WEBVTT - Clay Travis Sits Down With Alex Berenson 0:00:02.080 --> 0:00:05.760 This is Wins and Losses with Clay Travis. Clay talks 0:00:05.800 --> 0:00:09.879 with the most entertaining people in sports, entertainment and business. 0:00:10.160 --> 0:00:21.560 Now here's Clay Travis. Welcome in Wins and Losses Podcast. 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:23.280 I am Clay Travis. I hope all of you are 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:25.520 having a fantastic time wherever you may be across this 0:00:25.600 --> 0:00:28.160 great country or this great land. We are joined by 0:00:28.160 --> 0:00:30.440 a guy that I think has been doing incredible work, 0:00:31.000 --> 0:00:34.040 a warding off Team Apocalypse, as he sometimes says it. 0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:37.519 He is Alex Barnson, a former New York Times reporter 0:00:37.600 --> 0:00:41.839 who has been focused on the coronavirus and the response 0:00:41.880 --> 0:00:44.760 of our government. Obviously, we talk a lot about politics 0:00:44.760 --> 0:00:48.080 and the intersection of sports as it pertains to the 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:50.160 return of sports, and so I thought he was gonna 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:53.760 be and is a perfect guest for us. So welcome in, Alex. 0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:56.280 I appreciate you joining us. For people who may not 0:00:56.440 --> 0:00:59.520 have followed you on Twitter or been reading the books 0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:02.200 that you have put out that are available on Amazon. 0:01:02.720 --> 0:01:05.560 What is your background? Kind of introduce yourself to our 0:01:05.600 --> 0:01:10.480 audience as best you can. Sure, So, I worked for 0:01:10.480 --> 0:01:13.640 the New York Times from until two thousand and ten. 0:01:13.680 --> 0:01:16.080 I was a reporter. I've been a reporter since I 0:01:16.120 --> 0:01:21.120 graduated college in ninety four and uh to ten. I 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:25.120 mainly did investigative reporting, business really business investigating. Before I 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:27.240 covered the drug industry, a lot of stuff like that. 0:01:27.760 --> 0:01:30.400 And then in two dozen six, I wrote uh, a 0:01:30.400 --> 0:01:32.560 spy novel because I've been in a rack in a 0:01:32.880 --> 0:01:35.080 two three and oh four for The Times, not not 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:37.759 for that long, but for a few months, and I 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:40.120 and I wound up writing the spine novel called The 0:01:40.160 --> 0:01:44.520 Faithful Spy about a CIA operative who converts to Islam 0:01:45.000 --> 0:01:46.880 and get sent back to the United States and al 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:49.040 Qaeda doesn't really trust him because they know he's American, 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:51.280 and and the CIA doesn't really trust him because they 0:01:51.320 --> 0:01:54.200 know he converted. And that book did pretty well. Actually, 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:57.040 it became a number one New York Times bestseller in 0:01:57.080 --> 0:02:00.680 paperback in two thousand and eight. And so writing these 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:03.440 spine novels or took over my my life for a 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:06.640 number of years, um uh and uh. And I left 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:09.200 The Times in two thousand and ten um and to 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:12.160 to become a full time novelist um. Which is interesting 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:16.200 because because I really think of myself more. And even 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:18.040 when I was writing these books, I thought of myself 0:02:18.040 --> 0:02:20.560 more of a journalist than a novelist, and sometimes I 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:23.200 kind of wish that I had been able to, you know, 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:26.360 express my imagination more freely, because I think that can 0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:28.919 make a really great novel. And sometimes I felt like 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:31.400 I was a little bit bound by my desire to 0:02:31.440 --> 0:02:35.079 write authentic fiction rather than doing stuff that was a 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:37.200 little bit more magical. But that's that's a that's a 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:39.959 total side issue. But but it is interesting to me 0:02:40.080 --> 0:02:42.040 that I went then went back to journalism, so I 0:02:42.040 --> 0:02:45.880 found I wound up after um, after a number of 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:48.760 years writing these spine novels in two dozen nineteen was 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:51.000 really two seventeen eighteen, I wrote the book, but in 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:52.919 two nineteen it came out. I wrote a book called 0:02:52.919 --> 0:02:56.480 Tell Your Children, which is about cannabis and um and 0:02:56.560 --> 0:02:59.520 the dangers that it may present for some people. And 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:02.880 I