[♪] lou: good evening, everybody. today has not been a day for buttercups or daffodils. there are reasons for many to be concerned, even angst. cdc director robert redfield couldn't answer a question about healthcare workers who have been unable to receive testing for the wuhan virus after being denied by the cdc. dr. anthony fauci of the national institutes of health admitting the system for testing has failed. >> the system is not geared to what we need right now, what you

are asking for. that's a failing. it is a failing. if i hear of anybody getting it easily the way people in other countries are doing it. we are not set up for that. do i think we should be? yes. but we are not. lou: last night we reported the cdc is telling us 11,000 specimens have been tested for the wuhan virus whether in a cdc lab or u.s. health laboratory. the cdc has not yet updated that number reporting the last tests were conducted by the u.s. public health labs last tuesday. ed the inability to test for the virus rocking the heartland in ohio. that state's top 8 official says they have only three kits to test for the virus allowing them to only test for 1,200.

>> we know just the fact of community spread says at least 1% at the very least, 1% of our population is carrying this virus in ohio today. we have 11.7 million people. so the math is over 100,000. that gives you a sense of how this virus spreads and it's spreading quickly. lou: there are a lot of other issues to concern you including today's market reaction to it all. the markets plummeted. the dow plunging almost 10% and suffering its worst loss since 1987. the nasdaq down 9%. the s & p down 10%. the markets have lost almost $3 trillion on the day.

we'll be taking up wall street's recent losses later on the broadcast and organizing the sum total of it all over the past couple weeks. we want you to meet a man who has been warning for decades what a global pandemic could do for the world. author of the 2017 book, deadliest enemy, our war against killer germs. doctor, it's great to have you with us. this is a lot for us to assimilate what has suddenly beset us in the form of the wuhan virus. and the reality is we are all coming to grips with it at the same time it seems. your thoughts about where we are as a nation right now, as a

people threatened by this virus. >> first of all i think unfortunately we are approaching this like we are trying to get through a minneapolis blizzard. we are looking two and three days out. we need to look at this as a coronavirus winter in the first weeks. we'll be dealing with this for the months to come but we'll get through it. if we start planning now we'll get through it better than we are now. lou: how long is this winter in your judgment? are you comfortable with an estimate about its duration? >> i think right now we have to assume it could easily be the next few months at the very least. i think the best estimates we do have suggests between 20-60 percent of the u.s. population could become infected and that's true for the world.

it's not going to happen overnight. every day we know we have something coming at us and we'll take it on and get through it. lou: that's about little cal leadership and family leadership, the way we conduct ourselves as individuals. americans have a long extradition of resilience. your thoughts about the tone of the country right now as you sense it. >> i think right now our job and people like myself, we are not here to scare people out of their wits, but we have to scare them into their wits. how do we protect those we love who may be older. >> have underlying disease. i believe this is not a partisan issue. it shouldn't be. it shouldn't even be a nationalist issue. if martians were attacking us we

could get together as the world and fight it off. this is a virus attacking all of us and we have to get together as a world to deal with this issue. lou: i couldn't agree with you more. today a couple people seeking help from president trump doing exactly that. responds in a hyper partisan fashion, and doing so in blazing ignorance. and we'll call them out for that just as we'll keep track of testing kits and the ways in which people would avoid, if nets, their own quarantine. this is a time as you said i would like the expression. scaring people into their wits. we would like to keep our wits about us and getting it right. lou: is it your sense there is a

point pat which we'll know how soon we'll have an effective vaccine and you used the word pollyannaish. how much of that is hope over substance to talk about it in less than a year? how much of it is hope over substance to talk about an anti-viral that will be extremely effective against the corona wuhan virus. >> my dear friends and colleague dr. tony fauci has been on your show a number of times talking about this issue. we can make a vaccine overnight. but we have to show that it works and it's safe. it's like the iowa farer who wants to harvest his corn after a month so he plants twice as

