march 16th, 2020. long haul, but we can do it. as always, the story continues. we will see you back here tomorrow night at 7:00. take care, everybody. stay well. >> tucker: good evening and welcome to "tucker carlson tonight." just seven days ago believe it or not we open the show with a warning and told you that coronavirus might seem like a distant problem but it was then causing chaos in china and beginning to in italy but it's actually going to affect life and the united states significantly. we warned you major events make it canceled, you might have to at some point work from home and there could be a recession on the horizon. since then, just 168 hours have passed, not even enough time to watch every episode of the simpsons and in that time, everything has changed. travel advisories have become travel ban's, government requests have become government orders, social distancing has

given way to ship social shutdowns. moving so quickly that it could be obsolete by the end of this hour. nevertheless, we will try. bill hemmer is here to run down what is happening at this moment. >> good evening to you. been looking at these charts over the past three days so who will dig into what we believe we understand now with different states in different countries around the world. that is from johns hopkins university in baltimore. i want you to look at three numbers on the screen. upper left-hand corner is the number of confirmed cases, 181,000. in the upper right-hand corner, there are two numbers. the right number is the number of confirmed fatalities, 7100. the number next to that, 78,000 the number of those cases that have been recovered so far. we want that number to go a lot higher. as we look at that, that was as of 7:0 7:00 eastern time about e hour ago and his numbers will change throughout the night. what we have tried to do here is

take our numbers and work the men with the cdc and world health organization and the associated press and work with that map from johns hopkins to get a sense about the numbers and how well we can tell right now this thing is moving. i want to show you another chart to explain this as we go. back on the screen, you will see three lines. about a two month span, start of the 20th of january, far left part of your screen. that top line is the number of cases in china. that number midway through spiked around the 14th of february. within a week later, it starts to bottom out and flatten out. that's a good sign for china. that bottom line there that has a yellow shade to it is the number of confirmed cases outside of china. you go back on the screen far right hand corner, number spikes at the end, that's not what we want. we want at the level off. and i agree number in the middle is th a number of recoveries and certainly wanting that to merge a bit more. here's what i find the most

alarming. three weeks ago today, reporting 61 cases. you know what the number is now? 15,000. three weeks ago today in italy, they are reporting 229 cases and today reporting 25,000. that is an enormous increase of these countries and if you think about what the white house and the messages from people like anthony fauci and others, they don't want us to become iran or italy. we can debate the merits of how we are going about it but that is ultimately the objective as we sit here tonight. why not just to be clear when you say recoveries, you are speaking of people who have recovered who physicians have said are out of the woods. >> that is correct, those who have recovered. i think this is important. of those, we are told this, of those in south korea who have

been tested, 96% were negative. so in the middle of all of this bad news circulating around the country, i think those are a few things you can look to and don't forget about those data points. >> tucker: that's right. most people don't have it so far and most people recover. bill hemmer, thank you for that up-to-date information. there is so much disinformation going at this moment on your text, we certainly are. we haven't faced a medical crisis like this in living memory. we know coronavirus constitutes a major threat to the country, but what we really don't have a clear picture of right now is what's coming next. we spent the weekend talking to some of the smartest people we know in medicine, in business, and in politics. everyone had strong opinions needless to say but what was striking was there was no clear consensus on how the country should respond to this. all decent informed people but completely different points of view. that should not surprise you. people of good faith are working toward a couple of different goals tonight which at times

collide with one another. a first obligation everyone agrees is to keep our people safe. we can prevent americans from getting the coronavirus, we should do that. at the same time, we need to up protect our economy and it is not just something that wall street cares about to be totally clear. economic decline for everyone especially at the bottom of the economy. it's a legitimate human concern, not just financial, it's about families. here is the problem, we have two imperatives and they often conflict so if you ask an epidemiologist what we ought to do next, the answer is simple, shut it down, close every public space until the virus passes. hospitals would get a pass, of course but restaurants and bars, hotels, movie theaters, airlines, everything. from a public health standpoint, that makes sense but what would be the consequences of doing that? 's millions and millions of people would lose their jobs, some of them for good. we would enter a severe recession with mass unemployment and it could get worse from there. it's not a joke, that could

