This is a rush transcript from "Sunday Morning Futures," April 19, 2020. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
MARIA BARTIROMO, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Happy Sunday, everybody. Welcome to "Sunday Morning Futures." I'm Maria Bartiromo.
We have breaking news this morning: barbaric moves from China over the weekend, arrests of pro-democracy leaders on Saturday, including media tycoon Jimmy Lai, as the fight for freedom in Hong Kong continues, all this as the United States is plotting a three-phase plan to reopen the economy, amid more signs emerging that indicate the coronavirus escaped from that super lab in China Senator Tom Cotton told us about back in February.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. TOM COTTON (R-AR): We don't know where it originated, but we do know that we have to get to the bottom of that.
We also know that just a few miles away from that food market is China's only biosafety level 4 super laboratory that researches human infectious diseases.
Now, we don't have evidence that this disease originated there, but because of China's duplicity and dishonesty from the beginning, we need to at least ask the question to see what the evidence says, and China right now is not giving any evidence on that question at all.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: We will hear from two people this morning who warned the White House and the world back in January that the coronavirus could become a global pandemic of catastrophic portions. Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon are here.
Also ahead, Senator Tim Scott on partisan gridlock over funding small businesses. What will happen this upcoming week? We will get the breaking news.
Senator John Barrasso also here, a medical doctor himself, on how the country can safely reopen.
All that and a lot more, as we look ahead right here, right now on "Sunday Morning Futures."
And China coming under intense scrutiny this week, amid mounting criticism of its early response to the coronavirus outbreak.
My first guest this morning was one of the first to see the pandemic coming.
We want to bring in White House trade adviser Peter Navarro.
Peter, it's great to see you this morning.
PETER NAVARRO, DIRECTOR, WHITE HOUSE OFFICE OF TRADE AND MANUFACTURING POLICY: Good morning, Maria.
BARTIROMO: And thank you for all your early warnings and your great work on this, Peter. I know you have been busy with the supply chain issues.
But I want to talk first about China and what we're learning this morning. Pro-democracy activists were arrested over the weekend, Peter, a further crackdown on Hong Kong, as China continues to exert authoritarianism throughout Hong Kong.
Your reaction to what we saw this weekend and, broadly speaking, what China has done in the midst of this coronavirus pandemic?
NAVARRO: Maria, my focus here at the White House is making sure that the people of America are safe from this virus and getting things like personal protective equipment, masks, ventilators and things like that.
But here is what I can tell you about China. If you think about what China did over the course of this thing, they did four things that led to the deaths of many people worldwide.
I mean, first of all, the virus was spawned in China. Second of all, they hid the virus behind the shield of the World Health Organization. The third thing they did was basically hoard personal protective equipment, and now they are profiteering from it.
And if you walk through that, you were one of the first in the media to raise the question of whether that P4 lab was involved. That's an interesting issue.
What we know is that the ground zero for this virus was within a few miles of that lab. If you simply do an Occam's razor approach that the simplest explanation is probably the most likely, I think it's incumbent on China to prove that it wasn't that lab. So that's number one.
But, more importantly, we know that for a critical six-week period of time, China used its influence at the World Health Organization to hide the virus from the world. This was a time where that virus could have been contained in Wuhan. Instead, five million Chinese people went out from Wuhan and propagated the virus around the world.
That was a critical time. So that was that.
And then here is what I think should be very disturbing to every American. During that period of time, that six-week interval when they were hiding this virus from the world, China went from a net exporter of personal protective equipment -- they are the largest producer of that in the world -- to a large net importer.
They basically went around and vacuumed up virtually all of the PPE around the world, including a lot from this country, which was, for humanitarian reasons, sharing our PPE with them.
And what that did was leave people in New York, Milan, and everywhere in between defenseless when it came time to have that PPE.
Now what's happening today...
BARTIROMO: Yes.
NAVARRO: ... which is equally alarming, is China is sitting on that horde of PPE, where it cornered the market, and it's profiteering.
I have cases coming across my desk where 50-cent masks made in China are being sold to hospitals here in America for as much as $8.
BARTIROMO: Unbelievable.
NAVARRO: So, this is a situation...
BARTIROMO: I remember a month ago when I got a call from a leading hospital executive who said to me, Maria, there are masks and gloves, protective equipment that were on a ship coming from China to America.
Those ships were told to turn around, that China said, we're not keeping any commitments that we had to export any of this stuff. China wants it.
