Sen. Paul says it's 'astonishing' Obama officials requested unmasking of political opponent

This is a rush transcript from "Your World with Neil Cavuto," May 13, 2020. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

NEIL CAVUTO, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: All right, thank you very much, Bill Hemmer.

We are momentarily going to be talking to Senator Rand Paul about unmasking the unmaskers and what happens right now. So much we don't know. This much, we do.

It's a pretty heavy list of former officials, going all the way up to the former Vice President of the United States Joe Biden. It includes the acting director of national intelligence at the time, the former FBI director, a host of national security figures, all of whom had amazing curiosity about General Flynn, what he knew and when he knew it, and to try to get his identity sooner, rather than later.

Again, Ric Grenell, the guy who has been running our natural intelligence on an interim basis, got these names. Those names are out right now. What we don't know is how a lot of them collectively are responding.

What we do know is that Rand Paul wants to talk to a number of people, including Ric Grenell. We are told as well, as been told -- as you just heard from Bill, that right now he is not going to be made available to Senator Paul's committee for the time being.

Let's get the latest now at the White House from John Roberts. The president is meeting with governors right now, two of them at least, the last time I checked, on obviously the virus and the continued moving out to get rid of these provisions and restrictions that have been in place, in some cases for a number of weeks -- John

JOHN ROBERTS, FOX NEWS CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good afternoon to you, Neil.

Yes, this meeting that the president was about to engage in with the governors of Colorado and North Dakota really was kind of this afternoon's headline, but that has been eclipsed now with the release of this list of 39 persons who may have received the name of Michael Flynn unmasked from these intelligence intercepts, a request put in by some 16 individuals.

And we're just trying to delineate now between this list of 39 people, who the 16 were who actually made the request. But we are expecting President Trump is going to weigh in on this very shortly. We will have that tape for you.

Meantime, Senator Ron Johnson, who had requested this, along with Senator Charles Grassley, put out a statement about its release, saying -- quote -- "Today, we received a list of individuals who requested the unmasking of Lieutenant General Michael Flynn and others who received access to that information. The officials listed should confirm whether they reviewed this information, why they asked for it and what they did with it and answer many other questions that have been raised by recent revelations.

"The records are one step forward in an important effort to get to the bottom of what the Obama administration did during the Russia investigation and to Lieutenant General Flynn."

While it was Senator Johnson and Senator Grassley's office who originally released this list of 39 individuals, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul did a short time ago as well.

And here's what he said about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): This is incredibly troubling. This question absolutely must be investigated. That's why today I'm inviting the director of national intelligence to come to testify next week on these troubling declassified documents that now show that Vice President Biden and virtually the entire top echelon of the administration of President Obama was listening to an American's conversation without a constitutional warrant, unmasking him.

(END VIDEO CLIP) ROBERTS: Now, you noticed there that Senator Paul talked about Joe Biden.

What's interesting about this is, we now know, and Senator -- and former Vice President Biden talked about this on "Good Morning America," and that is that, back in early part of January 2017, he and President Obama were briefed by then FBI Director James Comey about the FBI's desire to interview Michael Flynn.

This was right about the same time that people who were investigating Flynn, who had the code name Crossfire Razor, as part the greater Crossfire Hurricane investigation of whether or not there was any Russia -- any collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign, had deemed that there was no derogatory information about Flynn.

So here we have one component of the FBI saying, we got nothing on Flynn. We got another component of the FBI, led by Peter Strzok, saying, no, let's go after him. You have got the director of the FBI, James Comey, telling the vice president that the FBI is interested in hearing from him.

And then you have Vice President Joe Biden, on the 12th of January, which I believe was after that meeting, requesting the unmasking of Flynn's name in an intelligence intercept of a conversation with the Russian ambassador to the United States.

So, the plot is getting thicker and thicker here, Neil. And we will see where all of this goes. But we will be hearing from the president shortly on this, no doubt.

CAVUTO: Do we know the order of events, though?

When you are requesting or trying to get the identity of unmasking who an official is, at that time, would they have known, any of these now nearly dozen individuals involved, more than that, 39, by one count, as you said, that their suspicions were it was Flynn?

Or how does that process go?

ROBERTS: You know, I can't say what they were thinking when the requests were made.

