[♪] lou: good evening, everybody. president trump will be addressing the nation from the white house as his administration continues its raped response to the coronavirus pandemic. the president's address comes on the date world health organization finally declared the virus to be a pandemic. we however were ahead of the curve. we made our declaration two weeks ago that it was a pandemic. the world health organization and other public health agencies have not officially labeled the infection to be a pandemic, but that's clearly what it is.

from now on on this show we'll call the contagion what it is. it'it's a pandemic that has alry hit 30 nations. it has affected people in 114 nations. more than 1,100 cases have been con nirmd this nation. 30 have died. these cases are not for a lack of testing. at least that's what the health and human services secretary alex azar says. azar saying testing has always been available for americans concerned they have the wuhan virus. >> we have a surplus of the supply. we have 2 million in shipment or waiting for orders. just to be really clear about this. we have always had the capacity

and capability to test any individual that any public health official believes needed to be tested for the novel coronavirus. we just making it more convenient and localized for doctors and patients to get testing. lou: then why mass not more testing been done. according to the cdc * multiple specimens are required from each patient. we asked the cdc for clarification on how many patients have been tested and how the tests resulted negative or possible advertised. their answer, they are only reporting on specimens. this is strange. in this country and around the world governments are ramping up preventing the spread of the

virus. in italy all stores except pharmacies and food markets will be closed. joining us to discuss the latest on the w.h.o.'s pandemic declaration and local working to mitigate the spread of the wuhan virus. dr. marc siegel. great to have you with us. let's start with azar saying there have always been plenty of test kits and that's just a fiction in the minds of some. >> i wouldn't put it that way. i'm not going to disagree with the secretary whom i know well. i think it's more the issue of how long it takes to get a result. if i have a patient and i want at result. i may have to mail it up to albany and it may take two or three days. the issue is availability. how near a proximity where i am

when i want it and how fast the turnaround is. lou: we haven't seen a large testing of people who think they have had it. most local jurisdictions haven't had the ability to test. that's being corrected now. but the fact is, we have been flying somewhat blind for some time because there hasn't been a wide dispersal of testing kits or a coordinated reporting of those tests which is a bizarre thing to me. secretary azar is a good fellow. but this is not the time for the nonsense with the language. we need to be forthright. and particularly those people speak on public health need to be forthright. >> i have been making a lot of phone calls. they are just now gearing up the

testing. lou: we are not here to score points and embarrass anyone. buff my job as you well know here is to even large the body of public knowledge and without -- as best we can without in any way confusion or distorting the reality as we find it. are you feeling better about what is happening now? this president worked immediately to stop travel. some now after so many of his detractors argued how dare he ban travel in any form. now the same critics are saying he overdid it. and others are saying, you know, we should have shut it down all together. it's a bizarre list of criticisms from the left primarily and from his i will just call them detractors. >> he made the decisions based

on available information just as we have. we didn't know for a long time how many cases there were in china. we don't know if cases were in mexico. lou: i would argue we still don't. >> we are told things are calming down. we don't know whether to believe that. i think he made a robust response to travel. i agree with dr. fauci that it decreases the number of cases we are seeing in the u.s. there was a reflex, a globalist reflex that said you can't slow down travel. you have got to keep the great global commercial machine robust and ramping up all the time. he made a decision he knew would be unpopular. we'll hear from the president at 9:00 eastern. what do you think he will say?

>> we heard from the w.h.o. that it's a pandemic. but we have been calling it a pandemic for a long time. our viewers know that's exactly what we have been describing. we had a pandemic for some time. i think the president is likely to call it a national emergency. he mobilized a lot of resources. because he's becoming aware that we are seeing a lot more community spread than we have documented cases. we want the resources to decrease the amount of virus spreading because we don't have a vaccine. lou: a number of companies are making every effort to bring a vaccine to market. and amongst them, john price, the ceo of one of those companies, greffex. he's saying we have an

opportunity if the president choose to accelerate testing trials and move the product if found to be safe. if it is found to be effective into the market much sooner than would have otherwise been the case. >> dr. fauci talked about one vaccine. here is what the most -- here is what a lot of them have done. they are refurbishing vaccines we started with sars. we had the sars outbreak in 2003. we started on the road of creating a vaccine. that was shut down when sars went away. we are moveway there already. -- we are halfway there already. the prone fauci is saying that -- lou: the reason he's saying it is because it's the standard approach. but we are reaching a level here that is different from anything we have seen since the swine flu