wrote that, sorry, I hope that this is not 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:05.079 too big a digression, but I sort of want people 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:08.080 to understand my whole career because sometimes people say, oh, 0:03:08.120 --> 0:03:10.560 he's just trading on his you know, the fact that 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:13.000 he worked for the New York Times for a little while, um, 0:03:13.080 --> 0:03:14.639 when in fact I worked for the Times for ten 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:17.520 years but the reality is I've been a journalist almost 0:03:17.520 --> 0:03:21.480 my whole life. Um uh. In any case, this book 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:24.520 called Tell Your Children I wrote because my wife is 0:03:24.520 --> 0:03:28.040 a psychiatrist who deals with the criminal mentally ill, and 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:30.360 she would tell me about all these terrible cases she'd 0:03:30.360 --> 0:03:32.800 seeing where what the people had in common who had 0:03:32.840 --> 0:03:35.800 come to her you know, attention or people she was treating, 0:03:36.480 --> 0:03:39.840 um was that they were really heavy cannabis users. And 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:42.080 I actually didn't believe that. Okay, I did not believe 0:03:42.200 --> 0:03:45.120 this was a real problem, and I and I kind 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:47.720 of pushed back on her. But you know, she's the psychiatrist. 0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:49.600 She's the one with the many years of medical training. 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:51.680 She's the one who actually sees these people. She's the 0:03:51.720 --> 0:03:56.600 one who, um, you know, who got you know, who 0:03:56.600 --> 0:03:59.760 got all this training. And she told me, you know, essentially, 0:03:59.760 --> 0:04:01.840 after a year or more of listening to me talk 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:03.680 about stuff about which I didn't know what I was 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:05.680 talking about, she said, why don't you go read the papers? 0:04:05.760 --> 0:04:07.680 So I went and read this stuff and realized, of 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:09.520 course she was right. She knew exactly what she was 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:12.720 talking about, and I wanted to realizing that there was 0:04:12.720 --> 0:04:16.760 a book here, not just in the idea that people, um, 0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:18.960 you know, that cannabis is a real risk to people's 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:21.800 mental health. Not everybody, but some people. But also the 0:04:21.839 --> 0:04:23.720 fact that nobody knew this and there were sort of 0:04:23.720 --> 0:04:27.360 marching towards uh full legalization of this drug and no 0:04:27.400 --> 0:04:29.800 one really had any idea of the risks, and then 0:04:29.800 --> 0:04:32.040 it was actually being sold to people of medicine. So 0:04:32.120 --> 0:04:34.160 that book became to tell your children, and that came 0:04:34.160 --> 0:04:38.360 out in early twenty nineteen. Uh. And that's directly relevant 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:41.480 to this because because as soon as I wrote that book, 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:44.919 essentially I became a cast out from the world of journalists, 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:48.440 certainly in the world of the elite uh New York 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:53.960 slash Washington academic you know a slash New York Times 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:58.320 slash uh you know, Ivy League pedigree journalism. I became 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:01.080 a traitor to the class. So so you know, I 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:03.000 went to Yale, I worked for the New York Times. 0:05:03.360 --> 0:05:06.880 There's nothing that people who who who work at those places, 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:08.400 you know, work at the New York Times lotion puss 0:05:08.520 --> 0:05:11.640 like less than somebody who who work there, And doesn't 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:14.920 you know, play in the sandbox. And by saying that 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:17.520 you know that cannabis is actually kind of a dangerous 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:20.400 drug for some people, and that you know, by the 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:23.039 way you hear that, you know that there are millions 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:25.520 of black people in prison for for you know, for 0:05:25.600 --> 0:05:28.120 having one join in their pockets, and that's completely untrue. 