Steve Forbes: If you take a sledgehammer to the US economy it will take time to come back
U.S. unemployment climbs as coronavirus spreads; reaction from Steve Forbes, chairman and editor-in-chief of Forbes Media.
This is a rush transcript from "The Ingraham Angle," April 3, 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 another of course very busy Washington tonight. In moments, my medicine cabinet weighs in on why some in the medical establishment, this is very interesting, are so dismissive of treatments that are currently working for doctors and their Covid-19 patients.
And Nancy Pelosi is appearing everywhere lately. She's not letting the pandemic go to waste so my question is what's the GOP going to do to stop her in this next phase of spending. Congressman Andy Biggs will tell us. Plus, Big Brother meets Big Tech, does that sound like a nightmare to you?
Well, my question is what is Google's new COVID-19 tracking project mean for your civil liberties, it's not good. Harmeet Dhillon and Alex Berenson are going to sound off and given today's disastrous unemployment news, it's a heartbreak, how much longer can our country stay under this lockdown?
Steve Forbes has some thought provoking analysis on that. Plus big city mayors begging criminals not to misbehave? Yes and you're not going to believe who's someone named the sexiest man of the year, Raymond Arroyo breaks it all down in a much needed Friday Follies.
This is America in shutdown Day 18. Now I'm going to do something tonight that's a little different from what I've done in the previous nights. I'm just going to share some stories. A top oncologist at one of Manhattan's most respected hospital called me today. I don't know him all that well but I knew him by reputation.
He was of course very worried about the ongoing crush of COVID patients in some New York City area hospitals. 304 people more have died there since yesterday and another 1200 deaths, nationally. But what he really wanted to talk about was another disturbing part of the story that's getting frankly very little attention.
Namely that with everything going on with COVID, non-COVID illnesses are being left untreated or undiagnosed. Again, this is one of the best docs in New York telling us the story tonight and I'm summing it up. It was a long conversation.
But he said say for example a Parkinson's patient needs the battery in his brain stimulator changed. Is this an essential surgery to install a new battery? Well, technically maybe no but going without it for him sure has a terrible effect on his quality of life.
Then there's the patient who puts off getting that intermittent pain in his lower abdomen checked out because he's afraid of COVID exposure while at the doctor. Then it turns out later to be a malignancy.
All right, this physician wanted to come on tonight to speak about this. He's seeing this trend. Again, untreated, undiagnosed conditions that are non-COVID related. His hospital by the way, is not close to capacity and is also treating COVID patients tonight. But the hospital administrator wouldn't give him permission to appear tonight to tell the story.
I don't know why. It's an important story to tell. Then there was another doc in Boston. He told me that hospital staff there are actually being laid off because so much non-COVID medicine isn't happening. I mean, you have to make money doing this, right?
His boss wouldn't let him appear on the show either. That's too bad. Then I heard from a doctor pal of mine at a frontline hospital in Queens, Manhattan. Now the population there is more middle class and tends to have pre-existing health problems, he recounted. So COVID is putting more of them in the hospital.
He also said that most patients at this hospital are COVID - COVID positive. Most of his friends are COVID positive and sadly he said that pretty much all of the elderly patients there die if they have to be put on a ventilator. He said that seven patients died there that he knew of just today.
And they pretty much all had comorbidities. In other words underlying conditions, diabetes, prediabetes, heart issues, etcetera. But he said despite the fact that the infection is spreading rapidly in Queens, the hospital where he works is a busy, very busy but not yet overwhelmed.
We hope they don't get overwhelmed. They have enough ventilators so far and enough personal protective equipment and he expects the peak to come in one week. He says information like this frankly, needs to be put online so we can readily compare the experience of each hospital to what we've heard as far as projections go.
Would be useful to have that. However from Dr. Deborah Birx from the coronavirus task force, well, today, she said this about questioning models and projections.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. DEBORAH LEAD BIRX, WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE COORDINATOR: I know we're always saying who knew what when. When we get through this we can go back and look at what happened, where and what does this epidemic look like. When we get through all of this, we can ask the questions about could we have done some piece of this better as a global community.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: I have an enormous respect for Dr. Birx but perhaps there's a better way to look at it since we're taking extreme actions, really extreme actions in response to this virus, it ended up putting millions of Americans out of work.
Isn't it better to improve the models now and if we have to question them, question them, even change them rather than doing so after all the damage is done. It's not about finger pointing, that's not going to get anyone anywhere. It's about using the best data as it comes in, the most contemporary data.