And then, as you point out, they cornered the market. They already produce half of the world's capacity of this protective gear, and yet they were in the market buying two billion additional masks in January.
Peter, I don't understand what's going on here. This is even more sinister than we thought. First, this virus escapes, sickens the world, and then they turn around and try to make it harder for the United States to get the products they need?
NAVARRO: I think that China, right now, after doing those four actions which effectively have killed to date 39,000 Americans and 160,000 people worldwide, may attempt to use attempt to use this crisis now to advance their own agenda worldwide.
So my focus right now is just to make sure people have everything they need here, but I think, as a marker, people need -- we need to pay attention to that.
BARTIROMO: And I want to get to that, because I know you're working with Honeywell. You're working with a number of companies. You're doing a lot, even in New York with Mayor de Blasio.
We are going to get to that. I want to make sure the audience understands what's happening.
But let me get your take on this. If we see all of this bad behavior continuing from China, are global companies going to recognize, if they want to sell to 1.4 billion people in China, they need to do so with their eyes open?
You have got intellectual theft continuing. You have got a million Uyghurs right now in camps in China. You have got tracking of citizens. You have got all of this behavior going on in China.
So I spoke with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday, and I asked the secretary, is the world getting it? Is European -- is Europe, for example, our friends in Europe saying to the secretary, look, maybe we will unwind that Huawei technology?
Take a listen to what the secretary said in regards to European friends and global businesses and whether or not there's a new thinking around China. Here is what the secretary told me Friday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MIKE POMPEO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: I am very confident that, at this moment, this moment, where the Chinese Communist Party failed to be transparent and open and handle data in an appropriate way, will cause many, many countries to rethink what they were doing with respect to their telecom architecture, and when Huawei comes knocking to sell them equipment and hardware, that they will have a different prism through which to view that decision.
I'm hopeful that's the case. This is about security and making sure that U.S. data, Americans' data that travels across their networks, is safe and secure as well.
BARTIROMO: What will happen to companies that are aligned with China?
POMPEO: Two things.
I think this has been a real moment for business leaders all across America to see the political risk associated with operations inside of China.
You know this, Maria. You have been around a lot of these people. They can deal with commercial risks. They can deal with all kinds of it. Political risk is enormously difficult to deal with. And now we have ripped the Band- Aid off the political risk connected to that.
Second, the United States government has a responsibility too. We need to make sure the supply chains for the products that matter, for American national security and keeping people safe, are no longer dependent on any single country, and we have a responsibility to get that right.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: So, with Peter Navarro this morning.
Peter, you're the point man on the supply chain. We're going to take a break.
And when we come back from the break, I'm going to tell -- ask you what you're doing right now.
But, broadly speaking, before we go to break, real quick, do you see a different shift in thinking from companies trying to move the supply chain back to the United States as a result of China's behavior?
NAVARRO: I see since, President Donald J. Trump took office, the only president who has ever stood up to China since he took office, we have seen a shift of that supply chain because of the kinds of risks that Secretary Pompeo so eloquently just stated.
BARTIROMO: Yes, I think this election is going to be about China.
We're going to take a break. And then I want to talk with you specifically about what you're doing with regard to that supply chain.
Peter, stay with us.
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro is with us.
We're live, and we're looking ahead this morning on "Sunday Morning Futures."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BARTIROMO: Welcome back.
We're back with breaking news with White House trade adviser Peter Navarro.
And, Peter, before we went to the break you said that the Chinese had -- the Chinese communist government had hoarded all of that protective -- protective equipment.
Are you saying they're using that to -- as leverage, so that countries don't criticize them, and sort of holding it as leverage, because now they have all of the protective gear?
NAVARRO: So, yes, the initial action, Maria, was, the Chinese, while they hid the virus, went out and bought all this PPE for their own people, basically depriving that from the rest of the world.
Now they are sitting on that horde. And we're seeing Chinese 50-cent masks coming being sold to hospitals for as much as $8.
But let me give you good news on that front and on the supply chain front.
BARTIROMO: OK.
NAVARRO: It's kind of a week in the life of President Trump and here at the White House.
We had -- five weeks ago, I was sitting in my office about 40 yards away, got a call from Honeywell. They wanted to put a factory in Smithfield, Rhode Island, to make millions of masks. Guess what?
This week, they opened that factory. That's something that should have taken baby time, nine months. President Trump's leadership, they did it in five weeks. So we're getting a lot of masks. That is going to help us open the economy.
