM: --stocking up on food and buying guns. And people are freaking out because of those numbers. So, again, it's the data that comes in, and the calm exposition of that data that is so critical, Admiral, and--
GIROIR: We've been - we've been very clear about the mortality rate. And also, I think it's very important for people to understand, independent of chloroquine or the absence of a vaccine, the President and the Vice President have clearly outlined what we need to do to beat this virus. That 15 days to stop the spread. Do the kinds of things that we ask you every day, and there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and it will be soon.
These are effective measures. We know how to do them. And I just urge every American to believe in the scientists and the public health experts that the President and Vice President have assembled, and we will get over this.
INGRAHAM: Admiral, I want to thank you, personally. I don't know you, but I know a lot of people who do know you. And you have done, along with the team, a phenomenal job. And I know you're working around the clock. The President said that today you are doing a phenomenal job for the country, and I don't pay attention to the haters, and I know you don't either. Admiral, thank you so much.
GIROIR: You're quite welcome. Thank you, Laura.
INGRAHAM: All right. And it's been over a week since the President asked the FDA to begin studying hydroxychloroquine. And it sounds like the agency planned on taking its sweet time?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: When I was with the FDA, they indicated that, well, we'll start working on it right away, and it could take a year. I said, what do you mean a year? We have to have it tonight. If we don't have it tonight - I want to test it immediately.
(END VIDEO CLIP) INGRAHAM: I love that moment. Well, thank God we have a President who's cutting through the red tape and speeding up our usual trials on promising anti-COVID drugs.
With me now are two doctors treating COVID-19 patients. Dr. Stephen Smith - you've heard from him on this show for three nights in a row, giving us his data - and the Founder of the Smith Center for Infectious Diseases and Urban Health. Also with me is Dr. Amesh Adalja, who is a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security.
Dr. Smith, what is your reaction to what you just heard from the President about the need to cut through this red tape and start using the tools and our toolbox?
DR. STEPHEN SMITH, INFECTIOUS DISEASE SPECIALIST, SMITH CENTER OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Doctors love that. OK? I mean, we hate red tape. We often get bottled up in the red tape of trying to use a drug appropriately for the - the appropriate drug for the appropriate patient.
The idea of off-label use being restricted is insane. Most - probably most infected diseases is off-label, at least the way we use antibiotics. It's insane that anyone to restrict that. And to have a President say we've got to get this done sooner is fantastic to hear. It's that simple. I mean--
INGRAHAM: Well - yes. And Dr. Smith, your patients that you've seen today, you're giving us an update pretty much every day about the patients your practice has seen. What can you tell us?
SMITH: Well, we've treated over 50 patients. And we're starting everybody that can be started on hydroxychloroquine or Plaquenil and azithromycin. And I asked my team of six what they think. Do you think it works? Because again, we're giving it to everybody. So, no control. And everyone, except one, said yes. The other was undecided.
The one interesting stat of our group, our experience, is that we've had 53 patients so far, 10 of which have begun intubated. Of everybody that's been intubated, that means put on a ventilator, as done so within the first 36 hours, I mean, no patient has gone three days of treatment with these drugs and been intubated afterwards. Now, that's amazing to me.
INGRAHAM: That is unbelievable. And Dr. Adalja, another important part of this study is the following. "In addition to its direct therapeutic role, hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin can play a role in controlling the disease epidemic by limiting the duration of virus-shedding, which can last for several weeks, in the absence of specific treatment."
Dr. Adalja, what about this virus-shedding, the shortening of that time? How significant is that?
AMESH ADALJA, INFECTIOUS DISEASE DOCTOR & SENIOR SCHOLAR, JOHNS HOPKINS: Well, we know the viral-shedding is what's driving transmission. And anything that can cut down on viral-shedding is going to be something beneficial to controlling the outbreak.
I think it's important to do this in a controlled manner with drugs like hydroxychloroquine to see if this actually is something that's a result of hydroxychloroquine or the natural course of the disease. But we know that hydroxychloroquine does have antiviral effects in vitro, and it will be important to see if that can be translated into a patient benefit. And everybody is hopeful that it will be.