Now remember, these models are guesses and they're based on whatever inputs we get or whoever the statistician is. What if the data is wrong and we know already a lot of it's incomplete. Imperial college was already forced to revise its COVID projections by many multiples.
Right now really smart people of good will and our top research institutions including Nobel laureates are in a raging debate on the issue of modeling COVID-19, specifically on that thing we've been talking about the denominator. That's the number of people infected with COVID.
You have to have the right denominator, at least close to being right to judge the virus' true lethality. We know a lot of people are asymptomatic or very mild symptoms, were never tested. On these issues, we should hear all sides. All input is welcome.
Now finally, a new global survey of thousands of doctors just came out late, yesterday. Found that their preferred treatment, these are the doctors for COVID patients is - drum roll please - hydroxychloroquine. Of the 6227 physicians surveyed in 30 countries, 37 percent rated hydroxychloroquine the most effective therapy for combat in the potentially deadly illness.
And also found that 23 percent of medical professionals had prescribed the drug in the U.S., far less, this is interesting, than other countries. Outside the U.S. hydroxychloroquine was equally used for diagnosed patients with mild to severe symptoms whereas in the U.S., it was most commonly used for high risk diagnosed patients.
And Spain, 72 percent of doctors surveyed said they had already prescribed it. So why - I've been thinking about this a lot, the last couple of days. Why the obvious bias against the drug here? Again hydroxychloroquine. Well, the cynic in me wonders if it's because big pharma can't make money off of it.
Remember it is cheap it's an old drug, it's been around for decades and it safe, it's a generic and it's scalable. We could get it quickly and cheaply. That's what you want in a crisis. China has already done its own controlled study of hydroxy which was very promising.
And the outcomes and Dr. Didier Raoult's non-controlled study in France were really impressive as well. He's one of the most renowned epidemiologist in all of Europe. He says you got to use it.
Renowned infectious disease specialist Dr. Stephen Smith, whose group is treating dozens of COVID patients. He described the amazing results he's getting with hydroxy and azithromycin.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. STEPHEN SMITH, FOUNDER, SMITH CENTER FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASES AND URBAN HEALTH: We treat everybody with hydroxychloroquine and azithro. We've been doing so for a while. No person has received 5 days or more of hydroxychloroquine-azithro combination has been intubated. Laura, I think this is the beginning of the end of the pandemic. I'm very serious.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: When he said that my heart stopped. I thought him at the beginning of the end, the end of the pandemic. And watching the president, he clearly gets it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's looking like it's having some good results. I hope that that would be a phenomenal thing. That we have a tremendous supply of it. We've ordered it in the case that it works and it's - it could have some pretty big impact so we'll see what happens.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: The president's instincts are right on the money here. This drug again maybe with azithro added should be used as a preventative, a prophylaxis but all of our front line health care professionals and frankly, our military first responders. They can't socially distant and I bet - I bet it ends up being the go-to in our hospitals as well for all the nurses and staff there.
Nothing else is worked better when administered early as well as midterm in a patient's fight against the virus. Finally about facemasks.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: The better part of valor is that when you're out and you can't maintain that six foot distance to wear some sort of facial covering.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: But does that mean the president should wear a mask too?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Why are you opposed to wearing one yourself?
TRUMP: Well, I just don't want to wear one myself. It's a recommendation. They recommend it. I'm feeling good.
REPORTER: I'm just wondering if you can tell us more about why because it sets an example.
TRUMP: I just don't choose to. They're not mandatory guidelines.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: This went on and on by the way. Why are you not wearing a mask? It is the most ridiculous series of questions on the mask with the president today but I was thinking about this. If you could kill - if really you could guarantee tonight that you'd get rid of the virus and we'll all go back to work, if it took like wearing I don't know, what tire hazmat costume or maybe a big full Chewbacca costume, I'd do it.
We don't need a light saber, my friends. We need a job saver at this point, saving lives, saving jobs with all the best medicine that we have in the middle of an emergency. Those are my thoughts at the end of Day 18, America in shutdown.
All right, joining me now is Dr. Ramin Oskoui, cardiologists and CEO of Foxhall cardiology. Also with me is Dr. Devi Nampiaparampil, a practicing physician. Also with Fox 5 in New York. Dr. Devi, in your city right now, there is a clinical trial starting on hydroxychloroquine as a prophylactic and a treatment. 1500 patients are involved.
I certainly hope we get clear and transparent data and preliminary data within days on that.
DR. DEVI NAMPIAPARAMPIL, PRACTICING PHYSICIAN IN NYC: Well, I'm very excited about this because it's actually looking to see if we can slow the spread of the coronavirus. Now so far all of the studies that have come out of France, the ones that have come out of China.