The same week, after President Trump put the Defense Production Act out with respect to General Motors, GM stepped up. In 17 days, Maria, they stood up a factory with Ventec in Kokomo, Indiana, began producing ventilators.
And this week, with the help of UPS, we put those ventilators on trucks and delivered them to hospitals in Gary, Indiana, and Chicago, Illinois. That's Trump time.
BARTIROMO: Yes. I feel like the president...
NAVARRO: The last thing we did.
BARTIROMO: Yes. Go ahead.
NAVARRO: Yes, the last thing is, last Sunday, I was in my office working on Easter Sunday.
I got an SOS from Mayor Bill de Blasio. They needed gowns in New York City. And we worked with FEMA to help them out. President Trump has been very good about that.
And during that conversation, we had this idea that, why not get the Garment District revived there in New York to start making gowns? And this is -- this is a beautiful thing.
What Mayor de Blasio was engage a woman named Lindsay Greene at the New York Economic Development Corporation. I brought in Kim Glas from the National Council of Textile Organizations.
As we speak, what's going to be over a million yards of fabric is being delivered courtesy of UPS from a factory, Owens & Minor, in North Carolina. It's going to go to cutters and sewers in Brooklyn, New York, that are going to be making gowns for their bothers and sisters, doctors and nurses in the hospitals.
BARTIROMO: I love that.
NAVARRO: These three stories are a microcosm of how this country innovatively and in Trump time is going to be able to rise to this occasion of providing all we need in order to get this country back to work.
BARTIROMO: That is fantastic, Peter. Those are three great stories.
And it's nice to see the garment industry fired up again and the fact that they're making these gowns for our leadership in the health care industry. Thank you for that.
Look, the president, I feel like, is seeing a little relief. I know the numbers are still very bad in terms of coronavirus cases and deaths, but the president did get through the ventilator crunch, and he got through the bed crunch. It doesn't look like we have that breakpoint situation anymore in terms of needing ventilators and beds.
Is that a fair statement? I mean, that's probably why the conversation has shifted toward a potential opening of the economy.
NAVARRO: I think that's exactly right.
I think the low point in the ventilator issue was when Andrew Cuomo was getting on his soapbox there and screaming he needed 30,000 ventilators, which was twice the amount of stockpile that we had at FEMA. So he basically wanted all the ventilators, and forget about the 49 other states.
And we're sending him ventilators and ventilators. And it turns out that a lot of those wound up sitting in warehouses. And no American who needs a ventilator has not had one.
And we're going to see the same thing with other kinds of things, including the testing kits. I'm involved quite heavily in the supply chain. And what we're going to see with testing is, we're going to see a similar kind of ramp-up.
With ventilators, we went from virtually zero to, we're going to have over 100,000 ventilators by June...
BARTIROMO: Wow.
NAVARRO: ... manufactured right here in America by companies like GM and Ford.
BARTIROMO: Right.
NAVARRO: So we're going to throw the same kind of innovation and Trump time speed at the testing issue, at all of these other things we are going to need to open this economy
BARTIROMO: Yes.
NAVARRO: And I think what's important, Maria, to understand -- and this is the problem that President Trump, in his wisdom, is grappling with.
We know that the virus kills, but we also know that economic shocks kill. We learned that when China put so many people out of work in the 2000s.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
NAVARRO: And we saw opioid deaths rise, alcoholism, suicide rates rise.
BARTIROMO: No, that's right.
NAVARRO: And we know that you can't withstand a sustained economic shock without also costing lives.
So the medical professionals need to weigh both aspects of that risk. And that's the...
BARTIROMO: Right.
NAVARRO: That's the -- that's -- this is the most difficult decision any president in our history will ever have to make. And it requires wisdom.
BARTIROMO: Which is why you said to The New York Times: "It's disappointing that so many of the medical experts and pundits pontificating in the press appear tone-deaf to the very significant losses of life and blows to American families that may result from an extended economic shutdown."
NAVARRO: Yes.
BARTIROMO: So, the president has come up with three phases.
You do think that some areas of the economy can open up under a phase i? We don't have a timetable on that, though, yet, Peter, right?
NAVARRO: I'm going to leave that to the task force, led by one of the greatest vice presidents in history, Mike Pence.
What I can tell you, from a supply chain level, is that we are doing everything possible to make sure we have all of the equipment that we need in order to make this opening viable and successful.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
NAVARRO: So that's what my focus is on.
BARTIROMO: Yes. All right.