happen. would see an awful lot of people in poverty in middle america and that poses its own kind of public health risk. four countries are never healthy countries. you want great health care, you've got to pay for it and you have to have money to do so. you see the problem, responding to this epidemic requires balance. is a complex question and the deeper into what you dig the more convinced of that you will become. the answers are not obvious. don't let anyone lie to you about that and of course they are. you'll hear people say they have a simple answer that will fix everything. only fools pretend they can see the future. wise people admit uncertainty. that is the hallmark of wisdom. tonight, here's what we do know. first, we are only at the beginning of all of this we are pretty certain of that. dr. anthony katherine johnson said as much over the weekend. >> as i've said many times and i will repeat it, the worst is yet ahead for us. it is how we respond to that challenge that is going to

determine what the ultimate end point is going to be. >> tucker: shutdowns and travel restrictions which are increasingly in place will help slow the spread but they are not enough, not a big enough response for what's coming. the new york governor andrew cuomo mustering the military to fight the virus. >> the coming crisis is overwhelming our health care system. that is going to happen. net curve is a wave and it's going to break on the hospital system. we need additional beds and we need from the army corps of engineers to come in here and retrofit state buildings, dormitories, et cetera, start now. bring in that army corps of engineers. this is what they do, they bui build. >> tucker: at a press conference today, said the administration is strongly considering his request and of course, otherwise we could use the military's expertise and manpower.

things get bad we will need more ventilators than we currently have. we may need more breathing masks too appeared in italy, the military has been mobilized in an effort to quadruple production and the ventilator manufacturer. in south korea, the military assisting in mass production. we have the most sophisticated armed forces on earth and the best funded, no doubt many other ways i can help, they help so many other nations in crisis and they want to, they are american. and then there is our second priority, keeping our economy stable. once again, this is not the same as using monetary policy to prop up the stock market. washington has become convinced the federal reserve is the only available instrument for managing our economy. is not only unimaginative and small minded, it is dangerous. how much cheap money can we print before the public loses faith in the system and inflation explodes? economist from washington seem to think that will never happen. we can do this forever, but we can't and they know we can't on

some level. at some point, we will become zimbabwe and you don't want that. it's missing the point anyway. the real imperative is saving jobs. for government bureaucrats and administrators and corporate hr directors, a month out of the office constitutes a vacation but for the classes below, it could be the beginning of a long spiral, a real one. of waiters, bartenders, retail workers, huge parts of the service industry on which we are dependent could see their income dropped to zero and not come back. the former chairman of the president's council of economic advisors just warned that a million jobs could vanish in the month of april, a million people suddenly without jobs. that is the nightmare scenario. more ominous they are unstable countries always. you don't want that. some of the professional class has suggested a guaranteed basic income as a response to this threat. but romney has suggested sending every american a monthly check

for $1,000. is likely a well meaning idea but it is also decadent and foolish. name a place that's become happier and more prosperous under a scheme like that. the inner-city, rural areas were half the male population gets monthly disability checks or for that matter if we are being honest, how many happily idle inherited money people do you know, rich people? none, they are all drunk. of course they are. people need to work, they want to work, work gives the meaning and purpose and dignity. is not some hollow slogan, it is true. happily, there is a model in progress for how we can save work underway now in germany. the german government runs a program that means short time. employers are encouraged not to lay off their workers but instead placed them on reduced hours. the then steps in to calm down not confiscate those wagers to help with payroll. may cost taxpayers more than the grand month program but critically, it keeps people in