They're looking at whether once somebody's sick, once they're in the hospital, can the drug help in terms of treatment, right? But what we really want to do is prevent people from going to the hospital, prevent deaths and so in this study, this is going to done at Columbia University Medical Center.
They've already registered it as a trial. They're basically looking to see if one person in a family developed coronavirus, can this drug be used for everybody else that lives with that person to try to protect them from developing the symptoms themselves.
INGRAHAM: Dr. Oskoui, you have addressed this with your colleagues across the country in cardiology and other specialties. Tonight if you had to advise high level government officials or the frontline military respondents, doctors, nurses, given what we know in this current situation, should they all be on hydroxychloroquine with their physician's supervision.
DR. RAMIN OSKOUI, CEO, FOXHALL CARDIOLOGY: I think the answer is clearly absolutely yes. Let's look at a few facts. We're not seeing patients with Lupus who take Plaquenil, the branded name for hydroxychloroquine, we're not seeing these individuals develop COVID.
I'm not aware of any reported cases in this. The Chinese have actually looked at this. The second issue is this drug has been around for a long time. Unlike - drug has minimal side effects, its toxicity is trivial. It's very rare that you get a drug which is both safe and highly effective.
You enumerated many of the studies have already been done but this is a drug that's cheap, it's easily made, it's scalable. I sent you the manufacturing data. I think absolutely. Our military needs to be on this, prophylactically. All you need is a screen EKG before starting. Health care workers need to be on it until both groups actually get antibody tested and we know that an individual who tests positive for the antibody actually is then immune from getting the actual COVID illness but I think absolutely we need to do it.
The problem is volume of drug needed.
INGRAHAM: Yes, they've got to scale it up. If the president has to use the Defense Production Act to do it, he should do it because this could completely keep more people off ventilators if intervened with early so we shouldn't wait to dose it to people according to all the doctors talking to me.
I want to play something from the architect of Obamacare, Zeke Emanuel said this about possible COVID treatments.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ZEKE EMANUEL, OBAMACARE ARCHITECT: Our snake oil salesmen come out of the woodwork all the time in these kinds of circumstances, whether it's you know, vitamin C or it's chloroquine or whatever. At the moment, we don't have proof on anything and so don't take anything thinking you're protected because that's just garbage.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Dr. Nampiaparampil, you keep hearing this line that we have no proof but that's absolutely untrue. We don't have a buttoned down 1,500 persons study results yet but physicians all over the world have proclaimed it is their go-to drug. Do we think physicians are poisoning their patients all over the world in Spain and Italy and China and United States by using this drug or is it working?
This is insane what he just said.
NAMPIAPARAMPIL: Well, I agree. Also on top of that actually he mentioned Vitamin C but people are using that. Doctors are using that also intravenously to help with this drug, ironically but I will say so I mean comparing this to snake oil is such an extreme statement.
So if you're talking about something like appendicitis and somebody wants to do something like vitamin C rather than having an appendectomy, a situation where we have a clear cut answer, something that will treat the problem, where people really have good results, you know, then that's a little more questionable. What are you selling this patient? Is that a safe treatment option?
But in this case, we have to look at the risks, sorry and the benefits and the alternatives also and there aren't a lot of great alternative but there is some promise in terms of the benefits so we should give people choices.
INGRAHAM: Yes, I mean if it's not going to kill you which it won't unless you have some complicated heart issue, then you go to Dr. Oskoui but Dr. Oskoui, really quickly. You've spoken about this but it's not gotten enough attention, I mentioned it in the open.
Hospitals and non-COVID conditions. People are putting off going to get that nagging pain checked or I got a funny twinge, it's not going away. It turns out to be something serious later. How important is it again to keep non-COVID patients at home if possible not coming into the hospital on these kind of treatments.
I think every patient has to be examined risk versus benefit. If you're a high risk patient, you probably want to get - you want to be very cautious about going to the hospital but at the same time you don't want to have a heart attack at home. So you need to counsel - talk to your doctor and be very - be very upfront about your symptoms and your doctor should know what the situation is at the hospital.
But this this is, you shouldn't deny - the classic example you gave of a patient whose Parkinson stimulator needs to be have a battery changed. My gosh, if that fails they may fell and fractured their hip so -
INGRAHAM: I can tell you. I can tell you. Hold on. I want people to understand, this is not me saying that, this is the vaunted New York Times, OK? Headline. During a pandemic, an unanticipated problems: Out of work healthcare workers. Across the country plunging revenues from canceled nonemergency medical ointments have forced hospitals to furlough or even cut the pay of doctors, nurses and other staff.