NAVARRO: But I think President Trump has been very candid with the American people about these risks.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
NAVARRO: We're threading a needle. But we got to get back to work.
BARTIROMO: Peter, thank you so much for joining us this morning.
We're going to talk with some of the task force members on the program this morning.
Peter Navarro, we will see you soon, sir. Thanks for all of your work, Peter.
The president's phased plans to get our country back in business, how does it work?
Senator Tim Scott serves on the White House task force to reopen the economy. I will talk with him next live about how to do that.
Back in a minute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Our country has suffered. The world has suffered.
Therefore, my administration is issuing new federal guidelines that will allow governors to take a phased and deliberate approach to reopening their individual states.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: The White House looking to open the country soon.
The president outlining a phase three plan, as he assembled a task force on the issue.
Senator Tim Scott, a Republican from South Carolina, is a member of that task force.
And he's also author of the new book "Opportunity Knocks.
He joins me right now to talk more about the reopening.
Senator, it's great to see you this morning. Thank you so much for joining us. And congratulations on the book.
SEN. TIM SCOTT (R-SC): Good morning.
BARTIROMO: Nice play on words...
SCOTT: Thank you.
BARTIROMO: ... because I know that you have been working on the Opportunity Zones across the country.
SCOTT: Exactly.
BARTIROMO: So I'm going to ask you about that.
But, first, let me ask you about the opening of the economy. The president came out with three different phases in terms of doing that, saying that gyms can reopen in phase one if strict standards are met, elective surgeries can resume under phase one.
Guidelines say, phase two for states with no evidence of rebound, and urging telework, schools staying closed in phase one.
How worried are you that you open the economy too soon, and then we see a relapse of coronavirus?
SCOTT: The president's strategy is prudent.
He still focuses on the necessity of isolating hot spots in order to mitigate the spread. If we're looking at the fact that there are states where there is very or little presence of the COVID-19 and those states that are seeing a drop in the number of cases that has hospital capacity, it is prudent to make the first phase focused on getting the economy rolling in those areas where we have the ability to move forward without a strong concern of spreading the virus.
BARTIROMO: So, Peter Navarro was just talking about the impact of a shutdown economy on American families, and the blow to your finances.
And that also leads to its own set of sicknesses. Let me ask you about the assessment so far on the economy. We saw just last week 22 million Americans filing for unemployment benefits in just the last four weeks.
SCOTT: Yes. Wow.
BARTIROMO: We are expecting a recession, a contraction in the second quarter and the third quarter.
How bad has it gone? The damage has been obviously worse in terms of health and people's lives. But, on the economic front, how would you assess things?
SCOTT: I think things are -- we are in a position of devastation.
And think about places in South Carolina like Charleston, South Carolina. Our unemployment rate was 1.5 percent, Maria, 1.5 percent. And, overnight, we saw thousands upon thousands of restaurant workers, retail workers, folks in the hotel industry driven to the unemployment lines.
We have seen a 4000 percent increase in unemployment benefits in South Carolina. It is consistent throughout this nation.
One of the reasons why the president has got to balance living and livelihood is because poverty also has a negative consequence that lingers for decades, if not generations. So he is understandably concerned not simply about our health. He's done a great job of trying to balance that.
But he's also concerned about the economic health of this nation. And we both know that poverty kills. And so what he's trying to do is to position this economy to come back with a vengeance.
BARTIROMO: Right.
SCOTT: I think, during his State of the Union speech, when he was talking about the great American comeback, he was talking, foreshadowing the necessity of a V-shaped recovery coming out of this virus before we even knew about a virus.
BARTIROMO: Huh.
SCOTT: So it's really important for us to get back to work.
BARTIROMO: Which is why you and your colleagues have been working on a whole host of stimulus programs. You're talking about $7.5 trillion in stimulus thrown at this economy, when you consider the Congress, as well as the Federal Reserve, and all of the money being flooded on this economy.
Let's talk about this upcoming week and see if there is news to break here. Second Mnuchin says that the Congress should reach a deal today on supplemental funding for the Paycheck Protection Program.
SCOTT: Absolutely.
BARTIROMO: He said that he's hopeful that the deal will happen on another $300 billion in small business funding, and that could be passed in the Senate on Monday and in the House on Tuesday.
What's your timeline in terms of additional money for the Paycheck Program? And how are you going to vote in the upcoming week for further stimulus, sir?
SCOTT: Well, I support the PPP, the Paycheck Protection Program.