their jobs. it's also straightforward unlike so many of the double secret that for a tax rebate programs that geniuses in congress always come up with and telling you should love and be happy with they don't understand and neither do they. this idea has a clear goal and it achieves it. during the 2008 financial crisis, germany's economy shrank by a higher proportion than ours did in america. at the same time, germany's unemployment rate actually fell. labor force participation rose, so amazingly in the middle of an economic contraction, a bad recession, more people were working than before. that's the key as we look forward to turbulent times. employment, stability, meaningful work. you want to help people whether this crisis, the one that's coming save their jobs. it's that clear. we want to start tonight with an update on the medical response to coronavirus and for that we are happy to be joined by the

white house coronavirus response coordinator who joins us now. thank you so much for coming on. so you have heard this idea from the governor of new york military ought to be directly involved in creating more hospital space and preparing, is this something the administration is behind? >> we are looking at all the experience that has been gained throughout the world. we spent every day reviewing what has happened in china, south korea, italy, iran, and across the world to see how people have responded. there's a china model, south korea model, we are taking the best of each of those models and working on seeing how we adapt them. obviously, i come out of the military, i know the amazing work of the men and women in uniform and the work that they can do. we want combination solutions at the state level, the local

level, creating the ability to actually care for larger numbers of clients and patients in a more concentrated way which allows more oversights he could really track patients. we are asking canceled elective surgeries. i think a lot of these have to come together, certainly the military is always going to be there but going to be looking at every single possible solution at this point. >> tucker: so it sounds like we've got some time to make these decisions, how much time do you think we have? >> every county is different and we are looking at the united states and the very clear way, not just looking at the state level but looking at the county level. trying to understand where infections are occurring and where they stop and where they are. you can see a whole series of governors have become very aggressive in understanding

their epidemic and moving forward and what the president put out today of what every american can do to stop this virus. it is the person that the virus infects. the virus we can't change at this moment. we can change our behaviors to make sure we don't become more susceptible to those viruses. >> tucker: over the weekend as i'm sure you're aware probably every third person in america got a text from the inside of the white house thing there was a shutdown, a national shutdown coming that would require americans essentially to stay where they are, at home. is that in discussion tonight at the white house? >> obviously, that did not come from the white house. >> tucker: i'm aware and i should've said that. >> it's quite serious and you can see how serious the president was in the press conference today.

he understands the data and he understands the risk, the focus is on protecting as many americans as we can and that guidance that is put out is very clear. we know who will get the infection and do well. we know who will get the infection and not do well but it takes all of us, all the americans and the people that won't do well and that is all of those issues we put out there about not bring the virus into other households and then ensuring you're not bring in the virus home and that's why it's not more than ten people, that's why we are saying please don't go to bars or restaurants, get take out, do drive through, options in the united states. >> tucker: thank you for that update, we appreciate it. i want to corrected misstatements from the top of the show. we describe met romney's plan to

send $1,000 to every american which is indeed his plan, it is the plan of many others including andrew yang to make that a monthly payment. the corona epidemic according to what you just heard is still manageable, experts fear the situation could grow very quickly. how bad could it get? to understand that, we have to look at italy where the health care system of the entire region has all but collapsed under the strain of cases. an italian journalist joins us tonight from rome, he has been watching since the very beginning. thank you so much for coming on tonight. how would you describe the situation and italian hospitals in the affected areas now? >> the situation is extremely complicated and the system especially where the outbreak started it's really serious. is on the brink of collapse and doctors are making very difficult decisions so we are

building new facilities, new i icu, but not enough to meet the demand. and the numbers of victims are not promising, so we are not seeing the peak yet so it is a kind of concerning situation right now by the point of view of the health care system being swamped. >> tucker: since you were going through this and since it seemed to explode in italy in a way that a lot of people didn't expect, what are the lessons you've learned about how italy manage the crisis in its early days that we ought to be paying attention to, looking to learn from italy? >> i think what we learned with a few weeks of delay is that social distancing is not one aspect of the problem, it is absolutely the solution, the thing that we can do in order to slow this down, the goal of

social distancing is not miraculously finding a cure, it is avoiding so many people getting ill at the same time until they swarm the system. was not understood properly from the beginning which in my view and in light of the experience of the last few weeks is the problem. i think that the message should get out now and in the mind and heart of all the people who are behind italy a few weeks like the united states because that is a personal responsibility, not just a state, it is really a personal responsibility. in it's a big lesson that we are learning the hard way unfortunately. >> tucker: it is unfortunate, godspeed. thank you so much for coming on to make them appreciate it. >> thank you for having me.