much corn. it doesn't work that way. it will take well over a year, year and a half before i can manage vaccines into the populations at least two years. this means we have to get through this. there are studies looking at effectiveness and safety of certain drugs. and then we have to manufacture them. but that could be coming sooner. lou: dr. ian lipkin was here last night and he shared an idea that was communicated to him by one of his friends in china talking about the use of plasma and antibodies from patients who have successfully overcome the virus and using that to bring other people to health. your thoughts about that idea. >> actually i'm high on that. i have been part of a group having those discussions right

now. originating out of a group stat johns hopkins university. i think that surely holds promise. the challenge is trying to get the blood samples and the amount of blood you need to make this kind of product. what we may be able to do is in the laboratory make these antibodies that were in the plasma. but that will not benefit all that's because of the sheer number of people who will be infected but it surely could help some, absolutely. lou: i would like to get your sense of how the administration is doing. you mentioned anthony fauci for whom i have the highest regard. we are all learning, but public health agencies have this squarely on their backs and are being held to a higher standard and hyper criticism in some

cases. your thoughts about how well they are doing and what they might need to do more of. >> first of all, i think we have to acknowledge that the situation for testing has been tear blin fortunate -- terribly unfortunate. we have to do a review of why that happened so it never happens again. and we need to stick with the public health message. one of the things i have been concerned about is we said for far too long that the risk is very low. that's like telling somebody standing on the beach when there is a hurricane three days offshore that everything will be fine. we need to tell people what we can do about it. how are we going to protect our healthcare systems. that part of our public health message needs to be clearly well articulated. lou: are you uncomfortable with

what seems to be an early reflex to defer to the world health organization on this? it seemed as if there was a -- to me a deferral, some sort of subjecof -- subject subsecvianc. >> would we invite the chinese to help us if we had an outbreak in larks los angeles? i don't think we would. i think that changed as we have extensive information coming from china with u.s. health and human services agents going to china. at the same time i would say that in terms of on a worldwide basis we need to have much more

information sharing and the last thing we need to do, and i know this will run counter to many, it's far too late to close borders. we predicted months before this current situation that the kind of border closings, airport screening, this virus would still leak in. we need to concentrate on what we can do with the virus in this country now and stop it. that's scene important message, every country has to do the same. lou: i would agree with you up to a point. and that point would be that we don't take responsibility for our own sovereignty and our own government. whether it's the local level, the state or federal level. to bring in the w.h.o.-tuvment n. agencies is -- w.h.o.-u.n.

agencies probably not a panacea. >> in this country we would share information with them. but we have the capability to be our own public health system all by itself. lou: amen, doctor. dr. michael olster. joe biden condemned the trump administration's response while providing a plan of his own. it is a plan that is a little familiar. see if you don't think this sounds a little like what president trump and his administration have already been doing? the former vice president called for privates laboratory tests, loans for small business, no

co-pays for testing, fasttracking vaccines. following the advice of the centers for disease control. the left-wing media dutifully carried his speech as if his ideas were his own and brand-new. without pointing out that the president is doing just that. take a throints president. >> the sba will begin providing economic loans. i met with the leaders of the health insurance industry who agreed to waive paul co-payments for coronavirus payments signed into law and $8.3 billion funding bill to help the cdc and other government agencies fight the virus and support vaccines critical for you. to follow the guidelines of your federal officials.

lou: and the left-wing media neglecting to point out the panic bind sparked the last time he talked about a pandemic. here is what he said in 2009 about the swine flu contagion. >> i would tell members of my family and i have. i wouldn't go anywhere in confined places right now. a confined aircraft when one person sneezes it goes through the aircraft. that's me. if i had another form of transportation, i wouldn't suggest they ride the subway. lou: the obama administration had to apologize for any alarm he may have caused. sit took six months for president obama to declare a national emergency that ultimately killed 12,000 americans and infected 60

million more. the biden campaign wants secret service protection. perhaps he might consider the best way to not need that secret service is to quit calling voters shores' asses. d.e.a. agents doing what -- you will be proud of what they have done and what the president ordered as they went through the streets cracking down on one of the most powerful drug cartels in the world. arresting hundreds. collecting huge amounts of drugs and cash. we take it up with jaeson jones. he joins us next.