INGRAHAM: Is that your basic go-to drug combo, Dr. Adalja, in the patients that you are treating who are testing positive for COVID-19 with significant symptoms?
ADALJA: So I have used hydroxychloroquine alone. I haven't used it in a combination with azithromycin. But it is on protocols at hospitals that I'm on staff at, that we are using it when we can use it. And we're also trying to use remdesivir, which is an experimental antiviral that's available - expanded access through Gilead. So we've kind of got protocols at the hospitals that you go to, but hydroxychloroquine is one of them that's at our hospital.
INGRAHAM: And Dr. Smith, when you hear things - again, getting into the fear and panic, when people get sick and they hear these mortality rates, a lot of them are freaking out. When you hear someone say the rest of the country is going to be New York soon, maybe a week behind us, but it's going to be LA, it's going to be Topeka, it's going to be Austin, Texas, do you buy that given what you're seeing?
SMITH: No, of course, not. I mean, first of all, I'm 16 miles outside of New York. So we think of ourselves as semi-New Yorkers. And we think of this area as being unique, and it is. But no, there's no way this is going to happen elsewhere.
The therapies I am very convinced work. We know more and more about this virus every day. And the social distancing is working. All the patients are coming in with the newly diagnosed COVID are having symptoms for seven to 10 days or more. So this is not a - the social distancing is working. I hate that term, but - anyway, it's working. So this is not going to spread and cause the same problems in other places for sure.
INGRAHAM: Doctors--
SMITH: And I'm very confident--
INGRAHAM: My - sorry, we talk over each other with the Skype's thing. But doctors, you are in my medicine cabinet. I love that. You are in my medicine cabinet. Thanks so much both of you. Great to see you.
And coming up, does doctor - not doctor - New York Governor Andrew Cuomo really need those 30,000 vents? Rudy Giuliani is here to help us debunk Cuomo's alarming projection. Plus, Congressman Lee Zeldin reacts to the latest hysteria from radical Democrats. You don't want to miss that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) INGRAHAM: Now, remember when New York Governor Andrew Cuomo claimed that he needed 30,000 vents within two weeks. Well, if he didn't get them, he said people were going to die. It was really scary. Well, we at "The Ingraham Angle" were skeptical. That number seemed absurdly high based on the revised data, which we started talking about on Tuesday night with Dr. Fauci. Well, it turns out we were right.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CUOMO: Yes, they're in a stockpile, because that's where they're supposed to be, because we don't need them yet. We need them for the apex.
(END VIDEO CLIP) INGRAHAM: Well, joining me now is Rudy Giuliani, Former New York City Mayor.
Rudy, it's great to see you tonight. Well, he said they're in a stockpile where they're supposed to be. The President seemed a little perturbed today that they send - they send, I don't know, 4,000 - I don't know how many exactly arrived, but they're a lot. And they're not deployed anywhere. They're just sitting there. But what about Cuomo, and is he just taking care of his state the way he should be, maybe over-projecting, but why is that a bad thing?
RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: First of all, I think, by and large, he's done a really good job, and the President has done a superb job. There is a tendency to overstate for your state. I went through this a number of times with West Nile virus, with anthrax and, of course, on 9/11. I tried not to. And I tried not to because I don't want to lose credibility.
In one case, I was dealing with Bill Clinton. So I was dealing with the opposite party. The other case, I was dealing with President Bush, but also understood, the President has got demands from all over the world, all over the country in the case of anthrax. So I don't want my demand to look ridiculous.
Now, this looks like a case where they didn't know - I mean, the right hand didn't know what the left hand was doing, which can happen in a situation like this. So you start to back off. Maybe you make a little apology for it. Most importantly, if you keep up good relations.