>> tucker: there's been a lot of shaming online, there always is, but especially recently people still going outside traveling and congregating with others. should that be a shameful act? how much outside activity is reasonable right now given the risks, our public officials being prudent, are they overreacting? tough to answer these questions. in emergency medicine doctor is making her first appearance has official fox news contributor and joins us now. thank you so much for coming on. so sort through the judgment, the conflicting recommendations that we are getting. should we go to the park with the dogs, et cetera? >> you need to avoid dense crowded areas because remember, this virus spreads very easily from person to person so you can go to the park as long as you have about six to 10 feet distance between you and of another person. we want you to go outside and get fresh air and enjoy the sunshine but you still have to take precaution because as a

highly infectious virus and the goal is to prevent the spread of this virus and especially when it comes down to our millennials who are very active, they want to be out there, they want to go shopping and the parties and to clubs, so they are really the ones who hold the key to curbing the trajectory of this wicked virus that is metastasizing for our nation and causing so much havoc and disruption. so if we can get them the largest population of millennials really adhere to the strict guidelines and cdc protocol to help mitigate the spread of this virus, we can see a decrease in the number of cases and a reason why it is so important is because they have such a robust, strong immune system. they'll have either no symptoms are very mild symptoms and they will have the energy to want to go out and about and do things not realizing they can easily spread to those who are more susceptible to this virus.

>> tucker: is there some reason that that message which we have all heard before from a thank you for amplifying it, but it's been out there, it doesn't seem to be penetrating. you have any guess as to why? >> my guess is we haven't made it obvious this could be a really disease for those who are most vulnerable which we all know the older population who has underlying medical disease, heart disease, cancer patients, one thing we need to realize is our youth are not exempt from this virus from complications especially if they vapor or smoke, they are at a higher risk so it's just a matter of educating them and letting them understand how much power they have and really helping protect their neighbors, their loved ones entering this disease around and making a difference in the lives of many americans so it's a matter of education, letting them understand how much power they have been making a difference and also, we need to

tell them what they can do has an alternative. they need other things to do to keep them busy so that can be difficult because it does require sacrifice, staying indoors, social distancing, but we have to understand and point out to them there's a difference between social distancing and quarantine. quarantine and stay away from people is much as you possibly can versus social distancing you can do things but do it with common sense precaution. we just saw today our president set out some new guidelines. avoid gatherings of more than ten people. not to have more than ten people try to work from home if you can, closing down bars and casinos and restaurants just to help prevent the spread of this virus as well. >> tucker: thank you so much for that. congratulations, by the way. how amazing the photos from the nation's international airport showed long lines, dense crowds as americans returned home following the president's announcement of severe travel

restrictions. foxes matt finn has more and what is happening there from chicago tonight. >> today we went to chicago's o'hare airport and from our observation, fortunately it seems as long lines and a lot of the chaos has now been resolved. beginning saturday over the weekend, a huge rush of passengers returning to the country were outraged sharing their pictures and stories of waiting for up to six hours in shoulder to shoulder lines at chicago's o'hare airport and in dallas and new york. the department of homeland security called the lines and acceptable and now says staff has been increased and the problems fixed at the 13 airports receiving customers back into the united states. homeland security says passengers can now expect to wait 30 minutes or less. tonight, the cdc says at this time any travel to returning to the united states from one of the level three countries will be asked to self quarantine for 14 days. they can also expect to go to a medical screening at the airport

and fill out a questionnaire or provide more information about the recent travel locations. the full growing list of countries of concern can be found on the cdc web site and at midnight tonight, the next wave of travel ban's from passengers in the u.k. and ireland goes into effect. >> tucker: matt finn for us in chicago, thank you so much. at some point, this will be over in the virus will burn out and we will be waiting for the next one but our reliance on china is likely to remain. does congress have a plan to break that dangerous dependency on a country that threatens to kill americans? we will ask that question next d, now you can get two lines for just $55, including unlimited talk, text and data. plus no annual service contracts. only at t-mobile.