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lou: federal agents conducting the single largest strike

against one of the deadliest cartels in history. project python, the operation taking place the past six months directly targeting cj and g cartel. the dea saying they eads more than 20,000 kilos of drugs and 15,000 kilograms of meth and $20 million in cash. the cartel blamed for the rising drugs. the united states offering a $10 million reward for the cartel's leader. joining us tonight is jaeson jones. he's a retired captain of the

texas department intelligence division. i don't know when i have been able to report on a drug enforcement operation on this scale with this' arrests. it's been a very long time. i want to commend local, state and federal law enforcement. especially dea and the men and women of special operations division. they work unilaterally with all agencies across the country. this was a big operation. to take down the kind of numbers you just mentioned. it gives credence to how big these cartels have become. and trying to get them designated as foreign terrorist operations. this one cartel with 600 people

arrested. those are incredible numbers. lou: 600-plus mexican cartel arrests. do we have that full screen? do we? i guess we just have to be patient, jason. 33,000 pounds of meth and $20 million i mentioned. the drugs are getting even more significant at a type when that border -- at a time when that border -- we have more activity from the mexican national guard and mexican military. and the u.s. with all of our resources, it seems drugs are getting through despite everything that we are doing. >> they are, lou. when they just knocked down 15,000 kilograms of

methamphetamine. that gives you some insight. if we look into mexico. the administrator yesterday as he gave it announcements on the indictments and the arrest numbers they took down on this operation. he talked about that this one cartel is operating over 100 methamphetamine labs in mexico. to put that in perspective. one super labs in mexico can produce 7 tons of methamphetamines in three days. that's massive. now take that and realize this one cartel is in 42 countries around the world. we have done fantastic work, the men and would even of law enforcement. i praise them. this is a violent and dangerous cartel. they have gone through multiple levels of training that our

officers went after. the impact of this in the long game will be minimal. this is just having to be honest about how volatile they have become and how dynamic they are and how open our border is. within 7-10 days' of these cells will be replaced by citizens from mexico working with the cartels and getting back up to speed. we have seen this countless times. when we had the officer killed in mexico sabata. and i remember thinking at that time we are going to crush them. we went after them all over the world and they were back up and running in no time. you have to go after them in mexico. lou: when you say we have learned. i know who you are primarily talking about, law enforcement. but a lot of mayors haven't

learned, the politicians haven't learned. locally in the swamp and d.c. the democratic party is fully aligned with the cartels. they are making it possible for those borders to remain wide open to all of these drugs and violence. as you say, they haven't got the stomach to designate the cartels as what they are. that is, terrorist organizations. do you think that will change soon? >> i hope so. i thank you for allowing us to have this conversation because not' people are. if we talk about the leadership. they are operating in 22 states of the 32 in mexico. they are so powerful in 015 they shot down a military helicopter with rpgs as they were copping

in after it. they are operating as a parallel government in mexico. if we are going to see long-term strategic success we have to go after them in mexico. after them in mexico. lou: jaeson jones, thank you fo) (music and splat sound) (music) oops (music and patter of little shoes) (music and glass breaking) uh-oh... get on top of it before they do. (music and loud glass breaking) about every 30 minutes tipped furniture or a falling tv sends an injured child to the emergency room. preventing tipover incidents is easy, inexpensive and only takes about 5 minutes. learn how to secure your furniture and tv's to protect children at anchorit.gov.

lou: joining us, dr. michael pillsbury, the director of the center for chinese strategy at the hudson institute. author of the 100-year marathon. let's start with where we are in this contagion, this pandemic. we have a lot of conversations about the who and its relation to health agencies. it seemed a lot of our health officers were deferring to the w.h.o. it's my feeling about the united

nations and globalism, that made me very you be comfortable. >> there is a sharp contrast between what the w.h.o. leadership is saying. they are praising china and president xi, this is in line with the prop began today cap pain, xi has gone to wuhan. everything is getting better. factories are opening. the w.h.o. has aligned itself with chinese propaganda. mrs. robert o'brien gave an excellent speech calling china out saying there was a cover-up for the first two months by the chinese. this is a harsh charge to make. i think he's accurate. he said this cost the global community two months of time. lou: it was absolutely