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:29.520 You can you know, you can look at what the 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:33.560 statistics are and they're completely not that. Um. You know 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:37.480 when when I when I pointed that out, people hated 0:05:37.560 --> 0:05:40.600 me and uh, and it became very hard for me 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:45.000 to get of national publicity for this book, aside from 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:47.760 Fox and some other conservative outlets. And that was when 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:51.400 I really saw for myself that polarization in the media 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:54.599 just how deep it is. So fast forward to March 0:05:54.720 --> 0:05:57.440 of this year. Um, and again I apologize for the 0:05:57.520 --> 0:06:00.080 length of but but but it really doesn't form what 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:03.239 I've been doing the last six months. March of this year, 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:06.640 you know, really January, we all start hearing about this virus. 0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:10.720 There's this terrible videos coming out of China, very scary stuff. 0:06:10.960 --> 0:06:13.440 The hospitals are being overrun. We hear it's going to 0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:16.920 spread all over China. It's going to be completely impossible 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:20.920 to stop. Um. You know, the the there's a travel 0:06:21.000 --> 0:06:23.440 band from China. There's an argument about what it's going 0:06:23.480 --> 0:06:26.680 to make any difference. February, nothing really happens for a 0:06:26.720 --> 0:06:29.400 little while, and then the hospitals in parts of northern 0:06:29.480 --> 0:06:32.840 Italy start getting overrun. And then and then all of 0:06:32.880 --> 0:06:36.440 a sudden, it's here, the the the the Stars Cove 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:39.720 two is in Seattle, it's in New York. It's here. 0:06:40.080 --> 0:06:43.039 And suddenly, in a matter of days, we shut down 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:45.360 not just the United States, we shut down the whole world. 0:06:46.320 --> 0:06:48.680 And and I certainly was nervous. I think, I think 0:06:48.680 --> 0:06:51.040 anybody where you know where the pulse was nervous at 0:06:51.080 --> 0:06:54.760 that time. UM. But I but I started to you know, 0:06:54.800 --> 0:06:58.760 I started to read everything I could find about um, 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:02.440 about what the prediction war, and why we had taken 0:07:02.440 --> 0:07:07.000 such a drastic and dramatic action. And more than anything else, 0:07:07.040 --> 0:07:10.600 there was one paper from a place called Imperial College, London, 0:07:10.920 --> 0:07:14.600 which works with the World Health Organization, that drove this 0:07:14.720 --> 0:07:18.920 incredible action in mid March, and the paper said two 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:21.160 million people in the United States might die if there's 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:24.120 a lockdown, uh, you know, half million people. And I'm sorry, 0:07:24.120 --> 0:07:26.600 if there's no lockdown. A half million people in Britain 0:07:26.680 --> 0:07:28.920 might die if there's no lockdown. We have to we 0:07:28.960 --> 0:07:35.560 have to take incredibly uh dramatic action and so um 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:38.400 and so I read that paper and this was in 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:42.080 mid March, and I'll never forget. You know, I'm in uh, 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:45.840 you know, at home reading this on my computer and 0:07:45.840 --> 0:07:49.560 I realized, wait a minute, the vast, vast majority of 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:52.720 deaths that are predicted here are in people over over 0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:55.840 eighty and seventy really really eighty, but you know, and 0:07:55.880 --> 0:07:58.520 then an affair number in the seven eight band. This 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:01.960 just doesn't look at that tame interest to people under seventy. 0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:03.800 And that's not to say it's not real. It's not 0:08:03.840 --> 0:08:05.760 to say it's not dangerous. It's not to say it 0:08:05.800 --> 0:08:09.000 can't hurt people. But but but my impression of this, 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:10.640 like a lot of people have been, this is going 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:13.559 to be the Spanish flu. This is gonna kill pregnant women, 0:08:13.600 --> 0:08:16.320 and it's gonna kill children, and it's gonna kill healthy adults, 0:08:16.760 --> 0:08:19.560 and you know, there's there's gonna be people dropping dead 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:21.680 in the streets. And all of a sudden, I realized 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:25.360 that's not what this is at all. This is this 0:08:25.480 --> 0:08:29.320 is this is a virus that really affects people who 0:08:29.320 --> 0:08:32.240 are at severe risk because of their age or because 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:35.559 they're really severely ill with other conditions, and and it's 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:39.240 like the scale self from my eyes. And ever since then, UM, 0:08:39.240 --> 0:08:41.880 I've been trying to trying to talk, trying to get 0:08:41.880 --> 0:08:45.120 people to talk reasonably about what the risks are and 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:48.040 what we should be doing. And that doesn't mean we 0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:50.319 should be doing nothing. It means that we should stop 0:08:50.360 --> 0:08:54.200 pretending that everybody's an equal risk here. Everybody's that you know, 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:57.280 anything near equal risk here, And maybe we should be 0:08:57.280 --> 0:08:59.560 trying to protect the people are the most vulnerable. But 0:08:59.760 --> 0:09:03.040 why on earth are we letting this destroy our society? 