But the part of it that people find very suspicious -- and most of those people are on the Republican side of the political fence -- is, why, between the transition and the inauguration, were all of these requests put in?

We do know that the national security adviser of the time, Susan Rice, by her own admission, had asked for Flynn's name to be unmasked. I am told that that was likely before Election Day. And that could be something that could be viewed as very prudent. If you're the national security adviser, you want to know what's going on around you prior to the election.

But the fact that this happened between the election and the transition, to some people, looks suspicious, in that it's not looking to confirm whether or not these people can be trusted, but maybe looking for political dirt on them. At least that's what a lot of people on the Republican side of the fence are saying this looks like.

CAVUTO: John Roberts, thank you very much.

Among those who are wondering, and curiously, at that, about whether this was just a political vendetta, Rand Paul, the chairman of the Federal Spending Oversight and Emerging Management Subcommittee, to whom he was eager to have Ric Grenell address, the acting intelligence official.

Senator, where does that stand? Is Ric Grenell going to testify to your committee? Have you got confirmation of that?

PAUL: No.

But I did send a letter last evening to the director of national intelligence, Ric Grenell, and asked him if he would declassify this. And we got this information today and released it.

And I think this is astonishing, that Vice President Biden and really all of President Obama's inner circle individually were requesting the unmasking of a political opponent.

And you remember there was a whole to-do about trying to impeach a president, saying they were using the power of government to go after a political opponent. This is -- this is a smoking gun, if there ever was one, that Vice President Biden was using the power of government, abusing that power to go after a political opponent.

Essentially unmasking someone is the equivalent of illegally wiretapping them. The government had permission to listen to the Russian ambassador, but, to protect Americans, we masked their identity.

But you got the whole President Obama's inner circle clamoring around, listening to the private conversation, I think illegally, and I think with ill -- ill -- ill-begotten motives.

CAVUTO: Do you know, Senator, whether these unmasking requests then, in each and all of these cases, occurred after the election?

I mean, obviously, the assessment was, prior to the election, that Hillary Clinton was going to win. Obviously, that didn't happen. So, did a lot of this then transpire after the election itself?

PAUL: The document meant that we got listed all the names and listed the date that they did the unmasking.

So, the vice president unmasked General Flynn to listen to his conversation, which I think is reprehensible. But so did James Comey. So did James Clapper. So did John Brennan. So did Samantha Power. And so did President Obama's chief of staff and a dozen other people.

So, think about this. It's illegal to listen to people's private conversations. You can listen to, if you have a national security matter, a foreigner. But unless the foreigner is saying, we're going to blow up the Capitol and will you help me, you don't get to listen to the other person's conversation if they're just talking.

So, General Flynn was never accused of saying anything untoward, never saying anything that was committing a crime, but they all listened to his conversation. And then they all decided, we have got to get this guy. Let's try to entrap him. Let's try to bring him in and see if we can get him either to lie, make a misstatement, or we can get him on the Logan Act.

So, this was a cabal. This was a conspiracy. And, really, the question is, did President Obama direct it all, or did Vice President Biden? Now, we now know for a fact Vice President Biden was involved. And he needs to be questioned on this, because we can't elevate someone to the presidency who's willing to use the intelligence community to spy on his political opponents.

That should be a deal-killer.

CAVUTO: Because the timing is important, Senator, as you know probably better than anyone, that the administration, the Obama administration, in its waning weeks, was slapping punitive measures for their involvement in the election.

And then, lo and behold, they argue they get wind of a top Trump aide who is now talking to the Russian ambassador. Would that raise enough concerns to justify them wanting to know more about that?

PAUL: Well, the national security adviser's job is to interact with foreign leaders.

And I think, if you looked at the Obama administration and actually look at press reports, there are dozens of press reports of the Obama administration on the way in, when they came in after George W. Bush, of them talking to foreign leaders.

I -- there's nothing wrong. In fact, I think it's appropriate to talk to foreign leaders and to discuss a wide range.

But it should be and is illegal to listen to an American's conversation. And it's even worse if you're listening to an American who just happens to be your political opponent from the opposite party.

So, no, this was -- this was a conspiracy of high-ranking Obama officials to try to falsely convict and taint a 33-year veteran of the military. I think it's reprehensible.