I bring this up because we have to think of the reverberations, the ripple effect this is having across multiple medical specialties and conditions. Doctors, thank you so much. Great to have you on tonight.
And last night, we warned you about plans to fight the coronavirus outbreak with GPS tracking or cell phone app tracking. It's a huge threat to our civil liberties and apparently, it's already happening. The Wall Street journal reported this a few days ago. Google is right now tracking your movements and releasing it amid this pandemic.
Joining us now is Harmeet Dhillon, attorney and Trump 2020 advisory board member. Also with me is Alex Berenson, former New York Times reporter, author of one of my favorite books of the last two years and I say this is all sincerity. 'Tell your children.' It's about marijuana and you have to read that book.
Harmeet, Google says it's not releasing any identifying personal info but is that really supposed to make us feel better? Don't worry, we're not going to abuse your info.
HARMEET DHILLON, ATTORNEY AND TRUMP 2020 ADVISORY BOARD MEMBER: It shouldn't Laura. Google has been fined billions of dollars. In the EU, Google has been sued for hundreds of millions and even more in United States for violating people's privacy.
It's really part of their business plan. It's what they do. I have zero confidence that Google is going to keep that data anonymous and zero confidence that over reaching governments aren't going to try to get that data from Google as soon as possible and that's the fourth amendment issue. It's a privacy issue, it's a civil rights issue and it's an existentialism one, Laura.
INGRAHAM: Yes I have I have a question. Where are all the civil libertarians? All these people who wanted to go fight for the freedom of the Syrians but they are there like dead silent when it comes to our freedoms and liberties here.
All right, I want to go back to the models used to forecast the hospital needs for the outbreak. Alex, the New York governor Cuomo claimed this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): All the projections say you could have an apex needing 140,000 beds and about 40,000 ventilators. Those are numbers, Zach. Not I feel, I think, I believe. I want to believe.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: One of the models Cuomo has been relying on for these claims, it's called the IHME model. Here's what it's predicting. The state will need 75,130 hospital beds. 11,782 ICU beds, 9427 vents but here's what's happening in reality. There are 14,810 people currently hospitalized with 3731 ICU patients and today Cuomo said about 315 new patients a day needed vents which will be far under of course that 40,000 apex he predicted.
Alex, why is the model so far off here?
ALEX BERENSON, AUTHOR, TELL YOUR CHILDREN: Well, the model basically estimated that there was going to be huge spike in infections about two weeks ago just as the lockdown was sort of being put in place and then that was going to lead to huge spike in hospitalizations. In a way where these hospitalizations drive ICU beds and ventilator needs and ultimately death.
And for whatever reason it looks like that spike didn't really happen. That yes, there are a lot of new cases and there's a lot of you know, there's a lot of people dying and I don't want to downplay that reality.
INGRAHAM: No, of course not.
BERENSON: But -but if you look at the number of actual new hospitalizations today, it's been - it looks like basically flat for the last 10 days or so when the model was projecting that it would increase by as much as 4 or 5 fold. So that's why if you look - if you look at the University of Washington model right now, they're projecting that New York, I mean this is today, New York was going to have 60,000 people in hospital beds and that's off by a factor of four.
And what's so important to understand is, this was only released last week. It's not like somebody made this projection months ago just as this epidemic's starting and it's not like this projection depends on lockdown versus -
INGRAHAM: All right, Alex, hold on. Harmeet and Alex, we're going to have you back on this topic but thank you for that. Coming up, Congress is on recess. Shouldn't they come back? Don't go away.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): We'll probably be moving to vote by mail.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The national stay-at-home order from the federal government. Do you think the president should order one?
PELOSI: Well, you know it works.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Well, sure been seeing a lot of Nancy Pelosi lately. She's been everywhere but a lot of people saying where the heck is the GOP. Well, everyone's out of sessions. Congress is back home in their home districts, I guess sheltering in place, answering the phones of constituents while old man is out there pretending that the radical left policies will help the economy.
Republicans are - I don't know, waiting till it all blows over. Is that unfair? Maybe it's unfair. Joining me now is Congressman Andy Biggs of Arizona. Congressman, I've been kind of beating this drum for days. Now we hear this is a war. We have - you know, we're on the way to having maybe 25 percent of the country out of work.
We got domestic abuse going up. I'm sure depression, loneliness, despair, hopelessness and she's plotting face forward to spend a heck of a lot more money. When are you guys coming back in session putting out your own road map?