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>> tucker: the coronavirus is a chinese virus no matter what they are telling you, it originated in china and was able to spread to the rest of the world because the chinese government hits truth of what was happening early in the outbreak from the rest of the world. they lied about it and that caused the terrible consequences we are watching now. you can blame china for that. again, they will tell you one cnn that's not true and you know perfectly well it is true and so today's. now the government is china is promoting conspiracy theories spreading on social media the light of the virus originated here in america. state propaganda musing about cutting off drug exports of this

country and killing americans. that is not the behavior of a friendly nation. it's the behavior of a dangerous adversary. so is congress ready to treat china like what it is? we are happy to have him on tonight. congressman, thank you so much for coming on. you have been one of the few and loudest voices calling attention to the threat that china poses to the united states. do you think this crisis will awaken your colleagues to this threat? >> there is no doubt about it. i have heard from colleagues on both sides of the aisle who are ready to engage in the same fight i've been fighting for several months to hold china accountable for their bad behavior. we need to start by forcing china to pay the burden and the cost incurred on the united states of america due to the coronavirus. i think there are many ways we can do that. the president could force china to relieve a great amount of american debt. he could institute tariffs on

china and designate the funds from that into a coronavirus victim relief fund to pay the cost incurred on americans and american taxpayers due to the negligence on china's behalf that has led to the crisis in america today. >> tucker: so by erasing the debt, the u.s. debt held by the chinese, we could fund that. do think the administration is willing to push for that? >> i hope so. president trump has shown enormous strength and effort so far in the trade deal. when we talk about future trade deals, there's an opportunity in avenue and i believe an appetite to go after china to make them pay even further costs so i hope that will be the case that i have no doubt that president trump will do everything he can to hold china accountable for what they have caused on americans today. when that one thing i've noticed is more people learn about how dependent we are on china for critical goods like

pharmaceuticals and medicine, the more upset they are, the more bewildered they are that we let this happen. i know this is complex but if you could sum it up for me, do you think congress will actually act in meaningful ways to make this country more independent? >> i hope so. one other thing we can do is stop the va and the dod met two of the largest health care networks in america today from buying medical equipment from china. those are substantive, real ways that we can begin to disentangle ourselves from china's economy and hold them accountable. i'm going to do my part by offering more legislation but it's going to take partnership between congress and the trump administration to get there. >> tucker: it is shocking to me that the department of defense buys medical equipment from our chief global rival. that is so reckless. thank you for coming on tonight.

the cdc is asking americans to refrain from attending large gatherings for at least eight weeks, many schools morning that classes could be done for the rest of the school year. just how long can america expect the in suspended animation because of this epidemic? fox medical contributor marc siegel joins us, thank you so much for coming on. a simple question, we all see where this is going, a much larger shutdown. how long do you think this will extend? >> i've been monitoring this and we have been looking at this since january and i am here to report tonight that it's a lot worse than even we anticipated i think. it's a very dangerous virus, i think the governor of new york is correct to say we are on a wartime footing with it. is actually a good choice of words because this country has won wars before. we have to stop being so afraid and hysterical and start considering how to face it with

bravery this country has shown with the land of the brave after all. we have to follow what we need to do to shut it down, we need to follow these public health measures to the tv. we need to avoid gatherings, we need to stay at home whenever possible or needed. we need to do things remotely and if we think we are sick, we need to call our doctors and ask them are we, do we need testing, testing and finally expanding. we need that so i couldn't say how to buy sideline someone who may be spreading the virus because the goal of the war is to decrease the amount of virus. i am not as confident tonight about the seasonality of it as i was before because it is spreading so much. may not obey that. may continue on into the summer if it continues to spread like this. >> tucker: so what you are saying is typically with flu season, they die out as the sunshine extends and it gets warmer. you think this may be an exception. >> because it's a new pandemic and we don't have immunity to it. it is not slowing at this point. we are seeing people on