which was the last time the world health organization declared a pandemic. >> six months from beginning to end for the swine flu. and that pandemic ended up being milder than we expected. it was quite effective. lou: week only hope it will be as fortunate and the genetic engineering companies will be as successful as they were in 2009 in bringing that to market. >> that's what we need. genetic engineering. get it pout, gift to massive amounts of people. >> always good to have you here. thanks so much. a major victory for the trump administration and the supreme court. the high court ruled the president's remain in mexico policy can be even forced as litigation surrounding it moves

on. the circuit court of appeals order would remain in effect. no longer, it is a federal policy, it remains in place pending the courts. up next, bernie sanders defying the establishment democratic, radical democrat kick luminaries, calling for him to drop out of the race. he says he's a socialist to the bone. >> it's not going to be possible any more for bernie sanders to win the nomination. >> let's shut this puppy down and move on to november. there is no reason to keep it going even a day longer. >> i think it's time to shut this primary down and cancel the rest of these debates. >> bernie is an inspiration to me. but the masses said joe is the nominee. we need to bring the party

together. lou: bernie says he's not through. ed collins takes up a critical vote over the fisa program. the deep state loves spying on the administration. and they got a vote they will love in the house of representatives today. we take it up right after these quick messages. while the world keeps fighting for your attention. we'll keep building smarter suv's. to help keep you focused on the road ahead. and. the road beside. did we mention the road ahead. with an available best in class. epa estimated combined fuel economy and the technology to practically park itself. this is the reimagined 2020 ford escape.

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lou: breaking news tonight. two of our soldiers, one british soldier killed. 12 additional soldiers wound following a military attack on a base in iraq around 7:30 p.m. the base is 20 miles away from baghdad. isis does not have the -- ability to carry out such an attack. that attack left 109 of our troops with brain -- trauma.

investigative journalist john solomon reports the fbi knew early on there was no collusion between the trump organization and russia. citing declassified memos, solomon reports the month president trump took office in january 2017, the fbi knew the steele dossier was fraudulent, unverified. they knew michael flynn was not an agent of russia. the key targets of the fbi including george papadopoulos and carter page made exculpatory statements to the fbi agents telling them they were not involved in any way. yet the american public was kept in the dark for at least two years. attorney general william barr and fbi director christopher

wray approving of the fisa bill that passed the house today with some changes. we don't know whether we can call them reforms yet. there were no committee hearings or public discussion whatsoever. this secret court, a soviet-like court system for the surveillance of supposedly foreigners on our soil. but it turns out to be a soviet-style court system used in a soviet-style way. back to the attorney general writing today, i am pleads, he said, that the bill contains a number of provisions director wray and i put forward to address past failures. we don't know which failures they are. we haven't seen a report. we haven't seen anyone held to account for the fraudulent use of those courts.

but you can take apparently the attorney general's word. and director wray with of the fbi which has been politically corrupt at the top. the senate is expected to vote on it tomorrow. the last congressional day before fisa expires. there must be a sense of urgency. this usual gambit they pretend adds to the importance of the moment and the shoddiness of the vote and the reasons for it. mitch mcconnell says he strongly supports it. joining us tonight, andy mccarthy. national review contributing editor, fox news contributor. good to see you. good to have you with us. my blood boils to think that the

attorney general and christopher wray, the director of the fbi, mitch mcconnell, the leader of the republican-controlled senate and kevin mccarthy and a number of his colleagues in the house voted with the democrats to move this aside effectively in the dead of night without a public hearing or a discussion or dialogue with the american people and ignoring the president's demand for reform before it's reauthorized. this is a shoddy, sorry moment, what do you think? >> i will respectfully disagree with you on that. what was at stake here was not fisa reform. you are not going to get fisa reform unless somebody has an appetite to deal with what is actually wrong with fisa which is it's not a judicial responsibility. i agree with you on what you