REP. ANDY BIGGS (R-AZ): Well, we should be putting out our own road map now and I'll tell you what it is. We have to change the paradigm. I'm tired of walking in and playing on her turf. The reality is she wants to centralize this economy in ways that you and I would find an anathema and most Americans would as well.
So the way you do it is you change the paradigm by opening up the economy as much as you possibly can, you start making the governors that are shutting this down and forcing people out of work, you start making those - those states pay for takings.
You know Americans want to work. They want to - they want to get out. They want to basically worship. They can't worship in some places. This is really the first step is to change the paradigm by liberalizing the economy while you still respect the CDC guidelines on care for people but that's the first -
INGRAHAM: But then Congressman, Congressman, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you but isn't - wasn't it the CDC that you know kind of screwed this up from the beginning? I mean no offense but I mean we have to wait for the CDC. We have to wait for the curve, wait for the apex, comes down, goes up. The model changes. Most people are like, look, I'll wear a mask, whatever I have to do.
Tell me do I wear a mask, do I wear gloves? If I can get tested of antibody test? Just tell me what I have to do so we can get back to work to solve the problems that are going to be rippling across everyone's lives and help the people who are most vulnerable to this disease at the same time.
We can do that but the Republicans have got to stop - start pushing this message. Save the people and save the economy. You can do both.
BIGGS: No, I - that's exactly the point I'm trying to make is that we can't - we can't close up this economy because there are societal pathologies and ramifications for that, that are going to ripple for - for many years to come, quite frankly.
I mean you're going to see suicides go up which you're - which some places already said that they're seeing suicides go up. Child abuse, spousal abuse, drug abuse, all of those things when people invest their life savings and they can't even get out and work. People need to be able to get out and work so you have to push that.
That changes the paradigm and that pushes Nancy Pelosi out of her comfort zone and that's what we have to do if we're going to see this economy surge back and still protect people who have the vulnerabilities that we found.
INGRAHAM: All right, we have breaking news just moments ago, Politico's reporting that Trump has fired the Intel community watchdog Michael Atkinson. This is just happening. We don't know a lot more. Thoughts, congressman on this.
BIGGS: Well, as you know, we've seen tremendous violations of civil rights by abuse of the FISA, by the use of the FISA courts and I think somebody has to be held accountable. This may be just the first of many more people who are on the chopping block.
The recent interim report by Inspector General Horowitz indicates that in every one of the cases that they sampled, there'd been abused by the FBI and the Intel community. That has got to stop as well. That's an abuse of our civil rights. And I just can't tell you, that's one of the things we should be doing in Congress is getting back there and cleaning that mess up as well, because that's also going to also have ramifications and probably has already had ramifications on people. This is very, very important.
INGRAHAM: And Congressman, we just all have to remember, a crisis has to be dealt with, we want to protect people and save lives. We have our civil liberties, our Constitution to also preserves. And after 9/11, we did a heck of a lot of stuff that in the moment felt really good. But then later on, years later comes the waste, fraud, and abuse, and we have to think about that now. We're seeing this with the FISA court, all this stuff that came with a Patriot Act, some good stuff in there, but a lot of stuff that was open for abuse. And we are seeing some of those things creep in during this COVID crisis as well.
Congressman, I'm glad you're on the job. We want you to come back to Washington and confront this Pelosi agenda, because this is going to be a massive cramdown. Thanks so much for being here tonight.
BIGGS: Thanks, Laura.
INGRAHAM: All right, the coronavirus lockdown has given us the worst jobs report in a decade. The unemployment rate was at a 50 year low until we lost 700,000 jobs in March. That's just the beginning, by the way. It's now at 4.4 percent, but, again, that number is going to jack way up. It's going to get a lot worse, and we better start paying for it and figuring out how we're going to turn this economy back on. And 10 million people now have been laid off just in the last two weeks. These numbers I know hurt the heart of Steve Forbes, chairman and the editor-in-chief of Forbes Media, an old friend of mine and the program. Steve, the president says he wants to end the lockdown on April 30th. I think a lot of people had gotten their hopes up that it was going to be in a couple weeks. What happens to our economy if it goes beyond April 30th?