CAVUTO: You know, you have heard a number of top Democratic officials, Senator, are saying that this is all subterfuge and a distraction campaign led by Republicans.

Even this morning, in The New York Times, Steve Aftergood, an expert on government classification, was saying: "It is part of a struggle over who controls the narrative of the investigation of the 2016 election," going on to say: "It is putting the spotlight on the investigators, rather than the investigated. It is saying that the -- what's irregular here is not the extraordinary contacts with the Russian government, but the attempt to understand that."

What do you say?

PAUL: Yes, I think what you find is, and what we're finding as we look at the FISA court and these secret courts that were intended to be used against foreigners, that the Obama administration, and, frankly, some Republican administrations have turned these organizations that are supposed to be directed towards foreigners and turned them on to Americans.

This is an abuse of power. This is a bigger, broader debate. We're now discussing the FISA court and the Patriot Act. And I'm making the point that a secret court that doesn't use the Constitution as its standard should not be used to investigate a presidential campaign.

So, I have an amendment that I will put forward tomorrow that says it's illegal. Americans would be exempt from this foreign court. And you would be surprised the institutional forces around here, many of them still want to keep this, because they like this secret court.

But this secret court is unconstitutional, in the sense that their standard is that you might be working or a probable cause that you're working with a foreign government.

The Fourth Amendment says, we can't spy on you or get a warrant unless there is probable cause of committing a crime. That's a much higher standard. So, that's why I think Americans should not be included in the FISA court.

And my amendment would fix this. I don't care if you're a Republican, a Democrat or an independent. The intelligence community, the spies should not be spying on Americans, and particularly not on American campaigns.

CAVUTO: Do you think that, eventually, Ric Grenell will -- will talk to your committee?

PAUL: I think we need to get to the bottom of this.

I don't know how much longer he's going to be in the intelligence director's spot. But I do think it's important that he declassified this, because, in his short term over there, he's trying to get to the truth.

And is there anything you can imagine why this would be classified? It's classified only to cover their tracks. And this is a problem with classification in general in government. It's overused by the executive branch to cover up crimes and abuse of power.

This, at the very least, was an abuse of power. And because Ric Grenell was brave enough to declassify it, we now know that the vice president, Biden, was intimately involved in this. And we have this perplexing question, why dozens, even assistants to assistants, were now looking at this.

There's also the question that others are bringing up. Samantha Power did this over 200 times. And when she was asked about it, she says she didn't remember most of those and didn't think she really did it.

Well, if she didn't do it, who did it? And who could have the power to unmask people, listen and eavesdrop on them, without telling their boss? I mean, this is an enormous power, and it needs to be curtailed.

So, for me, this isn't about politics. This is about abuse of power, and why we should always try and strive hard to limit government power, particularly with these spy agencies.

CAVUTO: Now, Ric Grenell is free to decline talking to your committee. Could you force the issue?

PAUL: My committee doesn't have subpoena power.

But I think he's already done a great service by releasing this, by declassifying this. And we're getting closer to the truth. I think now, one of the...

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: By the way, he declassified this, Senator. Could I understand, did you then release the classified material to the public?

PAUL: Yes, I released this about an hour ago.

CAVUTO: OK.

PAUL: I requested this from him by letter. When it was released, and we got the information, we released that today.

And so I'm proud of the fact that he stepped up and did something that I think we need more of in government. And that is to shine a light on what goes on...

CAVUTO: All right.

PAUL: ... and, when people use government in a corrupt fashion, to shine a light on it.

CAVUTO: Senator, thank you very much for taking the time.

Senator Rand Paul on this.

Again, we are hopefully going to hear more from this from the president of the United States. He's meeting with key governors in the process of reopening this country.

The concerns that that might be having a bumpy ride weighed on stocks today, as well as the chairman of the Federal Reserve saying, we're going to need more help. There's not exactly a way out of this just yet.

Stocks down about 516 points, technology stocks taking it on the chin, again, growing concerns about the pace of coming out of these coronavirus shutdowns.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAVUTO: All right, at the corner of Wall and Broad, we had a major sell-off today.

It didn't help matters any that there's concern that some states are having some bumpy rides to reopening. We got confirmation in California the state university system there not going to open up in the fall, as planned. It will be a virtual start.

That jarred some people, thinking that, certainly, by then, they could reopen normally. And then we got word that a number of other states are having bumps along the way, stubbornly high cases here.