I always like to say that the Democrats who are holding this up, realize you're not negatively impacting businesses, as much as you're negatively impacting people's ability to pay their rent, to pay their utilities, to feed their kids.
This is a serious situation, that we shouldn't have a lapse in funding for the PPP program. We should tell Ms. Nancy Pelosi, please give us our paychecks. People need their paychecks. And stop holding it hostage in order to do something else.
Going forward, I hope that this week, on Monday, the Senate is able to vote on a package that's agreed upon with the House and the Senate. Tuesday, the Democrats get it passed. And Tuesday, one minute later, we start refunding, replenishing the supply of the Paycheck Protection Program.
People are calling every single day. Hundreds are calling our offices, thousands, I'm sure, throughout this nation, because they want their paychecks. And we shouldn't stand in the way of making that happen.
BARTIROMO: Are you expecting any changes in terms of the structure of this program?
Because your colleague Senator Lindsey Graham has said that, in South Carolina, you're being paid more money to stay home than you are to actually go to work? Also, the structure of the -- 75 percent of the money has to go right out the window to employees; 25 percent remaining to pay rent and other expenses may not be enough wiggle room.
Are you expecting changes on that structure? And the fight right now is about what, putting more money toward hospitals and giving more money to the states?
SCOTT: Yes.
BARTIROMO: What specific issues are you wrangling with your Democratic colleagues over?
SCOTT: I think that you make several good points there.
First, we certainly need to make sure that we take a look at phase four, or CARES 2, depending on how you want to call it. Restaurants that are going to reopen, they are going to need more space, which means fewer tables. That means your overhead expenses are going to increase.
Your labor costs may be static or fall down. So, if you have a program that requires 75 percent of the money to go to payroll, 25 percent for overhead, that will not work.
The new normal may require businesses to have higher overhead expenses and few -- and lower labor costs. We need to adapt to that reality. And we need to adapt very quickly.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
SCOTT: Gyms, another part of our economy, that needs higher overhead expenses and lower actual number of employees.
So we're going to have to do that, at the same time we're balancing why we should reduce the unemployment benefits in the CARES Act. We are saying, if you make $24 or less, you could make as much, if not more, staying home.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
SCOTT: That is a problem. It's a perverse incentive that only increases our unemployment claims, as opposed to encouraging people to go back to work.
We need to work. We want to work. And we should not...
BARTIROMO: Senator, I...
SCOTT: Yes.
BARTIROMO: I love your book, because it's so empowering. It takes us through your story and your journey. And you have had some hard -- hard hits there.
President Obama endorsed Vice President Biden this week. And he talks about minorities, and tweeted about that portion of the population getting harder hit by coronavirus.
Anything you can say about the black vote right now in terms of their feelings toward President Trump, as well as telling us in terms of why you wrote this book?
SCOTT: Well, two things.
Number one, President Trump is starting to see support from the weirdest corners of the world. And you hear -- you heard the African-American Democrat state representative in Michigan praising Donald Trump and the use of chloroquine to help save her life.
BARTIROMO: That's true.
SCOTT: You hear in Georgia here, right, my cousins next door, African- American state representative who is a Democrat saying that President Trump's strong support of our economy and the African-American community, historically black colleges and universities...
BARTIROMO: Yes.
SCOTT: ... the whole criminal justice reform, we're seeing support from some very strange corners.
BARTIROMO: Right.
SCOTT: I still hold to my prediction that President Trump will see a 50 percent increase in African-American vote.
BARTIROMO: Wow.
Senator, it's great to see you this morning. Thanks very much for being here, Tim Scott joining us there.
SCOTT: Thank you very much.
BARTIROMO: And we will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BARTIROMO: Welcome back.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is demanding an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus.
We discussed this in an interview on Friday, as the president this weekend questioned China's role in the pandemic for the very first time, wondering if it was actually an accident.
Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Now, the question was asked, would you be angry at China?
Well, the answer might very well be a very resounding yes. But it depends. Was it a mistake that got out of control, or was it done deliberately, OK? There's a big difference between those two.
In either event, they should have let us go in. You know, we asked to go in very early, and they didn't want us in. I think they were embarrassed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon was among the first to raise a red flag on China's deception. He wrote an op-ed last May that the U.S. was already at war with the communist country.
And he joins me right now to talk more about it.
Steve, it's great to see you. Thanks for being here.
STEVE BANNON, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF STRATEGIST: Thanks for having me on, Maria.
BARTIROMO: Steve, that was the first time the president actually publicly raised the question of, was it deliberate? I found that stunning.
