-As the president continues to lie
about the coronavirus outbreak, we are now seeing
what it's like when a lifelong scam artist
is in charge of responding to a public health crisis.
For more on this, it's time for a closer look.
[ Cheers and applause ]
When it comes to his presidency,
there's nothing Donald Trump cares about more
than the stock market.
He brags about it virtually every chance he gets,
and on Friday, during a visit to CDC headquarters in Atlanta,
Trump predicted that the coronavirus outbreak,
which has now hit more than 100,000 cases worldwide
and over 500 here in the U.S.,
would actually be good for the economy.
-Could you just address the economic piece, though,
because there's obviously a lot of fear about the coronavirus?
-I mean it is a fact. You know, if you don't want
to think about me, I like when people happen
to stay in the United States
and spend their money in the United States, okay?
So, I think people are staying in the United States,
they're going to spend their money in the United States.
-That's right, Trump thinks coronavirus
will help the economy because people will
spend money here in the U.S.
[ As Trump ] In fact, I've been buying toilet paper at Costco
that I'm going to resell at a profit if things get worse.
There you go. The president said on Friday
that coronavirus would actually be good for the economy.
Let's see how the stock market did
when it opened on Monday morning.
-We're coming on the air with breaking news.
This is the New York Stock Exchange.
The trading day is just beginning on Wall Street.
And there are fears that the Dow will drop and drop quickly,
and we're already seeing that.
The Dow industrials are off right now 17 points or 6.5%,
you've got the NASDAQ off 5.8%,
and then the S&P down 6 1/3%.
-At this point, I've never seen this much anxiety
on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
There are traders running everywhere.
We are watching these levels.
-Has trading now stopped? Has it hit that 7% figure?
-Trading has stopped because we've seen a drop of 7%,
which means trading will stop for the next 15 minutes.
-[ As Trump ] I'm selling this toilet paper for $1,000 a sheet!
[ Laughter, applause ]
[ Normal voice ] That's right. Three days.
Three days after Trump predicted
coronavirus would be good for the economy,
the stock market plunged so much, when it opened,
the trading had to be stopped.
The drop was so bad, the red arrow on the TV screen
grew legs and ran away.
Now, the selloff wasn't due entirely to coronavirus.
It was also due in large part to a war over oil prices
launched by Saudi Arabia.
Still, a lot of people are understandably worried.
And while there's no the reason to panic,
governments across the world are taking extreme measures
to mitigate the outbreak.
Over the weekend, Italy put millions of people on lockdown
in regions hit hardest by the outbreak
where people were rushing to catch the last trains
leaving Milan before the lockdown took effect.
-Officials in Italy putting 16 million people on lockdown.
Now, that's a quarter of the country's population.
Video shows people rushing to catch the last train
as they left northern Italy.
-This is what Italians look like when they're rushing.
[ Laughter ]
I mean, obviously, in Italy,
to run for a train is a fate worse than death.
I'm shocked they didn't have cigarettes in one hand
and Aperol spritzers in the other.
I mean, if you've ever been to Italy,
you know that, for Italians,
what you just saw there is DEFCON one.
I mean, in Italy, stores just close in the afternoon
so people can nap, and planes just take off
whenever they want.
At the Rome airport, most departure times say,
"It leaves when it leaves, capiche?"
And here in the U.S., New York, the state with the most cases,
is currently taking its own precautions
to deal with the coronavirus.
Governor Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency
as the number of cases rises to over 100
with thousands more being asked to self-quarantine.
And on Sunday, Cuomo offered this advice
to New Yorkers taking the subway.
-If you can move to a train car that is not as dense,
if you see a packed train car, let it go by.
Wait for the next train.
-I'm sorry, did you think
people were picking crowded cars on purpose?
Every train car is packed.
[ Cheers and applause ]
"Excuse me. I'm sorry.
Where are the less-dense train cars?"
That's why those showtime subway dancers
learned to hang upside down from the roof,
so they could fit onto a packed car.
As a general rule, any time you see a subway car
that isn't packed, that means one of two things --
either it's 4:00 a.m. on a Tuesday
or someone did something unspeakable.
"Oh, look, honey. This one's almost empt--
Oh, that smell. Oh, my God."
Now, there's no reason to panic.
In fact, as bad as things seem, there are reasons for optimism.
China and South Korea have seen slowdowns in new cases
and people in areas affected by the outbreak
have been making the best of the situation.
For example, in Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the outbreak,
students who had been on lockdown
were assigned homework through an app
until they figured out a way to get out of it.