And that was quickly interpreted as a slow go to this unwinding of lifting some of these shelter-in-place provisions that have been pretty much the rule now for the last six to seven weeks, depending on the state.

And then we had Jerome Powell in the mix here, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, saying that Herculean efforts have been made to shore up the economy, the Federal Reserve's been doing everything and anything it can, but that the economy will probably need still more stimulus.

He didn't outline what he particularly wanted to see. But that notion that the $3 trillion rescue we have seen on the fiscal side, and the trillions more spent supporting the Federal Reserve's efforts to boost the economy, right now might not be enough.

And if he's saying that, the guy who runs the Federal Reserve is saying that, then maybe he's seeing something that a lot of people did not, do not, and that contributed to the sell-off here.

But, by and large, the markets are still experiencing a big comeback from where they were, but over the last couple of days, concerns about now where we are going.

So this push to reopen is going to be a center focus right now.

Aishah Hasnie joins us right now, taking a look at how that's going from New York City -- Aishah.

AISHAH HASNIE, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Neil.

So, in New Jersey, the governor just announced some restrictions that will be loosened here in the next couple of days. He says he can't turn the light switch back on immediately, but they have made some meaningful progress.

Let's take a look at what's being loosened up here. Starting Monday the 18th, New Jersey will allow nonessential construction, as long as they're wearing masks and staggering work hours, having the proper safeguards in place.

Nonessential retail stores will also be able to reopen, curbside pickup only, though. And drive-through and drive-in events can reopen under social distancing guidelines.

The governor is also hoping the state can resume elective surgeries by the end of the week, along with releasing some new protocol for reopening beaches.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. PHIL MURPHY (D-NJ): I think the steps we're taking are responsible steps, given that we're sort of in that balancing reality, that we have made meaningful progress -- there's no other way to put it -- but we're still -- also, there's no other way to put the word that we're not in the end zone yet.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HASNIE: So here's a look at states beginning to reopen or relax restriction.

States like Virginia will allow restaurants to have outdoor capacity starting May 15. Barbershops also there will be able to reopen with the use of face coverings.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles County, if you heard about this, will likely extend its stay-at-home order for the next three months. The county has reopened its beaches under social distancing rules.

Governor Newsom said some businesses, some offices there in the state can reopen, but only seven rural counties, the green counties you see here, have permission to reopen their economies a whole lot quicker.

Now, Governor Newsom says this is a county-by-county basis when he comes to making decisions on what's going to reopen, and it's all going to be based on data -- Neil.

CAVUTO: All right, Aishah, thank you very, very much. Very good report here.

We are monitoring that in New York too, and about when it is open for business. A telltale sign might be the prospects for Broadway reopening, closed right through Labor Day. That might be sort of the tip of the hand for the rest of the city and how they stagger into that.

We're following that. We are also following the White House, the president meeting with key governors right now on their reopening plans. No doubt he will be addressing this unmasking issue, Senator Rand Paul among those saying, at least among Republicans, this doesn't smell right at all.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) CAVUTO: All right, we are still waiting to hear from president of the United States.

He's meeting with two key governors, a Republican and a Democrat, right now, from Colorado, one from North Dakota, on how they're doing this unwinding process.

But we're also waiting to hear what the president makes of these latest revelations, the now declassified names on this unmasking that was going on targeting General Michael Flynn, of course, the president's first national security adviser who served him all of 24 hours, that the focus right now seems to be on whether this was a cabal or an effort after the election to go after this administration.

Now, I have a lot to talk with retired Army Lieutenant General Jerry Boykin on some matters involve China.

But I'd be remiss, General, if you will be -- indulge me, what you make of these latest revelations, these unmaskings, and the fact that it involved a who's-who of the Obama White House. Does it stand out in any way to you, for you?

LT. GEN. JERRY BOYKIN (RET.), U.S. ARMY: Well, I tell you, if -- first of all, I have known Mike Flynn for a long time, and he's a very good man, and he was a great intel officer.

But if they get by with this, then every American should -- should not sleep well at night, because this is exactly what Americans fear about their government. I think this is what our founding fathers were afraid of, is a government out of control.

And this is an indication that that's exactly what we saw in the end of the Obama administration here with what's been revealed.