said about the court system. it's a travesty. if you want to reform what's wrong with fisa you have to go to the structure of fisa. what was at stake here, even though it's called fisa, were three provisions of the patriot act that actually allow us to detect terrorists -- i'm not talking about carter page types -- i'm talking about actual foreign clandestine agents who mean the united states harm. those three provisions which should not have a sunset on them to begin with were due to expire on march 15. to my mind they should have been reauthorized. and if you want to have a conversation with fisa reform. let's have it. but let's talk about what's really wrong here. the elephant in the room being the court. lou: i will respectfully

disagree with you. i think this creates a channel to proceed that ignores all that has occurred to this point, which is over three years of abuse of the fisa court system. it shows the on general and christopher wray think they somehow hud have the power to tell every american we'll pat you on the head, trust us. this ignorance has to stop. i don't care what you want to call it. if you want to rip in whole cloth the entire fisa court system from our government, i would be just as happy. but to be told that we are not going to have public hearings. we are not going to have a report on all that has been -- all the wrongs done by the fbi at the top. the justice department. this is ignorance.

for it to be tolerated by the american people and particularly the republican party with this president has been the most seriously agree jutsly injured, the american people have been insulted. now to have the chief law enforcement officer say everything will be fine. hell, no, it's not fine. it's time for everybody to grow up and see that. >> i agree that there the has to be a comeuppance for the wrong that's been done here. what happened here is rogues carrying on as rogues. an fbi agent is going to lie to a court. it doesn't matter what laws or rules you have in place. all you do by ratcheting up the

rules is make it more difficult for the law abiding people to do their job. lou: i don't know where the law after he biding people are. i haven't seen a fine report from bengazi and that's been 8 years. the justice department is a hideous place where truth goes to die. and reckless prosecutors who mean to harm far more than they do to bring justice in any grotesque form they consider justice. this is sickening what we are witnessing. i hear people say there are lots of good people in that fbi and good freedom that justice department. i ask, where the hell are they? where are the whistleblowers? where are the people who knew damn well what was going on as this president was attacked and good people were injured. they will never recover from it

and we both know that. >> i think the people on get held accountable by investigations aimed at the people who abuse their power. i don't think you get that out of a statutory scheme. lou: ron johnson says he's going to investigate the bidens and today he stops a vote. so we don't know whether he's now the senator from wisconsin or the senator from burisma. we hear from lindsey graham that he's going to investigate the investigators. more crap that spewed from both sides of his mouth. and no one ever sees anything of any substance base's the chairman of the senate judiciary committee. it's a farce and a sad, pathetic way to run a great

constitutional you republic. >> i can't argue with you about the big wind no rain aspect we get from the republicans in congress. but i will tell you the washington playbook in through of investigating people, let's pretend to have a statutory reform. that's why i'm not going up in a balloon one way or the other about fisa reform. i will know there is an appetite for it when i hear people say they are willing to address the fisa court. lou: i heard ron johnson say he wants to investigate the bidens. i heard lindsey graham say he's going to investigate the investigators. it's been 14 months and all i see hip doing is trying to get another book on a sunday talk

show. i hope you stay in the fight for right because we need you there. be sure to vote in our poll tonight. the question is do you believe the republican-led senate will vote for the fisa reauthorization petition just approved by the house of representatives? cast your vote on twitter @loudobbs. up next, the wuhan virus, a major impact on one of this country's biggest sporting events. we'll talk about limiting fan attendance to stop the spread of the virus. dr. lipton joins us next.

lou: joining us tonight is dr. ian lipton from columbia university.

he was invited by the chinese government to help them study the coronavirus. let's begin with this virus and how we are watching it spread. we are told it's going to get much worse. i think most of us understand that's the likely case. how is this virus spreading? >> it's extraordinarily transmissible. we used terms that refer to how much people get infected by a single individual. in this case we don't know how much get infected. but it seems to be at least two. one becomes two, becomes four, becomes eight. then suddenly it explodes and that's what we are seeing in the united states.