In locked-down Wuhan, teachers used an app
called DingTalk to set up homework.
Kids realized if it got enough one-star reviews,
it would be reviewed from the app store.
[ Cheers and applause ] Thousands of reviews flooded in,
and DingTalk's rating fell from 4.9 to 1.4 overnight.
That is amazing.
Although I will say, although it is a bummer
for the people who built that app.
I mean, you conceive of an app, you develop it,
you go through rounds and rounds of beta testing,
you finally have a successful launch,
and then this brings it down.
"Hey, what happened to that app of yours?"
"A bunch of dickhead kids one-starred me."
"Well, you made a homework app, so maybe you're the dickhead."
But, honestly, maybe we should put these kids
in charge of the coronavirus response.
Because while they were out there,
coming up with ways to shut down apps,
the most powerful man in the world was visiting
CDC headquarters in Atlanta on Friday in a hat and windbreaker
looking, not like a man steady at the helm of a crisis,
but like a hung-over little-league umpire.
Seriously, man, what is this look?
You are inside.
Are you expecting a thunderstorm?
[ As Trump ] I heard there was a laboratory,
and as everyone knows, laboratories run on lightning
because that's how they invented Frankenstein."
[ Normal voice ] And as countries across the world
were testing tens of thousands of people a day
and taking extreme measures to mitigate the outbreak,
our president was at the CDC talking about
how he was getting his information
not from doctors, but from his favorite channel, Fox News.
-As of the time I left the plane with you,
we had 240 cases, or that's at least what was on
a very fine network known as Fox News.
-Why are you getting your information
about how many cases there are from Fox News?
You're at the CDC.
You are surrounded -- You are currently surrounded by doctors.
Just turn around and ask one of them.
Doctor, give it to me straight.
Did you see me on Hannity last night?
Was I good?
Kind of terrifying that in the middle of a global pandemic,
Trump is getting his information from Fox News
because at the same time Trump is listening to Fox,
public health officials are worried about making him angry
by telling him the truth.
For example, Politico reported that public health groups
are hoping to convey factual information to Americans
without antagonizing Trump.
They're afraid of antagonizing Trump.
That is insane.
They're talking about the president
the way a mailman talks about a rottweiler
which makes sense because Trump always looks
like he's about to bite an intruder on the ass.
[ Cheers and applause ]
And you can tell that the cult of personality
that insulates Trump from dissent is having an impact
because Trump appointees keep going out of their way
to compliment him in situations where it's totally unnecessary,
from the health secretary to the head of the CDC
to the surgeon general just yesterday on CNN.
-Thank you, Mr. President,
for gathering your public health experts here today
and for your strong leadership in keeping America safe.
-I want to thank you for your decisive leadership
in helping us put public health first.
-We want to make sure folks who are out there who at risk,
they're taking extra precautions.
But speaking of being at risk, the president,
he sleeps less than I do, and he's healthier than I am.
-No, he's not. There's no way he's healthier than you are.
I mean, look at him.
He doesn't even know the difference
between inside and outside.
I'd expect him to bring an umbrella,
but he doesn't know how to use one.
Trump is desperately, desperately trying to paint
a rosy picture to help both his political fortunes
and the economy, which he sees as crucial to his reelection.
For example, on Friday, Trump actually admitted
that he wanted to keep people trapped on a cruise ship
where passengers and crews were diagnosed with coronavirus
rather than bringing them onto the U.S. mainland
because it would increase the number of coronavirus cases
in the U.S., and that would make him look bad.
-I mean, frankly, uh, if it were up to me,
I would be inclined to say leave everybody on the ship
for a period of time and use the ship as your base.
But a lot of people would rather do it a different way.
They'd rather quarantine people.
And when they do that,
our numbers are going to go up, okay?
Our numbers are going to go up.
They would like to have the people come off.
I'd rather have the people stay.
But I go with them. I told them to make the final decision.
I would rather because I like the numbers
being where they are.
I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship.
-I'm sorry, but keeping people trapped on a cruise ship
even if they don't have coronavirus
should be an impeachable offense,
because nothing good ever happens on a cruise ship.
You never, never once have heard a positive news story
about a cruise ship.
You'd never read the headline,
"Cruise Ship's Toilets Work Great."
You have another reminder that Trump is a lifelong scam artist
who is constantly running a con
and trying to B.S. his way out of that con.
It's obvious he doesn't have a plan for anything
other than his own self-preservation.