CAVUTO: So, we know the timing of this, General. And all of this occurred after the election.

So an election that everyone thought Hillary Clinton would win and Donald Trump would not goes just the opposite, and then this interest in who Mike Flynn was talking to or not talking to.

Democrats always come back, General, and say, well, he said that he hadn't been talking to the Russian ambassador. It turns out he did. He lied about that. That's what got him in a heap of trouble. You can't change those -- those facts.

What do you say to that?

BOYKIN: Yes, well, let me say that I think Michael Flynn was targeted to some extent because he was the one that led the "Lock her up" chant there at the Republican National Convention.

And I think that there was a -- there was a lot of resentment towards him over that, particularly by people inside the administration and the Clinton campaign as well.

But I also think that if we let them get by with this -- this egregious behavior here, what we're saying is that it is not important to abide by the rule of law.

And President Obama has just talked about the Obama -- I mean, the rule of law and how it's been jeopardized as a result of this. But I say, if we don't do something swiftly about this, then what he just said is right, except it's a matter of what his administration did that has brought us to this point.

CAVUTO: Is there anything untoward to you that an incoming national security adviser, certainly at the time just a key foreign policy adviser to the then president-elect, is talking to the leaders or top officials of other countries?

Is that, in and of itself even noteworthy to you?

BOYKIN: Well, I don't know exactly how the Logan Act reads or how it's applied.

But what I would say is this. It seems like common sense to me that you have got an incoming national security adviser. The election is over with. You have got an incoming national security adviser that knows that Russia is a -- is going to be an issue that has to be dealt with.

And he talks to the Russian ambassador about what he is thinking possibly, what the president, the incoming president, is thinking. And I just do not see the harm in that.

Now, he wasn't making any commitments, the best I understand. He made no commitments on behalf of the Trump administration. But I just don't see the issue that has brought us to this point here.

CAVUTO: I know you have got another book out now, "Man to Man: Rediscovering Masculinity in a Challenging World."

I know you don't address maybe the China relationship here, but the timing is interesting, because we're talking pretty tough bravado with each other, the Chinese, what they knew and when they knew it, the Chinese responding, the White House lies through its teeth on this stuff.

It's pretty nasty. And I'm just wondering where you think it's going, because now reports that the Chinese are trying to get in on COVID-19 research, where it's going, trying to hack that kind of research, charges that they have not been exactly honest when it comes to the sources of the COVID-19 when it first erupted in their country.

What do you think of all of this and the way they have been behaving, we have been responding?

BOYKIN: I don't think there's any question that this -- this came out of the lab outside of Wuhan.

I don't think we could -- I think we're beyond the point of even questioning that, especially since our intelligence community has made a fairly significant statement about their -- the evidence that they have to that.

Now, I think that -- I think that this is going to have a huge impact on U.S.-China relations. I mean, if you think they were bad as a result of the trade negotiations, and the standoff that we were in there, I think that it's going to get worse.

And I must tell you that I think that President Trump has shown,first of all, that he was right about China. So much of our supply chain was tied to China. And now we're seeing the results of that.

And the trade deals that we gave China right after World War II that were never taken away, that were never reversed, and there was no good reason for it.

CAVUTO: That's right.

BOYKIN: And we were transferring millions, billions, billions of dollars to China.

I think that you're going to see some major changes as a result of this. And there -- I don't know how you do it. But I think there's going to be certainly states that are going to want to sue the Chinese to -- for reparations.

CAVUTO: Yes, they already are.

General, I thank you for your patience on these other matters.

I do want to talk to you more about the book. Anything that talks about rediscovering masculinity, I think it's a great idea and a great concept, and we should.

General, thank you very, very much, and for your service to this great country.

BOYKIN: Thank you.

CAVUTO: General Boykin.

We will have more after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) CAVUTO: The great unmasking.

Waiting to hear what the president thinks of the revelations of key top Obama officials that might have gone all the way up to the president of the United States himself at the time to get information on General Flynn, what happened then, and what the president does now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) CAVUTO: All right, New York and New Jersey the latest states to say, it's a bumpy ride, but we can see things eventually resuming. It just won't be immediate.

In the Garden State here, talk about more retail establishments that might have curbside pickup and the rest, so far not applying to restaurants just yet as far as in-room dining, that sort of thing.