INGRAHAM: Yes. I think that's right. And I think the President has said many times, which I think, again, is why his numbers - not that that's what important, but I think people like the fact that he says I'll work with anybody. To get this country going again and to protect people, I don't care where you come from, what party you come from, what company you come from, I'll work with anybody. That's the kind of thing we need to hear in a crisis, in my view. And I think--
GIULIANI: Yes. You know--
INGRAHAM: --you did that after 9/11. You did the same thing.
GIULIANI: A little advice for the governors and the mayors, having been in that position in three extraordinarily difficult situations. I'd say one equal to this. Take the blame when you have to. If you play with your boss, sometimes it's better if you don't win the golf game. He's the boss. He's got all the resources.
I don't say that he's going to be affected in giving out resources one way or another, but it's just human nature that if you act like a responsible guy, and he's got real confidence that you're doing what you're doing, he's going to give you everything you want. I think you could ask President Bush to this day, I don't think there's a single thing I asked him for he didn't give me right away. And I don't think there's a single thing I asked him for that I didn't really, really need.
So that's the kind of confidence that has to develop. I thought that was happening between Trump and Cuomo, Trump maybe even and Newsom. So let's see. Let's see if we can get back on it. But by and large, compared to some of the others like my completely absent mayor, Cuomo is a hero.
(LAUGHTER) INGRAHAM: Yes. Well, I think Bill de Blasio is still - we don't have to do belabor the point, but de Blasio has been smashing the President, which was just--
(CROSSTALK)
GIULIANI: He let people out of prison.
INGRAHAM: Yes. Well, that's--
GIULIANI: He let people out of prison.
INGRAHAM: This crazy judge just yesterday, Rudy, let out this guy who stabbed his girlfriend multiple times in the chest from Rikers, ordered him and 15 others released because the Legal Aid Society petitioned the judge because they're worried about their health at Rikers Island. I'm thinking, this guy just murdered - this guy murdered his girlfriend in June of 2018. This is the case I'm putting up on the screen for you. And now, this guy is going to go free. A murderer.
GIULIANI: Have they really gone wacko? I mean, the fact that the reason, they're arguing they should get out of Rikers Island because Rikers Island is rampant, rampant, with coronavirus. So we are putting out on the street people coming from a place that's rampant with coronavirus into a city that's --
(CROSSTALK)
INGRAHAM: Yes, on the streets.
GIULIANI: -- coronavirus. And I'm being told to stay home. I'm being told to stay in my apartment. Don't leave. Or as little as possible.
(LAUGHTER)
GIULIANI: This is crazy.
I wanted to bring to your attention Dr. Zelenko's report, I hope you saw that, 669 cases treated with hydroxychloroquine, and the azithromycin, and he added zinc to it. So far, 669 cases, five hospitalizations, two incubations, no deaths. And we're talking about a large number of people over 70-years-old. So I'm going to keep a close track on that.
INGRAHAM: We are seeing great results. But Rudy, you've seen this in your career in politics and your time in government, federal government and state government. But you get the sense that the media, they don't almost - - some of them don't want things to go back to normal in the United States. They like this crisis point, and they really don't want things to go back to normal. And a lot of them seem as the news comes in that might be slightly better than we thought, they are angrier and grumpier than they should be. It's odd.
GIULIANI: I could hardly find Fauci's readjustment. I heard it, and I wanted to see it again because I wanted to say it in an interview this morning, the exact words that Fauci said. The darn thing is are almost buried. That's big news. At one time we were going to have fatalities 10 times the flu. Now we're going to have fatalities closer to --
INGRAHAM: About the same.
GIULIANI: -- to the flu.
INGRAHAM: Yes. About the flu.
GIULIANI: That's big news. That's big news.
INGRAHAM: That's really big news. The mortality rate is still not what -- we don't want any mortality.
GIULIANI: We should be happy. It may get --
INGRAHAM: But we've got to go, Rudy. It's great to see you.