ventilators and people in the hospital in greater numbers and if we follow all of these guidelines of social distancing, everything we are thinking about doing, maybe we can slow it and i think we will. i am very hopeful that we can actually beat this but we've got to really clampdown now. >> tucker: that is sobering. thank you very much for that. >> also want to say for our children out there, your parents have to show courage and then you will be courageous. we are going to beat this thing. i don't want our children to be afraid. courage is the same pathway is fear. we are courageous, our children will be and they won't be afraid. >> tucker: i think that's right, a lot of fearful people right now. thank you. so it's pretty clear that in some basic sense, americans are going to have to look out for themselves the next few weeks in a way they're not used to doing but the federal government is also begging the public not to be too self-reliant, not to stock up on too much, don't be a

hoarder. with the right answer their? we will tell you after the break. plus, it's easy to forget there was a democratic debate last night. mark steyn watched it, one of the few enjoins us to tell us what happened after the break. pods puts you in control

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>> tucker: in the last week, you may have heard public officials and television pundits discouraging you from going to the grocery store too much. boarding is wrong, they are saying. just get what you want for the week and you can see the point they are making, don't panic, america produces more food than any country in the history of the world, not like anyone he was going to starve and that's fair. on the other hand, it's not clear why would ever encourage any american to be less self-reliant. self-reliance built this

country. we have to admire it and encourage it. we should also be aware that just because we imagine the future will turn out in a certain way doesn't mean that it will. things change fast. we have massive agricultural capacity in this country. distribution is another matter. what happens of large numbers of truck drivers are grocery workers get sick? we still have a lot of food whether it got to your neighborhood is another matter. it's not a reason to panic, famine is hard to imagine under any circumstances but it is a not to be passive. it's always tempting to imagine someone else will take care of the details. that's the attitude that got our industrial base offshore to asia. wouldn't have allowed china to make 97% of our antibiotics if we remember that it's better to do the important things yourself. our leaders use to understand this. at the beginning of the second world war, the federal government encouraged americans to start going their own food. within a year, families across the country had planted

18 million victory gardens in their yards and public parks on the front lawn of the white house. by the end of the war, those pots were producing as many vegetables as all the commercial farms in the united states combined. normal people doing it themselves for their families and their neighbors. that used to be the way people lived. in a crisis, its delays. when it comes down to it, you are in charge of protecting the people you love, no matter what they tell you on tv. you may have completely forgotten in the frenzy of the past week but there is a democratic presidential race still ongoing and even a debate last night, but thanks to coronavirus, there was no crowd to play to you by joe biden still did plenty of pandering. biden vowed to atone for having the wrong skin color by hiring those traits rather than merit. he will let the way someone looks decide who he picks for vice president and the supreme court. >> i am committed and have the

opportunity to appoint someone to the courts, i will appoint the first black woman to the courts. my cabinet, my administration will look like the country and i commit that i will in fact appoint a woman to be vice president. >> tucker: doesn't matter who the person is or what the person believes he has done in life, going to pick someone who looks like this. that is not patronizing or anything. didn't stop there though, he also promised in his first three months as president, no one will be deported from this country, not even violent criminals. watch this. >> "the first 100 days" of my administration, no one will be deported at all. from that point on, the only deportations that will take place are commissions of felonies in the united states of america. >> so to be clear, only felons get deported and everyone else is safe. >> asked. >> tucker: with time running out for his presidential campaign, bernie sanders did

nothing significant to tear down biden because he doesn't actually want to win, he just must've jump around and play revolutionary. why doesn't he just say that? almost sabotaged himself anyway when he mistakenly used 2,005 era democratic lingo which is now banned because it's racist, watch. >> anyone who shows up to be tested for coronavirus gets coronavirus treated would be held harmless. they were certain things cannot deport an undocumented alien for -- undocumented person for and that would be one of them. >> tucker: noticed the question at the bottom of the screen. how can we make illegal aliens feel safe enough to get tested for coronavirus? that is the number one concern on cnn. he nearly blew it right thereby using the wrong phrase. mark steyn watched last night's debate and he joins us now.