0:09:03.160 --> 0:09:05.760 Who we have? And everything that I've reported practically in 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:09.240 the last five months has only served to make me 0:09:09.320 --> 0:09:12.480 feel more strongly about this. And I'll just give you 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:15.000 one example and then and then I'll stop talking. Let you, 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:18.880 you know, ask questions. UM. There was a lot of 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:24.080 talk in two thousand seven about what if another um, 0:09:24.120 --> 0:09:27.280 you know, bad flu hits uh. You know, there's been 0:09:27.360 --> 0:09:30.200 the Antwracks attacks in two thousand and one. George W. 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:33.480 Bush was very concerned about bio terrorism. There had also 0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:35.640 been the stars scaring you know three, there had been 0:09:35.679 --> 0:09:38.079 a swine flu scare you know five, And so we 0:09:38.160 --> 0:09:41.040 spent a lot of time back then really thinking about this. 0:09:41.280 --> 0:09:45.720 Very smart people, um, you know, in government, outside government, uh, 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:49.280 people who have been experts on pandemics uh, and they 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:53.520 all basically reached the same conclusion, which is a big 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:56.679 lockdown is not a great idea like this is, even 0:09:56.760 --> 0:09:58.880 even if it's really serious, even if it's on the 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:02.280 order of the Spanish flu. What you want is you 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:04.760 want to encourage sick people to stay home. You may 0:10:04.760 --> 0:10:08.080 want to temporarily close schools, you know, maybe for maybe 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:11.559 for a few weeks. Maybe you encourage people to telecommute, 0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:14.839 maybe you encourage people not to use you know, mass 0:10:14.880 --> 0:10:18.760 public transportation at the height of this. But the idea 0:10:18.880 --> 0:10:23.199 that that this that the correct response to a pandemic, 0:10:23.320 --> 0:10:27.120 even a really severe pandemic, would be to shut down 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:30.160 the world, with all the pain that that would cause 0:10:30.920 --> 0:10:34.240 our economy and all the pain that would cause people working, 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:36.040 and all the pain it would cause children not to 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:37.480 be able to go to school, not to be able 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:39.880 to see their friends, some of those children at very 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:43.600 severe risk you know, being an abusive homes uh, you know, 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:46.680 or or children with special needs who really are are 0:10:46.720 --> 0:10:49.880 you know need need people who are who are well 0:10:49.920 --> 0:10:51.920 trained to take care of them, and it's very, very 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:54.520 difficult for their parents to take care of them. Seven. 0:10:54.960 --> 0:10:58.439 All of that was considered and and people said, let's 0:10:58.440 --> 0:11:01.520 not panic when this happen. Let's have a bunch of rules, 0:11:01.920 --> 0:11:06.800 reasonable rules that we're going to follow. And and unfortunately, 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:10.360 when the moment came this March, we threw all of 0:11:10.400 --> 0:11:13.520 that away and we have been suffering for it ever since. 0:11:15.040 --> 0:11:18.319 So much to unpack there. I'm Clay Travis's wins and losses, 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:21.200 and we're talking with Alex Barrenson, former New York Times 0:11:21.200 --> 0:11:23.679 employee who has been covering the coronavirus since March. As 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:26.600 you heard him say, Okay, I'm gonna unpack, I'm gonna 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:30.439 go back in several different directions. You mentioned this expert forecast, 0:11:30.520 --> 0:11:33.640 this Nile Ferguson I believe is his name, at the 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:38.200 Imperial College of London. Why did he get it wrong 0:11:38.480 --> 0:11:43.280 so badly? And why did so many people believe his 0:11:43.480 --> 0:11:46.280 forecast to such an extent Because there were a lot 0:11:46.360 --> 0:11:49.080 of forecasts out there. What I've been saying is the 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:54.559 fear porn lad the media to adopt the worst possible forecast. 