In New York, of course, there's been positive news on the coronavirus, at least incidents where they have seen people have to require hospitalizations, the first step in that process continuing to go down.

So, generally, the numbers are looking good. The pace is looking a little slow. That rattled the markets somewhat that it might get really, really slow.

Dr. Roshini Raj joins us right now from the NYU Langone School of Medicine, associate professor, much more there.

Doctor, the markets -- and I know this isn't your field -- you're far too smart to concern yourself with stocks.

(LAUGHTER)

CAVUTO: But they seemed to pounce on the notion, wait, wait, this whole process of unwinding these provisions might take longer than we thought.

But you welcome news like that, right? You want them to be careful, right?

DR. ROSHINI RAJ, NYU LANGONE HEALTH: Absolutely, yes.

And, as you said, Neil, we are seeing some positive signs, slowly declining numbers. But this is not a steep decline. But we are seeing a decrease in the number of admissions to the hospital, number of intubated patients, number of deaths, which is all good news.

But we're not seeing dramatic decreases here. It's just slowly decreasing. And so we do -- we do need to be very careful.

CAVUTO: Do you think we're almost being too careful on this issue, though, Doctor?

I mean, I know, in California, for example, they have already pre-announced that the fall academic year won't go off as scheduled for colleges and universities under the statewide system, and that they will be virtual still.

What did you make of that?

RAJ: I don't think we can be too careful.

I think we need to wait and see how the next couple of months ensue. And so maybe that decision made now was a little premature. I think maybe if we see what goes on the next two months, and it looks like things are decreasing more dramatically than we expected, then maybe the fall could be a time to open back up.

I think the most important thing is that we're ready to read and react to the situation, so that if we do see an uptick as we slowly reopen, whether it's restaurants or businesses, we're very ready to act on that resurgence, and we have the testing and the tracing capacity to really nip anything that's going on in the bud.

I don't know that we have that right at this moment. And that's why I think going slowly and cautiously is definitely the way to go, until we really have the testing capacity and the tracing capacity, as well as hopefully a cure or a vaccine, of course.

CAVUTO: Right.

The president apparently was addressing this very issue with our Maria Bartiromo, Doctor, on this idea of schools, when and how they reopen.

I want you to react to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARIA BARTIROMO, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Dr. Fauci is saying a different thing. He says he's worried about spikes turning into outbreaks.

He said, it seems like it could be too soon and that the major message he wants to convey is that the danger is, if we skip over the checkpoints in the guidelines to open America again, then we risk the danger of multiple outbreaks.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So, Anthony is a good person, very good person.

I have disagreed with him. When I closed the border to China, he disagreed with that. And then, ultimately, he agreed, and he said I saved hundreds of thousands of lives, which is what happened.

Everybody disagreed when I did that.

I think that we have to open our schools. Young people are very little affected by this. We have to get the schools open. We have to get our country open. We have to open our country.

Now, we want to do it safely. But we also want to do it as quickly as possible. We can't keep going on like this. I mean, you're going to have -- you're having bedlam already in the streets. You can't -- you can't do this.

We have to get it open. I totally disagree with him on schools.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAVUTO: Doctor, what did you think of that?

RAJ: Well, I mean, I have to side with Dr. Fauci on this one.

And what he's saying is, you have to have guidelines in place, so that, as states or communities reopen, they are ready to react if we do see clusters of cases, so that they don't grow into epidemics that may be even worse than the original one that we have just sort of maybe are seeing the tail end.

So, I think it definitely makes sense to be careful and go more slowly than to kind of rapidly dive back in. And I think the president mentioned children and now being sort of immune to this. We are now seeing -- and, albeit, it's still rare and a few cases, but we're about 100 cases of children being affected by COVID here in New York.

CAVUTO: Yes.

RAJ: So, I think we're learning -- as the months go by, we are learning more and more how devastating and pervasive this disease can be, different parts of the body, not just the lungs anymore.

We're seeing strokes, we're seeing dialysis, the need for dialysis. So now children are being affected in some way. I think we still don't have a great handle on COVID as a virus. We don't have a cure. We don't have a vaccine. And we still don't have the testing or the tracing capacity that we need. So...

CAVUTO: All right, Dr. Raj, thank you very, very much.