If you thought spending $2.1 trillion would make Democrats happy, come on. The tin cup is out, many on the radical left complaining that this so- called stimulus bill didn't include all of the socialist goodies they wanted.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MAXINE WATERS (D-CA): HR 748 does not prohibit negative credit reporting during the crisis, forgive student loan debt, suspend all consumer credit payments, among other concerns. I look forward to working with the speaker, my committee colleagues, the Senate, and others on the next phase of relief.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Wait, next phase? Here to react, Congressman Lee Zeldin. Congressman, we kind of saw this coming, and the president even hinted at this, the states need a lot of help and they might need a lot more help. Is there any end to the money? Where is this money coming from? We're obviously printing it, borrowing it. What's going on here?
REP. LEE ZELDIN (R-NY): Yes, our debt going into this whole pandemic was already well north of $22 trillion, $23 trillion. So as far as where it comes from, we are not necessarily flush with cash going into this outbreak. For myself and for many of my colleagues, our focus was on small businesses, on workers, on hospitals, on state and local governments that are outlying a lot of money. I happen to represent a district right in the middle of this outbreak in New York. I'm on Long Island, that where I'm speaking to you from tonight.
Unfortunately, on the other side of the isle, I have some colleagues who are looking at this as an opportunity to push liberal fantasy wish list items that are totally unrelated to coronavirus, and that should be principle number one, whether it is the bill that we just passed or whatever the next bill may be, is that we should be focused solely on what will get us through this brief moment in time so that we come out the other side stronger.
INGRAHAM: It's too bad the president couldn't -- we don't have the numbers. When you lose the House of Representatives, you lose the leverage. So we don't have the house. Pelosi has the majority. So we allow all this, sorry, c-r-a-p in the bill, $350 million for refugee and migrant resettlement. That's got to the Catholic Church, resettling, and Lutheran Church, resettling all illegal immigrants and migrants, that's insane. How does that have anything to do with COVID-19?
ZELDIN: That example is one that should be debated in a different bill on a different day, but I agree with you, it's not something that's related to coronavirus that should be included in this bill or the next bill.
INGRAHAM: It's a joke.
ZELDIN: It was excessive, when you see $25 million for the Kennedy Center. There are other items, like ballot harvesting in their reforms to try to win elections in November that they tried to get in that didn't make it.
INGRAHAM: Oh, that's coming.
ZELDIN: The Green New Deal they tried to get in. They're trying to incentivize sanctuary cities and target ICE.
INGRAHAM: Yes, well, Democrats were really upset, Congressman Zeldin, that there was no funding for this really important aspect of COVID-19.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JAN SCHAKOWSKY (D-IL): I am deeply disturbed that my Republican colleagues are trying to exclude local Planned Parenthood clinics from this small business financing. And I'm also really disappointed that they took this opportunity to irrelevantly add to this the Hyde Amendment.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Congressman, this is where the Democrats always go. Always has to go to the culture of death, as we are supposedly fighting death and destruction of this virus. We have got to keep funding death on the other side of abortion.
ZELDIN: That's pandering. That should be, once again, for some other bill on some other day, not this, related to coronavirus. That's why they cut off at 500 employees, Planned Parenthood doesn't qualify.
INGRAHAM: Congressman, great to see you tonight, and stay safe out there, and God bless all of your constituents.
And coming up, celebrities are finding new ways to pass the time under lockdown. Some are singing classic tunes, but are they falling flat? And the late-night shows get less funny by the day. Wait until you see what they are resorting to now. "Friday Follies," much needed, with Ray Arroyo, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
INGRAHAM: It's Friday, and that means it's time for -- oh, "Friday Follies." We need it now more than ever. Share details with us is Raymond Arroyo, FOX News contributor, author of "Will Wilder 3, Amulet of Power," now in paperback.
All right, Ray, this corona quarantine has not only changed the way we live, ug, but it's revived careers? Tell us about what we on "The Ingraham Angle" are calling the corona come back tour.
RAYMOND ARROYO, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Yes, Laura. Look, there's a definite 70s vibe on social media as some of the biggest stars of that era are reaching out in ways we never expected, like this.
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(SINGING)
NEIL DIAMOND, SINGER/SONGWRITER: Washing hands, reaching out. Don't touch me. I won't touch you
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARROYO: Neil Diamond is in great form there, hilarious. And he's been suffering with Parkinson's, so it's great to see him.