0:11:55.400 --> 0:11:59.720 How what happened there? That that particular forecast became, for 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:03.520 lie of a better term, viral and the central lynchpin 0:12:03.720 --> 0:12:07.800 of many decisions to lock down around the globe leading 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:12.000 to disastrous consequences. I believe what was it about that 0:12:12.040 --> 0:12:16.439 forecast that so captured the public's imagination and the media's imagination. 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:19.959 So that's a that's a great, great question play. And 0:12:20.160 --> 0:12:22.600 and you know, in in in in the law. So 0:12:23.040 --> 0:12:25.280 I've written these two booklets as you, as you were 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:27.200 kind enough to mention, And the second one is about 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:29.240 the lockdown. The first one is really about death and 0:12:29.280 --> 0:12:32.319 what a worst case projection might be in the US 0:12:32.400 --> 0:12:35.439 and howard counting death and has there been overcounting all 0:12:35.480 --> 0:12:38.200 of those questions. The second one is about lockdown and 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:43.480 and so and so it is fascinating that that Neil Ferguson, 0:12:43.520 --> 0:12:48.040 the Professor Ferguson Um, became the authority on this because 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:50.319 he's not a doctor, okay, and he's not a virologist. 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:53.760 He's a physicist by training, and his specialty is making 0:12:53.800 --> 0:12:57.920 these epidemiologic models, which he has actually failed that tremendously 0:12:58.000 --> 0:13:01.600 in the past. Right, you are exactly right, he has 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:05.080 failed tremendously at those models. And at one point he 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:07.679 said the two d million people might die from from 0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:10.280 swine flu, you know, five and you know, I mean 0:13:10.280 --> 0:13:13.000 that number was a joke, okay, But but nobody ever 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:17.439 seems to remember the mistakes that he's made. So so 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:19.599 a couple of other are a couple of issues. The 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:23.160 first is you need to know how lethal the viruses, 0:13:23.440 --> 0:13:26.880 and it appears that the virus is less lethal than 0:13:26.920 --> 0:13:29.600 we thought it was, uh in you know, in in 0:13:29.840 --> 0:13:32.280 January through March. Now, there's a couple of reasons for that. 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:35.320 First of all, the data from China, nobody really knew 0:13:35.800 --> 0:13:38.240 what to make of it. Nobody really knew if we 0:13:38.280 --> 0:13:41.840 could believe it. But there's a much even more serious 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:44.440 and deep problem than that, which is you need to 0:13:44.520 --> 0:13:48.240 know how many people are being infected. And with this virus, 0:13:48.320 --> 0:13:50.360 it appears that there are a tremendous number of people 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:53.600 who are infected who basically don't know it. They're either 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:57.080 asymptomatic or so lightly symptomatic that if they were not tested, 0:13:57.360 --> 0:14:00.320 they would never know it. And because of that, this 0:14:00.440 --> 0:14:03.480 is actually much less lethal than we thought it was 0:14:03.559 --> 0:14:06.480 back then, okay, And it appears that there may be 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:09.080 a significant number of people who never can get it 0:14:09.120 --> 0:14:11.679 at all, and we don't know how many that is, 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:13.760 but there, but there. But there's been a big and 0:14:13.840 --> 0:14:17.040 ongoing argument in the scientific community about what's called T 0:14:17.240 --> 0:14:19.520 cell cross reactivity, which, by the way, the New York 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:23.120 Times finally wrote about. They wrote about today literally as 0:14:23.160 --> 0:14:25.600 we're talking about this, they wrote, we're talking about this 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:27.400 for people out there who are listening. Who knows when 0:14:27.400 --> 0:14:31.440 they'll be listening. Officially, we're talking on Monday, uh, the 0:14:31.520 --> 0:14:34.400 seventeenth of August. And there's an article today about that 0:14:34.440 --> 0:14:36.080 in The New York Times, about the fact that there 0:14:36.080 --> 0:14:38.400 may be a ton of people who have immunity to 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:42.600 this virus and trying to figure out why Suddenly, for instance, 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:45.080 in New York the infection rate just fell off a 0:14:45.120 --> 0:14:47.560 cliff And as you imagine, I've seen as well, the 0:14:47.600 --> 0:14:50.760 same thing now is happening in the South. Indeed, Florida 0:14:50.840 --> 0:14:53.720 Governor Ron de Santis just came out and basically said 0:14:54.000 --> 0:14:56.600 the bottom has fallen out of the outbreak in quotation 0:14:56.680 --> 0:14:59.680 marks in Florida as well. Well, good for him for 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:02.000 saying it, because it's true and he's been he's been 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:04.320 