And to the doctor's point, as she said, there are a number of kids now who have contracted these more serious ailments that people didn't appreciate.

And to the president's point, we will never know how many more could have died. We do know that more than 81,000 Americans have died.

We will have more after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAVUTO: All right, at what point do people stop working from home?

Well, to hear Google tell it, right through the summer, right through the end of the year, if necessary. If that's what employees want, so be it.

Then there are people like Mr. Dorsey over at Twitter, who said, you can do it forever, if you want.

So what is the rule of thumb on this?

Jackie DeAngelis has been looking into it,.

Because I think, Jackie, it has gotten to be the new normal, hasn't it?

JACKIE DEANGELIS, FOX BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Good afternoon, Neil.

That's exactly right. Look, more people, they're forced to work at home right now because of the pandemic. And many have been actually finding it's working just fine, especially in the area of technology.

Some companies pushing their employees to continue to work remotely, like you said, for the remainder of the year, at least until we know more.

Twitter taking it a step further, CEO Jack Dorsey e-mailing employees, telling them they can work at home forever, even after the lockdowns are lifted.

He says -- quote -- "The past few months have proven we can make that work. So if our employees are in a role and a situation that enables them to work from home, and they want to continue to do so forever, we will make that happen."

Now, Twitter was one of the first companies to push a work-at-home policy in early March, when this all started. It looks like it's not going to be one of the first to bring the employees back.

But not all the tech giants are actually taking the same approach here, Apple announcing that it's going to start to return more employees to work on site starting at the end of May, then a second wave scheduled to begin in July. It's going to bring even more employees back to Apple's offices globally.

What's interesting is that the COVID-19 lockdowns might have just sort of accelerated this style that companies were already adopting; 63 percent of the work force is currently working remotely. And more than half of those are working from home because of the pandemic.

But the same study shows that the new workflow has had actually a minimal reduction of productivity. So, we keep talking about a new normal, Neil. It looks like people can start getting used to working remotely because it's working for companies -- back to you.

CAVUTO: Yes, and their bottom line. They do like that.

All right, Jackie, thank you very much, Jackie DeAngelis.

All right, take you to the White House right now. The press is in the room with the president and the two governors with whom he's chatting, Colorado Governor Jared Polis, the Democrat, and North Dakota Republican Governor Doug Burgum.

The president no doubt will be not only talking to these guys and getting the latest on the efforts to reopen their states here and expand on their reopenings, but no doubt an opportunity to respond to the latest unmasking news from top Obama officials during the waning days of that administration, into this administration.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) CAVUTO: Boy, we are waiting on a lot of things, not only to hear from president of the United States on meeting with governors on the great reopening process that continues right out, but what he makes of the unmasking around his first national security adviser, Mike Flynn.

Then we are waiting to hear from the governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan, who is going to update folks on how things are going in the great reopening there, some bumps along the way, as I like to stress here. He is still looking at balancing the needs of the economy in his state, but certainly the safety of the people returning to work in his state.

With all of that to digest, we have Mike Emanuel right now in Washington on all these developments here.

It's an interesting balance, as we gotten into so many times, Mike, this idea of, you want to get the economy going. Concerns that these openings are delayed weighed on Wall Street. I'm sure they weigh on the various states affected. They get the president ticked off.

What are you getting as a sense of that maybe this process is going to be a lot longer than certainly the president hoped?

MIKE EMANUEL, FOX NEWS SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Neil, you're spot on.

You have got Governor Hogan from Maryland, who is the chair of the National Governors Association, a bipartisan group. The vice chair is Andrew Cuomo of New York. And so we expect that Governor Hogan is going to announce in the coming minutes that -- a loosening of some of the restrictions on the state of Maryland.

Last week, he authorized reopening golf courses, also some more outdoor activities in terms of waterfront, and allowing Marylanders to get out a little bit more.

We expect he's going to further loosen things today, but basically to say to county officials, if you don't think your county is there yet, you do not have to go this far, but this is the limit of what we're going to authorize.

So, we will be listing for that. But, bottom line, yes, there are a lot of people who are thinking, without a vaccine, that this process is going to be going on a whole lot longer. You better get used to wearing your mask. You better get used to social distancing, and that this is changing the American way of life, at least for the foreseeable future.