lou: as i look at south korea and italy. we seem to be far more fortunate as a result of whatever we are doing in our public health system. the wait task force is responding seems to be working well indeed. your thoughts? >> the operative word is seems. we don't know how many people have been infected. as we use the tests to detect the virus directly. we find evidence of people who are infected who don't know they are infected because they have a mild disease. director fauci talked about this earlier. there is a lot of virus circulating all over the united states about which we'll become knowledgeable in the coming

weeks. lou: there was a reticence to ban travel. now we know that travel is the permitted transmission of the virus. do you think even though the president was criticized roundly for restricting travel that we should have gone farther? >> some of this is impossible to control. we have porous borders, porous transportation. i think we can learn what happened in china. where it was restricted to a small area it was possible to cordon it off. that's difficult to do in the united states because it simultaneously appeared in receive locations around the united states. as i said earlier, it's already circulating below the surface. at present all we can do is put in what i call speed bumps.

we'll throwe slow everything down and have interventions to treat the disease and hope the acceleration will be slowed as much as it can be. lou: it is encouraging. and now that it's designated as a pandemic, that apparently frees up our bureaucracy to move faster and epilate in some ways as dr. siegel said earlier, we learn from sars -- excuse me, from the swine flu, that we could in some instances move a vaccine from inception to the market in six months. hopefully we will get that lucky again. >> vaccines are tricky. making a vaccine for this virus. not all viruses. like h.i.v. and a pan flu virus. they are difficult to develop. but there is nothing

incontinuesically difficult about makin make making a vaccir this virus. what takes time is the testing. it can be six months before you are certain you have a vaccine that you are confident is saved and effective. then you have to produce and distribute it. lou: keeping our heath officials saved from this virus. how are we doing there and what do we need to do in the way of more for them? >> people who know they are taking care of infected patients have access to respirator masks that we require. the personality protective gloves and be gowns. the challenge is people working in nursing homes. lou: dr. lipkin, we are glad to

have you back. thank you very much. up next, the troubling background of a consultant for alabama favorite coach tommy tuberville. he has interesting company in his campaign. (music)

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surprising the democratic establishment. he says he's staying in the race despite a night of disastrous primary results. he says he will challenge joe biden to he brace a series of his socialist charges. the president endorsing taupie tuberville in alabama. he tweeted that tuberville will never let maga or our country down. sessions did let the president down. he has no chance of beater tuberville, based on our latest polling. tuberville hired a consultant

that works for a pro immigration group. the group was founded by big tech billionaires. industrial in getting congress to support their pro immigration agenda, lobbying for the dream act and the fairness for high skilled immigrants act. they are just dying to pass that in a republican-led senate. tuberville said he would support amnesty. but jesmer's role in the campaign is concerning. joining us now is ed rollins. former reagan white house political director and the savant himself. bernie sanders surprises everybody, stays in. i love the clip that we ran of

all the democratic be savants saying he should get out. no debates, and clean it up. >> they have rules the rules are until someone gets a majority, there are no nominees. lou: it's also good for the party. >> there are a lot of people who support him. there is a platform to draft. and who knows what will happen in the course of a month. my sense is, why wouldn't you stay in? lou: why -- joe biden is quitea character so anything could happen. so is bernie sanders. i think it's entertain the value for the two of these people po to come together to debate 7

minutes at a time. >> we see what he can say within a 7-minute time frame. lou: we have americans dead in iraq after a rocket attack. 18 rockets hitting them. it's getting tougher releasing taliban prisoners in afghanistan. 1,500, 3,500 more to come. the afghans getting back 1,000. what's the -- what's the president to do. >> he has to give a speech in the sense of the state of the union speech. this is on the commander-in-chief to calm the country. there are a lot of things going on. he can make tough decisions, he

just has to reinforce to the american public why he's making them. lou: we put in a man who can handle unprecedented crises. thanks so much. one of our colleagues here at fox, retired four star general jack keane received the presidential medal of freedom. keen served as the army's vice chief of staff and spent 0 years in the army. he said he's deeply honored to receive the honor. what can be done to stop the pandemic of the coronavirus. xi jinping takes a victory lap in wuhan. we take it up with gordon chang after the break. while be talking with dr. gordon