STEVE FORBES, CHAIRMAN, FORBES MEDIA: The devastation -- excuse me. The devastating is going to be very real. You already saw it in that 10 million number in the last two weeks. That's going to get worse. In effect we've done the economic equivalent of a medical shutdown of the economy, a coma, induced coma, be more blunt about a sledgehammer. So this gets to where economics and health care intertwine. And that is we have to massively step up the testing. For example, Abbott has a laboratory, has a test that can tell you in five or 15 minutes whether you have this horrific disease. They've only produced 5,000 kids. They should be producing 50,000 a day. They should be licensing and the government should push them to do it. Other manufacturers, we should be doing not 100,000 tests a day, but for a country our size, experts tell me we should be doing at least 500,000 a day until we find out who already has immunities. That's good if you already had it, you didn't know you had the disease, you thought it was a normal flu. That means you can go out in the workforce.
So we've got to do massive testing so by the end of April we can have large parts of this economy starting to function again. But the president has to appoint somebody as a point person to make sure that these things are done now. Otherwise they're just going to get lost in the translation.
INGRAHAM: And it was going to be April 25th, then Anthony Fauci is not going to like the curve, or there's going to be a blip that means too many people have been outside their house paddle boarding or jogging. Someone was arrested, I kid you not, arrested today in Malibu, California, for paddle-boarding. This is what is happening in our country, people are being arrested for just walking outside or being on the ocean. Do you ever think you'd see that in this country, Steve Forbes?
FORBES: Absolutely not, and the idea you can't go to church, you can't do other things -- most Americans if they're told wash your hands --
INGRAHAM: Can't do anything.
FORBES: -- they're washing their hands. Most Americans know if they have to do social distancing as they call it, I like physical distancing as a phrase to describe it. Fine, they'll do it. But the key thing is to get as much of this economy up and running as soon as possible. If we continue this, yes, there will be another rescue package, another one needed for small businesses.
INGRAHAM: Oh, God.
FORBES: But those are not going to get to the real problem. If you take sledgehammer to the American economy, it's going to takes time to bring it back. It'll recover quickly as long as we have a benign environment which gets to the election, hopefully next year we will have that benign environment, and then you will really see things really start to turn. But in the meantime, massive testing, emergency testing, get that manufacturing up. We did it in World War II. We saved 200,000 American soldiers lives because of the development of antibiotics. That was a crash program pushed by a fellow named Vannevar Bush, and that's what we've got to do here. Get it done.
INGRAHAM: Yes, and we have a cheap, scalable, safe drug, hydroxychloroquine, that is easy to produce.
FORBES: And that came out of that same office, that same guy, that same office that gave us the antibiotics in World War II, saved 200,000 soldiers lives, also pushed that chloroquine. We've got to do it again. It's there. Use it. Push it now.
INGRAHAM: Hydroxychloroquine, yes. And well, the drug companies don't make any money off of it. I don't mean to be the suspicious cynic, but they don't make money off generic drugs. They don't make money off that brand name. It's made by Sanofi, and they don't make any money off of it. The resistance to hydroxychloroquine --
FORBES: This is where you say get it done, here's how you do it, and it will get done. We all know, the drug companies know they're not going to do well if you have a rotten economy. So let's get it done.
And by the way, I think the real push on hydroxychloroquine is the fact that Donald Trump liked it. If Donald Trump said the sun came up in the morning, they'd say, oh, no, that's a Chinese light bulb in the sky. It just is perverse. We've got to move on all fronts on that.
INGRAHAM: Yes, we've got the former FDA commissioner throwing cold water on it. You've got Fauci, I love everybody, love the medical profession, but they want a double-blind controlled study on whether the sky is blue. OK, at some point we've got to put the tourniquet on and we've got to heal ourselves.
FORBES: That's why you need somebody to push it, because these bureaucratic habits have to be broken. This is an emergency like wartime. Let's treat it as such.
INGRAHAM: Steve Forbes, love having you on. You take care of yourself and come back soon, OK?
FORBES: Thank you.
INGRAHAM: All right, up next, Biden is back from has bunker, we have the video. And you won't believe who could be "People" magazine's sexiest man of the year. Oh, I can't wait. We've got Raymond Arroyo, all the details, "Friday Follies" next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
INGRAHAM: It's Friday, and that means it's time for "Friday Follies." With all the madness we're joined by the author of ""Will Wilder 3, The Amulet of Power," now in paperback, Raymond Arroyo. Raymond, Joe Biden had a press avail yesterday, as we call it. He took questions for a long time. I think it was four minutes.