Broader context to this, you have also got Governor Hogan and Governor Cuomo of New York asking Congress, the folks behind me on Capitol Hill, for $500 billion to help replenish state coffers across the country.

Obviously, tax revenues down in all these states, and they have been spending on coronavirus response. And so Democrats on Capitol Hill very happy about that. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and others, who would like to wait a little longer, after authorizing three trillion in emergency spending, not so thrilled by that.

So, that's another thing to be watching for, Neil.

CAVUTO: Yes, not so thrilled is an understatement.

But it's still going to be a lot of money. It might not be the $3 trillion that Democrats want, but it will probably be over a trillion. So, I don't know where they sort of meet.

But it seems that aid to states, which is overwhelmingly part of the Democratic package, will be at least a good chunk eventually what the Senate comes up with, right?

EMANUEL: I think there's no question about that. A lot of these senators are hearing it from their governors, who are saying it's not a red state issue or blue state issue, it's an American issue.

We're all responding to this global pandemic. And so it's a very difficult time. It's put our states in a very difficult situation. And if you don't replenish our coffers, we're going to have to make tough decisions on firefighters, police, sanitation workers, and a lot of other key folks who are critical in the state's response to this crisis.

Also, add to the mix you have got an election year on the horizon. And so you do not want to see tremendous layoffs back home if you're on the ballot -- Neil.

CAVUTO: One thing I have seen, and you talked about at the outset, Mike, about these schools reopening, and the president has addressed that. He'd rather see them reopening.

But we got news overnight, of course, that the California university statewide system come this fall is not going to be meeting in person, that they will all be meeting virtually.

And you always wonder -- and maybe the president's concerned about that -- that other states follow suit. And that and the delay in some other activities means that this V-shaped recovery the president wants might not materialize. It will be a recovery, but it might not be a big one.

What are you hearing?

EMANUEL: Yes, you wonder the impact about that.

I have talked to parents who are considering sending children off to their freshman year of college who are saying...

CAVUTO: Right.

EMANUEL: ... maybe he should take a gap year or she should take a gap year and not go to college, because they want the full four-year experience on campus, living the college life that we all know.

CAVUTO: Right.

EMANUEL: And so some people have said California may have jumped the gun. Here we are. It's mid-May. We're talking about late August, early September.

Where will we be at that point? Might we have a better summer than some people anticipate? And there are a lot of people who are wondering, what's the impact on a lot of these universities? Are you going to pay $60,000, $70,000 a year for your kid to look at a laptop in your family room?

(LAUGHTER)

EMANUEL: Or is there going to be serious consequences on some of these private schools around the country that are charging top dollar?

CAVUTO: Yes.

EMANUEL: Obviously, there's value to the degree, but if you're going to pay to have your kid at home, maybe community college looks pretty good at that point, if they're going to be staring at a laptop -- Neil.

CAVUTO: There you go.

Mike, can you talk to my son, who is going to be a freshman in college this fall? Maybe, after we get off here, you can have that little chat with him.

(LAUGHTER)

CAVUTO: Mike Emanuel in Washington.

Is he just the best, or what?

All right, we are focusing on that. Again, per Mike's view here on what the president might think of this House stimulus measure, the $3 trillion one, the CARES Act, as they're calling it, the president doesn't care for it, the president indicating it is dead on arrival with him.

Stay with us. You're watching "Your World."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAVUTO: All right, you might have heard that today we had the sell-off at the corner of Wall and Broad.

A lot of that had to do with the musings of Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, who says, it's still tough sledding for the economy. That really doesn't even warrant a FOX Alert, but the market was seeing it as a bit of an alert here.

He also pooh-poohed the notion of negative interest rates, which, of course, dipped into that territory in countries like Germany and Italy for a while. He doesn't think they're going to happen here, doesn't think they'd be very beneficial here.

The president, though, has been saying that he does think it's a good idea, could be very, very stimulative. But, again, he parts company with his Federal Reserve chairman, who thinks just the opposite.

By the way, on that and this rift that had been pretty much the case between Jerome Powell and the White House, the president thinks he's been doing a good job at dealing with this, and he has no real complaints about it.

Whether that would mean that he would reappoint him, should the president himself get reelected, that's anyone's guess. But, right now, he is off his, well, kind of nasty list, for now.

That will do it for now.

Here comes "THE FIVE."

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