lipkin. i had to leave for a hard break. but he will be back with us. we'll be back with gordon chang and dr. lipkin next. as a struggling actor, i need all the breaks that i can get. at liberty butchemel... cut. liberty mu... line? cut. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. cut. liberty m... am i allowed to riff? what if i come out of the water? liberty biberty... cut. we'll dub it. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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lou: welcome back. we are with dr. ian lipkin and gordon chang. asian expert by he country in the region. good to have you. doctor, thanks for coming back to talk about something very important. the doctor has an idea that's so exciting and we need to get it out in front of you. if you will tell us what you are thinking in terms of what folks can do for their fellow citizens. someone of the reasons i went to china at the end of january was figure out what they were doing that was different to treat people. a week ago i got a paper from a friend of mine telling me he treated 10 patients with plasma therapy, plasma taken from patients who did well. this old method we did before

antibiotics. we'll ask people who reare covered from this infection to volunteer, to provide plasma so we can use this to treat other people around the world who are infected. this is something we think will make a huge difference in morbidity and mortality. lou: it's extraordinary and terrific. i know there are other their piewd is worked on. >> this is available right now. how broadly can it -- lou: how much people -- can the plasma from one person be used to treat? >> the studied i saw, one person was able to donate enough plasma to treat three people. it's not like donating blood. it will be easy to do until we

have a vaccine. lou: thank you for sharing that. it's a terrific idea. you just made big news. thank you. quickly. gordon, what we are watching right now at the same time with china, there is a campaign to not call this the chinese virus or wuhan virus. it starts much with the world health organization and dr. tedros. >> china started blaming the united states for spreading panic. called immoral. racist. went after the west in general. they are trying to find someone to blame. so what secretary of state and vice president pence have been doing is saying this is the wuhan virus. this is not from the united states. one of china's narratives is

this virus started from the u.s. i know the secretary of state and the vice president have been getting a lot of heat. they have been called racist. but in this is america defending itself. we need to say these things. lou: the president and xi have a great relationship. they reached historic trade agreement. and there is a friction here that's palpable now. not between necessarily the two leaders. but between china and the united states. you spent a lot of time there. you have been there since sars. and your thoughts as you watch this unfold. there is a closer relationship with the public health community than there is if you will with the government. >> things improved dramatically since 2003. it took months to find out what was going on.

and the infrastructure for science has improved dramatically. this therapy that i was talking about, plasma therapy was shared with me by chinese colleagues. at the scientific level we don't talk about politics. lou: redfield, the head of cdc getting into a bit of a -- well, in the spirit of the moment i won't quote redfield for playing a little politics today. we'll give him a pass. i am emulate your lead. i will be a member of the public health community for a while at least in my manners. thank you very much, doctor. i will give you the last word here, so at this point, are you optimistic about where we are as

a country? are we doing enough? is the president doing enough to suit you? >> we need to do more, lou. the reason we don't have an emergency is the president acted at the end of january imposing the quarantines and the travel restrictions. it's not just china who has the disease. it's our allies, our friends. italy and south korea. we need to do more with the in and out of this country. lou: that's a terrific idea. i'm excited about that. gordon, i'm also excited about everything you have said, too. as always. stay with us. we'll come right back. i promise. ♪ it's surprising how the bigger a city gets... the smaller it starts to feel.

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lou: on wall street, stocks closed lower. down 1,465. the nasdaq down 392. that's right. heavy raiding. volatile trading. 7.4 billion shares. crude oil falling over 3%. gold losing as well down a percent to 1,634. silver down a percent.

16.73 an ounce. the chicago mercantile exchange announcing they are closing their trading floor at the close of business friday. the close sewer being done of course as a precaution to avoid possible spread of coronavirus. a reminder to listen to my reports three times a day coast to coast on the salem radio network. in our poll last night we asked if the coronavirus should be called covid-19 or wuhan virus. 84% said wuhan virus. president trump delivering an oval office address on the coronavirus pandemic 9:00 p.m. tonight. earlier he made remarks during a

meeting about the solidity and the strength of this resilient economy. that's it for us tonight. we hope you will join us. cheryllauren: it is 5:00 a.m. here are your top stories at this hour. president trump confronting the coronavirus with a series of sweeping measures to stop the spread in the u.s. it's not enough to stop the bleeding on wall street. how long will the bear market last. cheryl: the coronavirus shaking up the campaign trail, what it means for the 2020 race for the white house. lauren: the sports and entertainment world also being rocked by this pandemic. what's canceled, who is sick and who the world is waiting to hear from. it is thursday, march 12th. "fbn: a.m." starts right now.