better on this, and uh, you know, they're more forward 0:15:04.360 --> 0:15:07.080 thinking on this than anybody else, and the media hates 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:09.640 him for it, and he has not benefited politically for it. 0:15:09.920 --> 0:15:12.320 He clearly is only doing it because he believes that 0:15:12.360 --> 0:15:14.800 he's doing the right thing, and and good for him 0:15:14.840 --> 0:15:17.960 for that. Um uh, you know, But to your point, 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:20.080 your point is here, I think a good one the 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:23.520 death rate and the number of infections. If you don't 0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:29.080 know those two numbers, then whatever epidemiological expert forecast you 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:34.080 create is essentially valueless because your numerator and your denomic 0:15:34.280 --> 0:15:37.880 nator are both have issues. So it's almost impossible to 0:15:37.880 --> 0:15:42.040 come up with a reliable, predictive forecast that is exactly correct. 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:44.120 That is that, so if a thousand people have died, 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:46.760 who know, a thousand people have died, and we think 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:49.360 ten thousand were infected, that's a ten death rate. Okay, 0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:51.640 that means one person at ten who got it has died. 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:54.440 That's terrible. Okay that that you know, that would mean 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:56.200 you know, thirty million people in the U s would 0:15:56.240 --> 0:15:59.480 die if everybody got it. Okay, But if the truth 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:01.680 is that a million people have already gotten in, not 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:04.960 ten thousand and one thousand people have died, that's a 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:07.480 death rate of one tenth of one percent. It's one 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:11.440 one what I just said, Okay, And that would mean 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:15.040 that three hundred thousand people in the US would die 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:17.640 if if everybody got it. Okay, Well you know, and 0:16:17.720 --> 0:16:19.960 that's so you could say thople with a lot of people. 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:22.840 But that's because the US is a big country. Okay. 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:27.680 Smoking preventably killed half million people in the US every year, 0:16:28.200 --> 0:16:30.800 So we get big numbers when you have big countries. 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:36.160 But so so Ferguson made this estimate, and you know, 0:16:36.200 --> 0:16:38.680 and that people around him made this estimate and they 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:43.760 didn't really know what the numbers were. Okay, that is forgivable, 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:46.520 by the way, it's early in an epidemic. You are 0:16:46.640 --> 0:16:49.720 you are, you're guessing. You're going with you know, sort 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:52.960 of dirty data from China. You don't really have much 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:56.840 from a western countries. Yet it is forgivable. What is 0:16:56.880 --> 0:17:01.400 not forgivable is when more data comes in and you 0:17:01.600 --> 0:17:05.480 update not to tell people the truth. And Ferguson and 0:17:05.560 --> 0:17:08.600 this was the tweet actually that got me noticed more 0:17:08.640 --> 0:17:11.520 than any other. This was this was about ten days 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:14.280 after that first paper came out. So Ferguson, who had 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:19.560 gotten the coronavirus By this time, Umu was testifying remotely 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:22.679 to a British parliamentary committee and he said, oh, you 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:24.920 know how I said half a million people might die 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:28.040 from the coronavirus if we didn't do anything in the UK. 0:17:28.760 --> 0:17:32.840 Let's make it and you know there will be no 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:35.400 There will be a spike and it will be over 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:38.480 by mid April or late April, and after that I 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:41.320 think it's going to be Okay. That was basically what 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:44.640 he said. Okay, it was a It was a monumental 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:48.159 change in his forecast that he that he that he 0:17:48.320 --> 0:17:51.200 tried to pass off as well, this is just kind 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:54.000 of an adjustment here, and this is because we locked down. 