Laura, one of your favorites returned this week in a big way, singing an Andrew Lloyd Webber tune, "You Might Call It Puppy Love," Donny Osmond.
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(SINGING)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: May I return to the beginning. The light is dimming.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARROYO: Laura, do you know how hard it is to do choreography on Instagram? That's hard. That's talent.
INGRAHAM: Wait, Raymond, I have a question. Was he wearing his technicolor jacket?
ARROYO: He was, he was wearing the technicolor dream coat in his studio. That's real talent.
(LAUGHTER)
ARROYO: Then there were some comebacks, Laura, that I'm sure nobody asked for.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROSIE O'DONNELL: It's me, Rosie O'Donnell, from the comfort of my garage/art studio.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How about this one?
(MUSIC)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You and I did a duet of this.
O'DONNELL: Yes, at Radio City.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARROYO: Laura, that was so rough I'm surprised they didn't lose money for that fundraiser.
INGRAHAM: I don't even have words for that.
ARROYO: That was a fundraiser, believe it or not.
And things were even rougher on late-night, Laura. Over on late-night it is train wreck. As everybody adjust to living in this quarantine, in New York, you had Jimmy Fallon, who is now apparently broadcasting from his own personal daycare. Watch.
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JIMMY FALLON, LATE NIGHT TALK SHOW HOST: Do you feel like laughing at daddy's joke? I saw that some Americans are now having virtual happy hours.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, no.
FALLON: Can you whisper, guys?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mine.
FALLON: I heard the people stuck at home right now are eating more and sleeping less. It's like everyone on earth just got dumped.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARROYO: Two, we only need two. OK, Laura, I think he's actually better at home.
INGRAHAM: That's kind of cute. His daughters are gorgeous.
ARROYO: But the late-night mayor, as I call it, continues over at Jimmy Kimmel. He is so starved for guests, he skyped to a particular Wilmington rest home last night.
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JIMMY KIMMEL, LATE NIGHT TALK SHOW HOST: Hello, Joe Biden.
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: What's that hat you have on?
KIMMEL: New York Mets. It's supposed to be opening day.
You know what, this is not the way to win the voters, Mr. Vice president.
BIDEN: I'll tell you, it's the way to be able to sleep with my wife. She is a Philly girl. If I wore anything buy Phillys, I'd be out of luck, man.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARROYO: Laura, this is the moment, though, that he shared with Kimmel that I think tells the tale. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIMMY KIMMEL, LATE NIGHT TALK SHOW HOST: You've prepared a song for us. Do you sing? I've seen President Obama sing.
BIDEN: I can't sing worth a damn. I'm the only one of my family that has zero talent. Zero.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(LAUGHTER)
ARROYO: Laura, what do you make of those comebacks, and using poor Biden like this?
INGRAHAM: Well, let me just say -- can we go back to Barry Manilow for a moment?
ARROYO: Must we?
INGRAHAM: First of all, monster talent, incredible talent. You don't even - - it goes without saying. But it's hard to do those skyped duets, Raymond, even for a good cause.
ARROYO: With buffering audio. With buffered audio, it's really bad. It's really bad.
INGRAHAM: Oh, no, no, no. But I've got to say, I enjoyed the late-night hosts at home, I agree with you, more than in the studio, because it's more real. To me, it seemed more real.
ARROYO: I agree.
INGRAHAM: And their kids are adorable. I can watch the kids all day long, that's what I'm doing.
ARROYO: Laura, before we go, the restaurant industry in New Orleans has been decimated.
INGRAHAM: Horrible.
ARROYO: A group of chefs are getting together for something called curbside -- it's a curbside fish fry every Friday. Is a tradition here to have fish on Fridays. They are banding together during Lent to make this happen. And they are contributing to something called the Louisiana Hospitality Foundation to keep all of these restaurant workers, 5 million to 7 million of them across the country, fed and taken care of here in New Orleans. So a great charity. I went tonight, and Father Nulty (ph) blessed all the food. It was a great charity. And my fried catfish was excellent.