unnecessary and could have been prevented. >> our own public health experts have been siding with president trump that this is outrageous conduct by china. they are trying to be polite and tactful because they are trying to get more information from china. but they are angry. lou: we are going to have the audience join us in this examination of robert o'brien's statement. >> this outbreak in wuhan was covered up. it probably cost the global community two months to respond. and those two months, if we had had those and were able to sequence the virus and had the information from the chinese, i think we could have dramatically curtailed what happened in china

and now across the world. lou: he's reacting to what is a full-on disinformation cap pain by the chinese, including trying to rename the wuhan virus. the idiotic nonsense that sprung up in the press by those sip pathetic to the chinese government. saying you can't call it the wuhan virus or chinese virus because that is quote you be quote xenophobic. it's a reference to its origin. the place of its origin. let's look at other diseases and viruses. if we can put up that full screen on other viruses. the ebola virus derived from the ebola river in the congo, the west nile virus from the west nile region. the zika virus from the zika

forest. the lyme disease from lyme, connecticut. and the rocky mountain fever. it's gotten worse over the years. your thoughts about that nonsense coming from some of the luminaries of the left. >> the world health organization took the lead. they gave their own pegs name to the virus and dropped saying wuhan or china. the chinese followed up quickly. they even reef to this as the italian virus. the worst of it is this comment by a foreign ministry spokesman that basically the u.s. army -- lou: i know all that nonsense. i am talking about the absurdity

about trying to control the language and a departure for our good friends, the chinese. >> they are taking a risk doing this. the trade deal is coming due in the next couple weeks. lou: a lot will come due if they keep this up. the report that could have put an early end to the case against general michael flynn.

lou: object wall street, stocks tanked. up belled, plunged. -- tumbled. the worst day since the '87 crash. the s & p down 261 points. the nasdaq in bear market territory down 750. volume 8.8 billion shares, the largest volume day of the year. crude oil dropping down back to 30 cents. $30.99 a barrel. a reminder to listen to my reports three types a day coast to coast on the salem radio network. the president assuring americans there is no financial crisis,

that markets will as always be bouncing back. >> we have a lot of things we are working on with the financial markets and it will work out fine. the stock market is still much higher than when i got here. it's taken a big hit but it will bounce back very big at the right time. lou: joining us, let me first of all get your view on what has been one heck of a run here. the wilshire 5,000, 2.8 trillion in market cap lost $26 trillion, down about $10 trillion since the record february 2019. we are up considerably since election day. >> the reason the markets

dropped off so much. the market is searching for a sense of direction where the economy is going after we contain the virus and whether we have people with sufficient incomes to bring gdp back. lou: will the consumer be healthy. >> precisely. >> we have no fiscal package that clearly targets the victims of the virus. when pelosi announced she was going to leave town without a package, that's when the market went nuts. to give people and businesses. lou: i'll ask four friends, john, why we didn't see a rally when nancy pelosi announced she was leaving town.

>> the markets are looking for some sense that in the not too distant future we'll contain the covid * virus. they are dealing with a situation they never faced before. lou: we were dealing with a mass of unknowns i have never experienced in my career reporting on markets and economics around the world. when we look at all of the uncertainty, the market of horrors, this is a full-on hate march by stocks right now. there is uncertainty at he turn. it's just -- there is no place you can look and see with any clarity what the next six months

or 12 months looks like when you are talking about public policy, earnings or the state of the globe. >> this is a biological bomb. it has been set off and we don't know anything about how it's going to proceed. it has clear information about how the disease will progress. we look to dr. fauci and other public health authorities for that. we have policies in place to enable businesses to be sustained, to be financially viable and consumers continue spending again. lou: we have been watching the federal reserve move $175 billion a day. we were looking at secretary mnuchin moving a trillion and a half dollars to add liquidity. but yet the view is on wall

street thereby isn't a liquidity issue. there is a lot here that is uncertain. there is a lot to figure out about why we have so many dislocations, i am balancings, and inexplicable adjustments in the markets and underlying infrastructure of those markets. >> there was some worry about a lack of liquidity for those with leveraged positions. you don't realize how much leverage is out there in the financial system. but let's inject this liquidity. despite a weak equity market. one thing i want to warn people of. the 10-year treasury yield 0.8%. it probably won't stay there for long once the covid-19 virus is