You haven't heard the president raise such an issue before. Your reaction?
BANNON: One of the key phrases the president used -- and I think, if I was in Beijing, I'd be very nervous right now -- he said, knowingly responsible, knowingly responsible.
And I think -- let's set aside for a second, this is a biological Chernobyl. But let's set aside a second the lab, and did it leak out of the lab with a technician on trying to find a vaccine? Let's leave aside the fact that, were they doing gain of function experiments there, against everybody's knowledge?
Let's leave aside for a second whether they have an offensive biological weapons program. That's all going to be investigated. As Pompeo and Senator Cotton says, that's all now being investigated by intelligence services, by the world's health organizations, et cetera.
Let's go back to knowingly responsible. And let's be precise. This is not the Chinese people and this is not China. The Chinese people, the decent, hardworking people of China, are the single biggest victims here.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
BANNON: This is about the Chinese Communist Party, and they are knowingly responsible for what happened.
This is an act of commission. They knew, as a matter of fact, no later than the last week of December of 2019, they knew they had human-to-human transmission and community spread.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
BANNON: The free republic -- the free Chinese and the republic of Taiwan - - Republic of China and Taiwan...
BARTIROMO: Yes.
BANNON: ... notified the World Health Organization on January 31.
One of my broadcasting partners, Miles Guo, broadcast it on the 31st about human-to-human transmission.
Most importantly, the great martyr of this process in China, Dr. Lee, and his colleagues in Wuhan, the doctors...
BARTIROMO: Yes.
BANNON: ... were on WeChat telling everybody, get ready, we have human-to- human transmission, they're coming into the hospitals now.
BARTIROMO: That's right.
BANNON: The Chinese Communist Party...
BARTIROMO: Yes, let me show you this timeline.
We have a timeline, because it was December 10, one of the earliest known coronavirus patients falling ill in Wuhan, China. And you're right. The doctor raises the alarm on the coronavirus on December 30.
What happens then, Steve? He gets arrested. He's dead now, as you know, from coronavirus.
BANNON: Well, he's arrested. He's also tortured. His family is put under surveillance. And they force him to sign a document that says he's a rumor- monger, that these are lies, that there's not human-to-human transmission, the Chinese Communist Party at the highest level.
That is President Xi and Wang Qishan knowingly understood that they had human-to-human transmission. We also know now from Scott Gottlieb and also a report from a Chinese doctor at South Hampton University in the United Kingdom that, if they had acted like any human being would act, decent human, if they acted as late as the last week in December, 95 percent of all this wouldn't have happened.
That is the crime here. That's the tragedy here.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
BANNON: All the 40,000 Americans that will be dead by tomorrow morning, all the victims in Wuhan that could be tens or hundreds of thousands, all the dead in Lombardy, all the doctors and nurses, all the -- the blood of all that is on the Chinese Communist Party's hands, on Xi and Wang Qishan and their other gangsters.
Also, the economic carnage.
BARTIROMO: And...
BANNON: It's going to take us decades to work our way out of here eventually.
All of that is squarely on the Chinese Communist Party, not the Chinese people. Remember, there were hundreds of thousands of innocent Chinese flying all over the world in the month of January.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
BANNON: They didn't know that they had the virus.
The Chinese Communist Party hid this. They hid it at the White House on the meetings on the 14th, when they signed. The World Health Organization put out a document on the 12th. And then they tweeted on the 14th...
BARTIROMO: Yes.
BANNON: ... after consultation with senior Chinese medical officials, there's no human-to-human transmission, while they're at the White House.
Then they go to Davos. You're one of the first ones to actually report this. They don't tell anybody. And when they -- and, actually, when they started to stop the trans -- the traffic and the travel inside of China, they didn't stop it to the rest of the world.
It took Donald J. Trump, the 45th president of the United States, against his medical advisers' opinion, because they were going off what the World Health Organization said.
BARTIROMO: Right.
BANNON: It was Trump that stopped the international travel on the 31st of January.
BARTIROMO: I want to ask you...
BANNON: The blood is on the hands of the Chinese Communist Party.
And the world -- for the Chinese people, the people of Wuhan and Hubei, the world must hold these people accountable.
BARTIROMO: Will the world hold them accountable?
I mean, the lying is continuing as we speak. Yesterday, at the president's task force press conference, they showed a graphic of the mortality rate, Steve. I mean, it's laughable to think that China is all the way at the bottom of this chart, when you have got so many cases across the world and deaths.