RAYMOND ARROYO, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Yes, it was. Laura, I watched it. The vice president spoke from his Wilmington basement about coronavirus relief checks and so much more. It's all in our new "What You Know, Joe" segment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Americans shouldn't have wait to a single minute so Donald Trump can put his signature on a physical check. The White House should have the backs, the states, the backs of the states, not just -- it's the responsibility of the White House and the federal government to help.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARROYO: Laura, he is turning into the Rip Van Winkle of the coronavirus politically. The man is rarely there. Trump has got eight hours, he's got 8 million people watching those daily press briefings from the White House. Poor Biden is in his basement talking to himself, not finding his way. This is not an auspicious way to run a presidential campaign.
INGRAHAM: Raymond, it looked -- was the audio and the video, was that us, or was it his video? It seemed a little mixed, mismatch there.
ARROYO: I think there have been some problems there. But Biden might be stuck at home, Laura, but a certain Supreme Court justice is still hitting the gym. The court is leaving its gym open twice a week to accommodate your pal, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and her trainer Bryant Johnson. Now, the Supreme Court announced today they're suspending oral arguments for the rest of the term so they can keep the gym open for RBG. That's not why they're suspending it, but they're keeping it open. How can the high court be closed to business, Laura? How can they do this?
INGRAHAM: Well, I worked there many years ago, as you remember, as a law clerk, and the idea of the court closing just seems absolutely preposterous. I mean, the Framers --
ARROYO: Could they hear oral arguments from their chambers?
INGRAHAM: No, they can separate the chairs. It's actually pretty tight in there, but they can move the chairs apart and still hear it -- you're not on top of the justice when you're doing an oral argument. You're standing a little bit away. So this is just stupid. But all three branches of government should be engaged.
ARROYO: I guess the only way you're going to get your case heard is if you wear workout gear, because the only thing open is the Supreme Court gym apparently.
INGRAHAM: Ruth Bader Ginsburg is amazing, she is incredible.
Raymond, we've been talking about the corona comebacks, as we called them, all the golden oldie acts that are returning to try to gin up the YouTube hits during the pandemic. So there's another octogenarian hitting the workout mat again. Who is that?
ARROYO: RBG could join her. Just to keep you in shape, Laura, a familiar workout is back in business revived by Jane Fonda.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(MUSIC)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And lift up and down, and up and down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(LAUGHTER)
INGRAHAM: Are you kidding me?
ARROYO: Laura, remember on Friday she started doing these fire drill Fridays to get arrested so she could raise awareness for climate change. With that gone, Jane is left to now do the workout routine again. I'll bet the Vietnam vets probably won't be attending these virtual workouts.
INGRAHAM: First of all, if only she can get arrested for the five, six, seven, eight with the leg, that would be good. God bless her.
(LAUGHTER)
ARROYO: America's lawyers have really distinguished themselves during this quarantine. However, the mayor of Houston, Sylvester Turner, isn't among them, especially when he offered this safety message to his constituents.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR SYLVESTER TURNER (D-TX): Until the coronavirus is resolved, criminals, take a break, OK? Stay home. OK, stay home. Don't commit any crimes. And that way, they'll stay and out of jail, and police officers will stay safe and can go home to their families, OK. So everybody chill. Crooks, criminals, you chill.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(LAUGHTER)
INGRAHAM: No, no, no, no, no!
ARROYO: That's unbelievable!
INGRAHAM: What? That's easy. That's all you need to do!
ARROYO: Can you return to looting and larceny after the coronavirus has passed? This is unbelievable.
INGRAHAM: Just chill. Raymond, if anything goes wrong, just chill, OK. Commit your grand larceny.
ARROYO: Yes, just chill. All you criminals and killers, just chill.
INGRAHAM: No, no. No, no, after we flatten the curve you can go jack a car. This is crazy!
ARROYO: The curve of his election prospects I think are doing that.
INGRAHAM: Hold on, before we go, before we go, what is the Change.org petition that has gotten the attention of "People" magazine, what is it?
ARROYO: A petition has started to get, believe it or not, Dr. Anthony Fauci named "People" magazine's sexiest man of the year. That photo spread is going to be something, Laura. And people are taking this seriously. The editor in chief in a statement wrote "Dr. Anthony Fauci is indeed the latest unexpected star to emerge from the COVID-19 task force daily briefings. He has helped bring back must-see TV to the masses. Smart is sexy, no doubt." Laura, I'm just amazed by this. This gives all we men a lot of hope if Anthony Fauci can be the sexiest man alive.
INGRAHAM: Well, I would be interested in seeing that photo spread. This is the people's online reaction to the petition. Check it out.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Look, any man that can ease my anxiety about a world pandemic is sexy in my book, Jeremy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Totally, Raymond.
ARROYO: That's "People" magazine's anchor, Laura, on their online show.
INGRAHAM: Totally, totally.