out of the way and the equity market begins to take off. you will see a benchmark treasury bonds yield move significantly higher. we had something unusual. despite the drop by the treasury yield, the 30-year-old yield rose 3.6 the latest week. lou: bill, we have a prospect of something we haven't had in the previous crises. there is up reply sit it seems to me in the spread of the wuhan virus and the responses of governments around the world and the continuing contagion, in terms of the responses of these markets. there is the possibility implicit in all of this that we'll come out at the end of this process perhaps with a new

world in front of us. we don't know how profound the changes will be or how profound the adjustments and adaptations on our part will have to be. >> that's right. all this work at home and incentivizing people not to go to conferences will likely change business in the future. the hotels used to having large gatherings may not see them in if the future. lou: we are going to approach globalization a lot differently than we did in the past. we are aware of the risks if you concentrate too much plaintiffing activity in one country, one region. >> repatriation is going to be key. lou: we look to them for

essential elements of our trade. will the president veto nice a legislation that -- veto fisa legislation that's being pushed through congress overnight? (sfx: orchestra warming up) where's tommy? (sfx: stage doors opening) i thought he was with you? no jack! (sfx: piano plays "twinkle twinkle little star" tommy? (sfx: audience laughing) go get him! don't stop. keep playing. (sfx: pianist playing masterful duet) here we go here's the fun part

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lou: president trump admitted he might veto a fisa reauthorization bill today. the president tweeted this saying many republican senators want me to veto the fisa bill until we find out what happened with the attempted coup of the duly elected president and others. we asked in our poll, do you believe the republican-led senate will vote for the fisa reauthorization approved by the house representatives. 52% of you said you do. should the. joining us, sidney powell, let's

start with john solomon's report. he says less than two weeks into the president's time in office. the fbi knew that flynn had not lied and knew the dreary witch hunt was a farce that should have never been embarked upon. >> exactly. the agents briefed three different groups of people high up in dodg -- in doj and fbi how truthful flynn was and they exonerated him of anything russia related. there is a memo related to that that we have not been able to obtain as we have not been able to obtain the ridge nam mall fbi

report -- the original fbi report of that interview. lou: what the fbi knew in january 2017. the steele dossier was unverified and fraudulent. page and papadopoulos made exculpatory statements, they knew they were innocent and flynn was not an agent of russia, no matter what they pretended to think, the so-called officials of the corrupt fbi. that's stunning stuff. and still you get no answer. i have got to ask you this. how do you know about that memorandum. how do you know about the missing documents. the 302s that are missing. what happened to them? how did you know about them? >> the government admitted the existence of the missing 302,

and it's effort from tracing the copies we do have. they produced some drafts. those were all given to prior counsel. but nothing was done with them. and they gave as you three-line up are you and admitted there is an inexternal doj-fbi memo. lou: what i want to find out is why wouldn't the justice department, knowing all of this just say, let's ends it. let's quit putting this man through hell. we'll take up that question after these quick messages we'll ♪ it's surprising how the bigger a city gets... the smaller it starts to feel. which makes it even more surprising, how big it feels in here. with sliding rear seats... and more available second row legroom than say...

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lou: we are back with attorney sidney powell. i was asking why doesn't attorney general william barr get to the bottom of who is responsible for destroying evidence and not following regulations. >> that's what needs to happen for a first step towards restoring the public's faith in the department of justice and the fbi. the case should be dismissed in the interest of justice. lou: sidney powell, great to have you here. thanks for being with us.

we'll have tomorrow, john solomon, general jack keane, and pastor robert jeffress. see you cheryl: it is 5:00 a.m. here are your top stories at this hour, a volatile week is ending for the market as coronavirus fears send the country to a halt. investors are worried about a recession on the way. is growth about to halt in this country. lauren: this weekend's democratic debate changing venues. what can we expect from bernie sanders and joe biden going one on one on sunday and how will the coronavirus affect their campaigns. cheryl: and one arcade owner swapping out toy prizes for toilet paper. how he is catering to what customers are really looking for. it is friday, it is march 13t march 13th. "fbn: a.m." starts right now. ♪