Look at where China is. Are we supposed to believe that there are fewer deaths in China than anywhere in the world?
BANNON: I think that was very powerful that President Trump actually interrupted Dr. Birx's presentation, which he never does when she's talking about numbers, to actually point out it's so egregious.
We had on our show yesterday from China people that are saying the urns themselves, they cremated the urns. And there's 40,000 or 50,000 urns. They -- the people in Wuhan think that there are probably over 100,000 people in Wuhan that died.
And forget the rest of China. We don't know, because they lie about everything.
But you asked how they are going to be held accountable. The riotous indignation of the peoples of the world are going to stand up and make sure they are held accountable. President Trump laid it out.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
BANNON: Knowingly responsible. They are knowingly responsible for the acts of commission, that all of this could have been avoided.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
BANNON: Remember, 60 days ago, we had the greatest economy in American history. The whole world was prosperous.
We were looking for a great 2020, a great kickoff to a decade. Now we're looking at economic carnage...
BARTIROMO: Yes.
BANNON: ... and the largest mass casualty event in American history, caused by a biological Chernobyl and the lies, misrepresentations and the cover-up.
Cotton, who couldn't be on here today, calls its the biggest cover-up in world history.
BARTIROMO: That's right.
BANNON: It's incumbent upon the intelligence services, it's incumbent upon the nations of the Earth to come together.
BARTIROMO: But I got -- well, the question that I'm asking is, isn't it wild that no one got infected in Beijing? Wow. What a novel thought.
I mean, Wuhan, five million people start traveling. Some people went to Italy. Some people went to the United States. By the way, 433,000 people traveled China to the United States after it was known that the coronavirus was happening.
But nobody got infected in Beijing.
I have got to move on to the election. How is this going to impact the election? Do you think Joe Biden is going to be the Democrat candidate, given his experience with China?
BANNON: Well, first off, he's by far the weakest candidate. He's totally compromised.
Remember, President Obama basically had Biden as his wingman to do everything with China. He is compromised by the Chinese Communist Party. He is personally compromised by the Chinese Communist Party.
And that will all be laid out in details. His family is in business with them. But he's made every bad decision in this managed decline of the United States. It was Joe Biden -- remember, Joe Biden was saying last summer, hey, China's not no problem. China isn't a problem.
It was Joe Biden that took the side of the Chinese Communist Party. He was a useful idiot for the Chinese. When President Trump stands up and says, hey, we have got to stop the traffic coming in here, and we have to quarantine the people that come in, it was Biden that took the Beijing party line.
It was Biden that went right to, oh, it's xenophobic, it's nativist, it's racist.
BARTIROMO: So, is he going to be the candidate? So, is he the candidate? Is he the candidate? Or are the Democrats going to say, well, maybe he's making too many gaffes?
BANNON: I think, if the Democrat -- if the Democrat -- the Democratic Party has no chance of beating Donald J. Trump with Joe Biden. It's not going to happen.
Joe Biden is totally compromised by the Chinese Communist Party and by his actions.
BARTIROMO: Do they know that?
BANNON: And by his actions.
And, by the way, I'm not even going to say anything about his health and how fuzzy -- how unfocused he looks when he comes on his proof of life podcast that he puts out every three weeks.
Ronna McDaniel at the RNC said something I thought was very...
BARTIROMO: So, is he the candidate or not? Steve, are they going to replace him as the candidate, you think, real quick? We got to jump.
BANNON: I think -- I think, at the convention, they are going to look very seriously at replacing Biden and have somebody that could really take on Trump.
Biden cannot take on Donald J. Trump, no way, not on China, and not on any other topic.
BARTIROMO: Steve -- Steve, it's great to see you this morning.
Thank you, Steve Bannon.
BANNON: Thanks.
BARTIROMO: We will be right back.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BARTIROMO: Welcome back.
President Trump is laying out a three-phase plan to reopen the economy.
My next guest's state has been much more impacted economically than health- wise in his state, because of the shutdowns and what it has done to the energy sector, tourism and agriculture.
Joining me right now is Republican Conference chairman, member of the White House Task Force on Reopening the Economy, Wyoming Senator John Barrasso.
Senator, it's great to see you. Thanks very much for being here.
(CROSSTALK)
BARTIROMO: You are a medical doctor, so you clearly understand the health risks.
