Well, good morning everyone.
Sorry for showing you my back
and the back of my head
but I'm doing that because I'm all alone here
in my man cave.
We're not on set this morning because the set is shut down,
on Paramount Lot, so I am in my man cave.
And I'm kind of a one man crew here,
as far as taping is concerned.
You're used to seeing me with the fancy lighting
and a big set, music when I walk on
but I need to be here alone today
as I take the guidelines of the CDC,
Dr. Fauci, the pre-eminent expert, very seriously
and I'm respecting every one of them,
that's been given and I encourage you
to do exactly the same thing.
We were told to go on hiatus
when we were almost done for the season
and we could just shut down and not see us until September.
But I've been watching what is happening
and I am very, very concerned about all of you
and about this whole country.
And just to be honest,
rather than taking a prolonged vacation,
I really feel a sense of duty.
You guys have supported me for 20 years.
You've made me number one and I'm very appreciative of that
and I just couldn't sit home and do nothing
when I see what's going on out here.
I owe it to you, I owe it to the country
to talk about what the world's experts,
the top people in immunology and infectious disease
have shared with me, what I've learned,
what I know and what I see.
Let me be very clear,
I'm not an immunologist,
I'm not an infectious disease expert
but I do have access to these people,
that probably most of you don't have access to
and I've been very careful to take all the politics
out of this and gather what they have told me,
purely Science, purely Science.
And it just really frustrated me to turn on the phone
and the first thing I do is I hear
the liberals talking about what the conservatives
haven't done and the conservatives talking about
what the liberals haven't done.
That just really upsets me when we should,
if there's ever been a bipartisan issue,
it should be this one.
So I just had to come down here and talk to you,
to just turn the camera on,
walk away and sit down and talk to you
because I am concerned about the mental health aspect
of what's going on here.
And it is virtually being ignored.
A few people are saying something here and something there
but I'll tell you what I believe.
This is stress, this is pressure
and I believe as many, or more people can die
from the stress, pressure, suicide and violence
than could die from this virus itself.
We have to attend to what's going on.
We have to attend to what's happening
to people that are being forced into isolation,
people that are losing their jobs,
people that are watching everything happen around them.
This is the biggest mental, emotional crisis
that this nation has faced since 9/11.
So I want to begin a series
that deals with the coping strategies, the red flags
that you can spot, that you can see coming for you,
for your children, for your parents
and I want to deal with how to cope.
And I want to be talkin' about this on the internet,
I want to be talking about it on my social platforms,
I want to be talking about it here,
everywhere that I can,
everywhere that I can find a portal.
And so what I want you to do, if you will,
is tell your friends to watch,
tell your friends to watch this show.
As we, let me turn my computer off,
it's trying to talk to me and I don't want to talk to it.
So I want you to tell your friends to watch this,
I want you to tell your friends
to tune in and if they can't,
then you tell them what I said because we just need
to share all the information we can
so we can change your path.