INGRAHAM: Awesome Father Nulty (ph) Monsignor is the best, and did he bless you from six feet, I hope.
ARROYO: Yes, always.
INGRAHAM: Raymond, thanks so much. I'm still thinking what Barry Manilow, though.
All right, for years, the left has been bashing Trump's America first policies, but they don't seem to be anything but prescient now. Victor Davis Hanson explains why, next.
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TRUMP: I had a great conversation with the president to China last night. We talked about the whole concept, how it happened, when it happened. He's developed some incredible theories, and all of that information is coming over here. A lot of it has already come. The data, we call it the data. And we are going to learn a lot from what the Chinese went through.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: We need the data from China, all of it. That was the president today at his COVID-19 briefing. Joining me now is Victor Davis Hanson, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. Victor, for all of us who have been hitting the drum on China and everything they've done on trade and stealing our I.P., and carelessness with this virus reporting, it's interesting to hear the president speak so highly of President Xi, but nevertheless, he wants to get along with everyone, especially at a time like this.
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON, HOOVER INSTITUTION: I wouldn't be offensive to the president of China when much of our critical supplies and medical appurtenances and antibiotics are still controlled by the Chinese. I don't think he will be so complementary when that is no longer the case.
But you know, a lot of his views, Laura, that we for the last five years that were written off as unorthodox, heterodox, if you think about it, they become almost conventional wisdom now. He said you can't trust the Chinese Communist Party in 2015, and lo and behold, we don't, now. And he said you don't really have a country unless you have industry and assembly of key materials here in the United States. And everybody today wishes that we had control of our medical supplies and pharmaceutical. He said you don't have a country unless you have secure borders. Even the Europeans agree with that now. And he said if a country can't verify who it's sending to us, we're going to have travel bans. And we had that travel ban of Nigeria and Iran and North Korea, and suddenly, everybody is angry, but you don't hear Joe Biden saying, you know what, that travel ban against China was really unfair, and I want this 15,000 Chinese to come in every single day. You don't hear that.
INGRAHAM: Right.
HANSON: It's kind of ironic that we just shrugged, that this is conventional wisdom, but when he said it, it was heresy. When you have half the country shut down, you want a president who says to farmers here in California, you guys need water, we're going to give it to you. We want to produce food.
INGRAHAM: We are going to get it for you.
HANSON: You want him to say, you guys in Pennsylvania, you guys in Texas, get muddy and start fracking, because we want people in their apartments and their homes to have heat when they turn on the thermostat. And when you have prisons letting out people, thank God you have a president that supports Second Amendment rights. So a lot of his mentality, his ideology, his common sense, it really comes in handy in a period of extremis, like an extreme situation like we are in now.
INGRAHAM: Victor, Victor, I loved it when Merkel stopped that shipment of medical supplies out of Germany. She's like, no, no, no, that's for us. Closing their borders in Europe.
I just want to show, real quick, Victor, this is Hillary Clinton's tweet today on the news that the coronavirus cases here in the United States top China's. "He did promise America first." That was her tweet. She is not bitter or anything, Victor. Close it out. You've got about 30 seconds.
HANSON: Yes, it was really sad. It was so ignorant, because, a, it required trust in the Chinese Communist Party, which hasn't changed those basically in two weeks, which is false. And second and most importantly, it's a per capita basis. We have four times the population of Germany and five times the population of France. So no wonder we have more cases. But adjudicated on per capita, we are doing pretty well.
INGRAHAM: Victor, great to see you tonight. Stay safe out there.
And coming up, a squad member gets a new job. Stay tuned. The Last Bite, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
INGRAHAM: All right, it's time for the Last Bite. All right, we all know AOC could make a wicked skinny martini, but that's not where her talent ends.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(MUSIC)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: She can conduct an orchestra with those of gesticulations on the floor.
All right, that's all the time we have tonight.
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