how do you assess this, mark? >> i think it's terrible, this is what it's like. it's different if you are one of the younger candidates, if you are like that skateboarding guy or if you are like pete from south bend. you don't even know what the word alien is. you don't know what it means but they've left themselves with finding it very difficult to walk on these egg shells so they naturally default to old-time words which you only here in the recreational language of the seniors home like alien. this is the same guy who is telling us that trump was xenophobic for using words foreign virus. a virus can begin alien, a person can't begin alien. alien.

joe biden completely lost it is attacking us from abroad and by that very phrase, kind of implying that the virus is sort of full rein some way. he is in danger of defaulting to sanity. which is always the problem when you've got people who are old enough to remember before the lingo had been corrupted. >> tucker: when they remember reality, you are totally right. so did bernie sanders make any headway whatsoever last night? >> no, he didn't at all. he threatened to you. what's about this whole debate to go back to mayor pete and you see them, it's like watching ideological college students and it's rather sweet when you are 22, 32, 47, 58.

when you've got two guys pushing 80 had nothing they are saying is actually relevant to the situation, the challenges facing the country. is kind of pathetic. we waste so much time -- i said ages ago on this show, will be talking about transgender bathrooms, the democrats will be talking about whether they should have a transgender vice president when the zombie apocalypse is finally unleashed and breaks into the debate then devours them all. this is a complete waste of time. utterly irrelevant, stale worldview of globalism. >> tucker: that's exactly right, but the good news is they'll feel good about themselves as they do it. mark steyn, thank you for coming. >> thanks a lot, tucker. >> tucker: we've got the very latest on the spread of the virus just ahead and the reactions across the country.

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♪ >> tucker: could the federal government had prepared better for this pandemic? of course. we have international air travel. it was coming at some point. government failures are inevitable, and so are crises and emergencies.

it is an individual the best way to get through them is being prepared. when things get bad the only person you can count on for your family is you. that's just true. a mentor what they say. brock long is the former head of fema and executive chairman at haggerty consulting. he wrote "government alone cannot protect us from epidemics." brock long joins us now and we are happy to have him. what specifically would you recommend? we just did a segment a second ago about how we are hearing, don't overburden grocery stores and i understand why they are saying that. but in real life, what should we be doing? >> first of all, good evening. that is a great question. i've always said citizens of the true first responders for any type of disaster whether it's a hurricane or the virus that we are facing. we do have to create more personal responsibility. go back in and rethink the way that we ask citizens to be prepared. our past public awareness campaigns have not worked. fema has been overburdened and

working tirelessly for the last several years to help citizens overcome several different types of disasters. large magnitude disasters. we have to go back and understand the root causes of problems. for example, one thing is there is no financial resiliency in american families. we have to go back and teach kids, parents and disadvantaged communities how money actually works. we have to instill that three to six months worth of savings is very important. insurance is the first line of defense, not disaster relief funding from the federal government. we've got a lot of work to do. >> tucker: so you're worried and i think it's a smart point that too few have made the people just don't have the financial reserves to whether economic chaos that we know is coming. >> writes. one of the problems is not poverty is an "i don't make enough money to make ends meet," which is asset poverty. i can put my hands on 500 bucks or i can't put my hands on three to six months worth of savings

because i'm too highly leveraged. what we are singing disasters is the because people are highly leveraged, they are actually pulling back on insurance. for example when you pay off your mortgage to your house, don't let your fire insurance lapse so that he could have a couple hundred extra bucks in retirement or to operate in daily life. you've got to have that insurance to be able to pay if catastrophe hits. we are seeing bad behaviors and things we've got to occur through educational systems and create a true culture of preparedness. we also need to give citizens tangible skills. we've got to go back to basically teaching things such as cpr. far too many people don't know cpr. they don't know how to turn off the gas and water valves to their house. we've got to go back and almost essentially make boy scouts again. >> tucker: i think that's really wise. want to have hearings where people are sending college students to college with credit cards. speaking of over leveraging.