Are you worried that you're going to be opening the economy too soon, and we get a relapse? And tell us about the impacts that Wyoming has seen from coronavirus. SEN. JOHN BARRASSO (R-WY): Well, it is time to reopen America, to do it in a smart way, following the metrics, using science. But we need to get Americans back to work.
Everyone in this country has been impacted by coronavirus, some more from the medical standpoint, others more from the economic standpoint.
In Wyoming, for one, we have been very fortunate in terms of the disease. But the economy has been flattened, energy, agriculture, tourism, all of those things.
And as an example of how we can start opening the country, we have a county in Wyoming, Maria, it is larger geographically than the entire state of New Jersey. So the sizes are so vast out here.
And in that county, there have only been nine people who have tested positive. None have been hospitalized. The businesses have been shut for a month. The hospital itself is on life support because patients aren't coming in for elective procedures.
This is an area of the country and the economy that can be opened, using the criteria, watching all of the science. These are the people and the jobs, Maria, that I'm fighting for.
BARTIROMO: Yes. I mean, Wyoming is an energy state. You're looking at rig counts that have gone down. Already, we have a bankruptcy in the shale sector. So we may very well see more bankruptcies there because of that.
What about the money and the stimulus going toward it? Are you going to have a vote on Monday about an additional $250 billion that's going to go into that Paycheck Program?
BARRASSO: Well, I sure hope so.
The money -- we had a vote Friday, and the Democrats blocked it. The money in that program is really paychecks for hardworking Americans, people who work for small businesses, which is over half of all Americans.
I heard earlier on the news that Mnuchin and Schumer and Pelosi are working on a deal. Every Republican is going to want to scrutinize that, because we know that, when Schumer and Pelosi are involved, we know they slowed down the CARES Act because they wanted their wish list included.
So I know members of our conference are going to want to take a scrutinizing look at what is in this agreement.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
BARRASSO: What we really need to do is put more money in the Paycheck Protection Program.
BARTIROMO: Right.
BARRASSO: That's the one right now, Maria, that's run out of money.
BARTIROMO: Hold on. Hold on, Senator. I want to talk about that. This is an important issue that you're getting to.
We will take a break, come back with that.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BARTIROMO: Welcome back.
We are back with Senator John Barrasso.
And, Senator, you were going through the Paycheck Protection Program. You say it needs more money. It's run out of money, right?
BARRASSO: It ran out Thursday.
There are small businesses and paychecks needing to be gotten taken care of. There are people who are still applying for these loans. I see it in Wyoming. It's been very successful, $350 billion already spent. It's helped 15 million Americans stay on the payroll.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
BARRASSO: There's probably another 10 million who would be able to stay on the job.
And we need these businesses to be able to be ready to be open when it's felt safe to do so. And that's why, as a member of the president's task force...
BARTIROMO: Sure.
BARRASSO: ... I have been saying, we need to do it scientifically, but we need to start now.
BARTIROMO: You have also been talking about certain industries that might be able to open in a reopening.
We know it's going to be slow and a rolling open. So which industries do you believe can start getting going right now and opening?
BARRASSO: Well, you can start construction right away, energy, agriculture. In certain office settings, you can do those sorts of things.
So there are a number of places. You are going to still need to do all of the issues of handwashing, social distancing, taking care of our most vulnerable. But we need to start opening the areas where it's safe to do it.
And there are lots of places, counties like the one I described in Wyoming. There are counties like that all over the country. And that's why it's important to have governors involved, have people at the local level involved. That's the way we can start slowly opening.
There may be some bump up in new cases when that happens.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
BARRASSO: You need to make sure the hospitals have testing capacity and ICU capacity to take care of those people.
BARTIROMO: Sure.
BARRASSO: But that's why we can, I think, slowly go phase one, phase two, phase three, and then a fully reopened economy.
BARTIROMO: Senator, our viewers know that I was the one who broke the story on the test failures. We didn't have enough testing.
The CDC sends out the tests, and they have to call the governors back and say, don't use the tests, they are defective.
What happened? They were actually looking -- studying the coronavirus in the same lab as the lab that they were making the tests? How come there's such a disaster around these tests?
BARRASSO: This is a permanent black eye for the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.
They have failed us here. There's a front-page story in The Washington Post today and in newspapers all around the country about the failures.
BARTIROMO: OK.
BARRASSO: Centers for Disease Control, they sent it to 100 labs. None of them worked.
And we have been -- we have lost about a month in testing because of their failures.
BARTIROMO: Because of that.
Senator, thank you. Thank you so much for everything.
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