ARROYO: So I guess smart is sexy, glad to hear it.
INGRAHAM: All right, thank you, Raymond. We will see you next week.
And up ahead, the CDC is now recommending everyone wear cloth masks in public. So why now? And if it so important, why did it take so long? And why the confusion? Will it slow the spread? Scientist Jeremy Howard will answer those questions and more, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A surgical mask doesn't protect you from a respiratory illness.
DR. KAVITA PATEL, FORMER OBAMA WHITE HOUSE HEALTH POLICY DIRECTOR: In an ideal world, we would have the public being masked when they go out.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We don't recommend them for the general public.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: So which is it, masks, no masks, Halloween masks cloth mask? The CDC is settling the debate and recommending, not requiring, people wear face masks when they're out in public and they can't physical distance, but not the kind the doctors are using.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: A scarf is highly recommended by the professionals.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It can be made from bandannas or scarfs, things like this that you have at home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And we're advising New Yorkers to wear a face covering. It could be a scarf, it could be something you create yourself at home.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Joining me now is Jeremy Howard, founder of Masks For All and University of San Francisco research scientist. Jeremy, so should we be doing a DIY thing ourselves and figuring it out, vacuum cleaner bags. I understand I've been looking for those all night, can't find any. So there's a run on the bags now because apparently that's good. What do you recommend?
JEREMY HOWARD, UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO RESEARCH SCIENTIST: The worst mask is your skin. You don't want infected droplets touching your face, and you don't want potentially infected droplets coming out of you and touching somebody else. So the messages here is cover up. Honestly, it doesn't matter too much what the actual cover is. Pretty much any kind of cloth cover will protect about 99 percent of the tiny droplets that fly out when you talk. And it's those droplets that are actually mainly causing this infection.
INGRAHAM: Dr. Howard, I want to play this little clip from a how-to video, I love these, for a very popular homemade cloth mask. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Measure and mark 13 inches on the hem side by five inches perpendicular. Cut out the piece. Cut four half-inch by 17-inch strips from the sheet interior, insert the tie into the small hole you've created, knot one end, secure the tie with a safety pin. And that's it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Jeremy, all the around are like, I'm not doing that. It's too confusing, too many different steps. I mean, are people actually going to do this, do you think? Is this going to become de rigueur fashion in the grocery store?
HOWARD: Let me show you something. This is what a mask looks like when a data scientist makes it. I just cut up a t-shirt and I just tie it around my head, and it works great. It's actually based on the latest scientific research. Cambridge University says two layers of cotton is great. And Chinese researchers found the best material just about is a kitchen paper towel. So I just have a bit of t-shirt, stick a bit of towel in the middle, tie it around my head. And I've got something that works.
Mind you, my mother-in-law did it a little bit better, I must admit, so she's taking pity on me. But same thing, right? This is two layers of cotton, and in the middle, she left me a little pocket for this magic nano material, the paper towel, which makes it work just fantastic.
INGRAHAM: Very cute. And Professor, when you look at the way people are reacting in stores and stuff, a week ago, people were shocked to see people in masks. Now people are like hey, how are you doing? I'm good. And it's like, oh, I love what you did with that. It's becoming, I love the twist. How did you make your knot? It really is -- it's a sight to see it. Here is a really creative idea from Denise, the mother of our senior producer. She wanted to make a mask out of only household supplies, and this is what she did.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I took two sheets of a paper towel, just kept folding this way, the next way, over again. I just two rubber bands, folded them over on the edge and stapled them. Here's the mask.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: And just think, people were buying up all these things on Amazon for $150 for one mask three or four weeks ago. So from now on, until when, Dr. Howard, would we have to wear the masks? Forever?
HOWARD: Until a few weeks after lockdown, or stay in place orders are done. Masks are amazing. They cut the rate of transmission up to half. And scientists have estimated that if 80 percent of the people in a community wear a mask, it would actually completely halt the transmission. So it's kind of like -- it is seeming like it's now the number one tool right now, and so if we keep the masks on for a while --
INGRAHAM: Jeremy, thank you. It's great to see you tonight.
And coming up, Raymond Arroyo returns with a big announcement.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
INGRAHAM: OK, Raymond, you forgot to tell us about the other grassroots movement dude to nominate for "People's" sexist man alive. Raymond left it out of his script. Look, check it out.
ARROYO: What?
INGRAHAM: Oh, it's Raymond Arroyo on Vladimir Putin's body. That's horrible.
All right, that's all the time we have tonight.
(LAUGHTER)
ARROYO: You are getting desperate.
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