that seems really wise. >> thank you. >> tucker: you're seeing people shrug off coronavirus, younger people, because it's dangerous only to old people. so far most deaths have been among the elderly but dr. burke so you saw earlier on the show warned that even young people could be a danger. >> you could be 40 and have a significant medical conditions and be at substantial risk. you could be 30 and having come through hodgkin's disease or non-hodgkin's lymphoma and be at significant risk. >> tucker: so in france for the epidemic is more advanced that it is here, more than half of those in critical care are under 60. they are not over 80 like you've been reading. they are under 60. here in the u.s. to washington emergency room doctor is in critical condition despite being in his 40s. codirector of the texas children's hospital center for vaccine development. he joins us.

thank you. this is a little bit shocking to those of us who are following the news and we keep hearing no, only the elderly people with copd, people getting chemo. is there actually a threat do you think younger people as well? >> there could be a real possibility. thanks for having me on. so much of what we are saying about this virus is from what we learned from the chinese. from chinese data which showed indeed that older people are at risk, those with underlying disabilities. they also showed us that health care workers for reasons that we don't understand are at risk for worsening disease despite their younger age. there was already a hint that there was a cohort of younger people there could still get very sick. those were health care workers for reasons that we don't understand. there is no reason to expect things will exactly play at the same way in europe as they did in china. we are seeing younger people get infected. it's a wake-up call for us that we might have younger populations at risk and we can't

be complacent. this is a brand-new virus, when we didn't know existed ten or 12 weeks ago. to assume things are going to play out exactly as they did in china in the united states, we have to be careful about that. >> tucker: it such a reminder what you just said to those of us covering the news and repeating what we read in here. there's a lot we don't know about this. you are saying it, i was taking why are we assuming it's going to play out in the u.s. as it did in china according to some template? not necessarily, correct? >> that's right. we are in a steep learning curve and we are learning more every day. my lab, our laboratory is really working hard to accelerate a new vaccine. it's been manufactured with walter reed army medical research in collaboration with them and we are hoping to get into clinical trials very soon. there's going to be a lot of excitement moving forward, five or six vaccines are going to be moving into clinical trials of the next few weeks. hopefully ours will be one of

them. remember, this is why america is great. we set big, audacious goals and we get things done. we did this with scaling up penicillin in world war ii when no one said we could do it. we defeated polio through creating the vaccine. we defeated smallpox. we can do this as well. i think that's something we have to remember. america doesn't just lay down. we can do big things. >> tucker: amen. it's so reassuring to hear that. thank you for coming on. appreciate it, doctor. one last thing before we go. because of coronavirus a lot of blood drives are being canceled. that that doesn't mean hospitals don't need blood. many regions are reporting shortages of blood. if you have the ability to donate in the next couple days, we urge you to do that. for your friends, your family, your neighbors, america really. it's an important thing. you can visit redcrossblood.org or by using the red cross blood donor app. no known cases of coronavirus

being spread by blood transfusions. if you are healthy enough to give blood, donating it will not make you significantly more vulnerable. please consider doing that. it could really help. that's it for us tonight. we are grateful you watched. be back tomorrow night. in the meantime, sean hannity. >> sean: great recommendation on donating blood. imagine, tucker carlson or sean hannity's blood, nobody will want it. in all seriousness. >> tucker: [laughs] >> sean: there are shortages. if people can help, i know they will. we are americans. welcome to "hannity." there has been way too much blame, way too much finger-pointing, way too much politicizing and fear and panic and hysteria on the coronavirus. a ton of fake news, misinformation going around once again. we on this program, we are going to be dedicated to bringing you facts without fear. we are americans. we start this program every night with the facts first without fear. we will call out those that