For example, there's been a major delay
in testing capacity due to CDC errors,
which experts have called a national disgrace.
Last week, the White House said it would fail to meet its goal
in providing enough coronavirus test kits
for 1 million people by the end of the week,
and Vice President Mike Pence said
they won't have enough tests to meet demand.
Then, out of nowhere, during a visit to the CDC on Friday,
Trump not only said everyone could get a test,
he said the tests were perfect, and for some reason,
compared them to his infamous phone call
with the president of Ukraine,
you know, the one that got him impeached.
-Anybody that wants a test can get a test.
Anybody that needs a test gets a test.
They're there. They have the test.
And the tests are beautiful.
Anybody that needs a test gets a test.
But anybody that needs a test can have a test.
They're all set. They have them out there.
And the tests are all perfect.
Like the letter was perfect.
The transcription was perfect.
-[ As Trump ] "Anyone who needs a test gets the test."
[ Normal voice ] "I need a test."
[ As Trump ] "Not you."
[ Normal voice ] You're comparing the test
for a global pandemic to the thing
that got you impeached. That's not a good comparison.
That's like borrowing your friend's Kia and saying,
"This reminds me a lot of my last car,
the one I totaled after driving it straight into a Wendy's."
What we're seeing now is what happens
when a lifelong scam artist has to manage
a major public health crisis.
Trump has always been able to B.S. and threaten
and litigate his way out of accountability
and avoid consequences.
And, now, as he oversees the government's response
to a global public health emergency,
he's trying to do the same thing.
And it's worth remembering that Trump's scams
didn't just include a fake charity or a scam university.
He also ran a scam health-care company.
-"The Daily Beast" reports today on the vitamin-selling venture
launched in 2009 by a company called The Trump Network.
It was a multilevel marketing scheme
along the lines of Amway or Mary Kay.
The scheme peddled a number of diet products
and sham nutritional supplements
including a supposedly customized vitamin regime
requiring users to send in a urine sample
packed inside a very classy special Trump-branded box.
According to Harvard doctor and supplement expert
interviewed by "The Daily Beast,"
the process is, quote, "a scam."
-For $140, you can send in your urine
and get a tailored version of vitamins,
none of which was proven by science, by the way,
and they would be delivered to you and you would pay, you know,
70 bucks a month, every month, to increase your health.
-I'm sorry, but how do you tailor vitamins for someone
based on their urine?
You don't want a cheek swab or a blood sample?
That should be a red flag right away.
That would be like if you signed up for 23andMe,
and in order to give you your family history,
they made you [bleep] in a paper bag.
[ Laughter ]
So, that's the guy overseeing the government's response
to a global pandemic that threatens to overwhelm
the U.S. healthcare system.
And just as he lied about his scam vitamin kits,
he's trying to lie about the coronavirus outbreak.
Here he is on Friday justifying his lies
by claiming he has a natural ability
for dealing with this kind of thing.
-You know, my uncle is a great person.
He was at M.I.T.
He taught at M.I.T. for, I think, like,
a record number of years.
He was a great super genius.
Dr. John Trump.
I like this stuff. I really get it.
People are surprised that I understand it.
Every one of these doctors said,
"How do you know so much about this?"
Maybe I have a natural ability.
Maybe I should have done that
instead of running for president.
-Yes. Yes, you should have.
[ Applause ]
You should have applied to medical school,
and you should have filmed the reactions
of the faculty of that medical school
reading your application, and you should have posted that
on TikTok and gotten 1 trillion views.
Seriously, you think instead of running for President at age 70,
you should have become a doctor instead?
The only white coat you should be wearing is a straitjacket.
Also there is no way -- I'm sorry, but there is --
There is no way a doctor said the words
"How do you know so much about this stuff?"
I mean, maybe, maybe one of them said it sarcastically, like,
you said, "I hear the coronavirus will go away
when it gets less cloudy," and they said,
"Oh, man, how do you know so much about this stuff?"
Also you think you know about science
because your uncle was a doctor?
People don't just automatically know
what their uncles know.
Otherwise, we would all know the lyrics to every Steely Dan song.
This is what happens when you put a lifelong con artist
and pathological liar with zero intellectual curiosity
in charge of the government.
When an emergency comes along, he doesn't care about
solving it, he just wants to B.S. his way through it.
And now he's actively making the situation worse.
The president is a deluded idiot who thinks he's a...
-Super genius.
-This has been a closer look.
[ Cheers and applause ]