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:57.760 It's not true. Okay, he made a monumental change in 0:17:57.800 --> 0:18:01.639 the forecast, and the media used to acknowledge it or 0:18:02.000 --> 0:18:04.600 or or ask him what had happened, or call him on. 0:18:05.080 --> 0:18:07.879 And that was when I realized, this is just like 0:18:07.960 --> 0:18:11.800 how your children, only the steaks are much much bigger. 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:15.159 This has become a politicized issue already. This is about 0:18:15.240 --> 0:18:17.720 people who want us to be in lockdown. They want 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:20.479 to push us there, um you know, for whatever reason, 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:24.199 because they're genuinely afraid, or because you know, they have 0:18:24.359 --> 0:18:28.320 other uh, you know, they have other motivations which which 0:18:28.320 --> 0:18:31.800 are not necessarily obvious to me at this time. But 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:33.760 but there's going to be a fight here and it's 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:36.399 not only going to be about science. And that was 0:18:36.640 --> 0:18:39.320 and that was something that I knew could happen because 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:41.960 of how your children be sure to catch live editions 0:18:42.000 --> 0:18:44.720 about kicked the coverage with Clay Travis week days at 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:48.920 six am Eastern, three am Pacific. Why did and this 0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:51.720 is becomes a fascinating question. We're talking with Alex Brinson. 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:54.520 You can go read his two different books that he's 0:18:54.520 --> 0:18:56.520 published on Amazon, which I'm gonna get to you here 0:18:56.520 --> 0:19:01.160 in a moment. But you've elucidated one of major issues 0:19:01.200 --> 0:19:03.800 that I think has gone with the coverage of the 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:06.280 coronavirus from the get go. And I'm curious, as a 0:19:06.320 --> 0:19:09.960 member of the former New York Times media establishment, for 0:19:10.080 --> 0:19:12.359 lack of a better phrase, how you would analyze this. 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:18.359 It seems to me that there are anecdotal outlier cases 0:19:18.480 --> 0:19:22.160 which have driven the coverage of the coronavirus since this started. 0:19:22.240 --> 0:19:25.440 In other words, thirty five year old person dies, Oh 0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:28.199 my god, pregnant woman's got it, her baby's got it 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:32.080 now and when we actually look at the raw data, 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:35.240 the numbers tell us a different story, and a much 0:19:35.280 --> 0:19:39.000 more calming story. And so, for instance, Uh, it seems 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:42.399 to me that emotion has totally overtaken the way that 0:19:42.440 --> 0:19:45.240 this story was covered. And I thought it was crystallized 0:19:45.240 --> 0:19:47.040 when the New York Times, on I think it was 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:51.080 Memorial Day weekend writes like a hundred thousand deaths and 0:19:51.200 --> 0:19:54.639 incalculable lost as their headline with just a bunch of 0:19:54.680 --> 0:19:58.440 different names on it. What has happened here? Why has 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:03.600 a motion overtaken the media? Why has logic and probability 0:20:03.640 --> 0:20:05.679 and all of these things not taken route? Because I 0:20:05.760 --> 0:20:07.560 keep and I'm just gonna put this out, a lot 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:11.040 of people will be listening from a sports perspective. Uh, 0:20:11.160 --> 0:20:14.160 kids driving to college campuses are more likely to die 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:16.760 driving to their college campus in a car accident than 0:20:16.800 --> 0:20:19.080 they are from the coronavirus. They're more likely to die 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:21.680 of the flu murder. Uh, They're more likely to die 0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:24.399 of drug overdose. They're more likely to die of drinking 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:27.960 too much alcohol. All of these are more dangerous threats 0:20:27.960 --> 0:20:30.520 if you're a parent with a college age student. Yet 0:20:30.640 --> 0:20:32.760 right now, sports are being shut down in the Big 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:36.040 ten and the Pack twelve because of this overwhelming fear 0:20:36.119 --> 0:20:39.920 porn which people still can't escape. Why did the media 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:43.840 fail so much talking to the public about this story 0:20:43.920 --> 0:20:46.440 and fail so much by the way that they almost 0:20:46.480 --> 0:20:49.919 managed to destroy their own business because you know, like 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:54.560 fear maybe well lead, but the advertising market destroyed when 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:57.760 you shut down the economy, It's like your ratings may 0:20:57.800 --> 0:21:00.760 go up on MSNBC and CNN and Fox News as 0:21:00.800 --> 0:21:03.480 well to a certain extent, but also nobody can buy 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:06.680 anything because the economy is collapsed. It's like that. Yeah, 0:21:06.680 --> 0:21:09.840