RUSH: Look, I have a bunch of different takes on the Democrat debate last night, and I’m gonna get to that. But as part of it, you know, I opened the program yesterday saying, “What are we really most afraid of? Are we more afraid of the coronavirus or are we more afraid of Bernie Sanders?” And the answer remains we should be more afraid of Bernie Sanders and the Democrat Party.

But the Democrat Party, folks, in their debates, is trying, all of these candidates are trying to say, like Mayor Pete did, “We need to end the chaos. We need to end the partisanship. We need to end the stress that our politics is causing.” So what is this party doing?

They are trying to weaponize a virus that doesn’t know a Democrat from a Republican, from a conservative, from a liberal. They are trying to use this coronavirus to scare the hell out of everybody in their madcap hopes of finding something that will get rid of Donald Trump.

And there’s something else, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, if you paid attention last night. What is the Democrat solution to every freaking thing? Money. Chuck Schumer says we need to have eight and a half billion dollars to spend on coronavirus. Why eight and a half billion to spend on coronavirus? Trump said two and a half billion. Schumer said that’s not enough.

Their solution is always more money. They never have any actual solutions to anything. Just throw money at it. And I’m not even talking about the aspect of money from the standpoint that we don’t have it or that it’s a budget buster or that it’s a waste. Spend the money on what?

You know that the greatest threat we have to the coronavirus right now is open borders. If you happen to be an open borders supporter, then you happen to be an advocate for the coronavirus. I’m sorry. That’s just the way it is it is.

If you want to really get a handle on the coronavirus, shut the border, stop airplane flights from China, stop airplane flights from where we know this virus has infected a lot of people. If we’re serious about it — how much money does that take? It doesn’t take that much money, and it certainly doesn’t take new eight and a half billion dollars. It just takes a little fortitude.

But guess who would stand up and object to closing the borders? And Trump has already done this with certain airline flights. But I’m talking about the southern border where illegal immigrants and who knows whoever else attempt to get into the country. We’ve always been vulnerable in this way, be it from weaponized ammo, weaponized guns, now weaponized viruses and who knows whatever else. Our greatest vulnerability is our wide-open border. Shut it down. And you listen to howls of protest from the Democrats. They won’t support that and I’m telling you if they don’t then they’re not serious about this.

This coronavirus — I’ll tell you what’s gonna happen today, folks. I can predict this as practically easily as I predicted anything that came true. What’s gonna happen all day today, no matter where you go when you turn on any media, you turn on cable news, if you get your media via internet, Web streaming, no matter where you go, you’re gonna get panic, paranoia, crisis, and chaos.

You’re gonna hear how the coronavirus is deadly, it’s a pandemic, and that Trump isn’t doing anything about it because Trump’s too stupid to know what to do about it. Trump is too uninterested, Trump doesn’t care, Trump is an idiot, Trump has gotten rid of all the smart people. We need people like Obama to save us and Obama is nowhere around. Where is Obama, anyway? Not that I care. But you’re gonna hear this all day long just like you heard every day for two years that Trump colluded with Russia, just like you heard every day that Trump was trying to dig up dirt on Biden and should be impeached for it with the phone call to Ukraine.

You’re gonna hear about the coronavirus all day long. The stock market, by the way, is trying to rebound from it. The stock market, last I saw, was up a couple or 300 points, the Dow Jones Industrial Average. So they want to come back from it. Everybody knows that there has been this gigantic overreaction to this, as there always is when the media and the Democrat political complex gets in gear, when they think they found something that can do great damage to Trump.

So all day long you’re gonna hear nothing but Trump incompetence, Trump doesn’t care, Trump has endangered the country because Trump was out of the country, Trump doesn’t care, he knows he’s not gonna get sick, he’s not gonna care about you. And then at 6 o’clock tonight Trump is gonna address the nation and Trump’s gonna tell you the truth about it.

After consulting with his health people all day long, Trump’s gonna tell you the truth about it, whatever it is. I don’t know what he’s gonna say, obviously. But it is going to calm everybody down, it’s gonna reassure everybody that their government is on top of it with the best people that can be found to be on top of it.

You’re gonna be told that there’s no reason to panic. You’re gonna be told that it’s not a pandemic in the United States yet. That the United States has done a good job so far in getting a handle on this and isolating the few cases that have sprung up, and they are all travel cases, by the way. And they have been properly quarantined, and they have been isolated, and it is not spreading in the United States.

And by the end of the president’s address you’re gonna be going, “Well, what the hell was this I heard all day today?” And then you should remind yourself, it’s exactly like the panic and fearmongering you heard for two years over Russia meddling in and stealing the election. And then the same thing you heard for another six months about Trump supposedly committing impeachable offenses in a phone call (for which the transcript was released) with the president of Ukraine.

You need to be scratching your head already over this. It is so obvious that they’re trying to weaponize this thing to do damage to Trump throughout the Drive-By Media. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is now up 79 points, but they’re trying. The market is trying to rebound. Now, I did. I opened the program yesterday asking which is more dangerous for the country, Bernie Sanders or the coronavirus? And I said Bernie Sanders, of course. I’ve gotten some pushback on that.

But think about it. The coronavirus has a mortality rate of 2%. The mortality rate for countries with socialism is 100%. Socialism kills every country it comes in contact with, folks. Socialism destroys wealth — everybody’s wealth except the leaders. Socialism destroys liberty. It destroys freedom. It destroys prosperity. It destroys dreams. Socialism destroys 100% of every country it comes in contact with. Ditto, communism.

There’s no question that Bernie Sanders poses a far greater threat to this country and the Democrat Party than the coronavirus — and I mean to say that. The Democrat Party, as it’s currently constituted, poses a much greater threat to this country than the coronavirus does. And you can quote me on that, and you can tell Anthony Fauci at the National Institutes of Health I said it and see what he says, and you can tell anybody at the CDC.

The Democrats are doing this, by the way. Do you know this, my friends? Your host is being quoted by members of Congress to National Institute of Health experts and the CDC experts and getting them to respond to me. Me! A little old radio talk show host, a Medal of Freedom winner. It just grates on ’em. Just grates. They have to mention that in every question they ask about every quote of mine. They just can’t see straight over it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I think that the Democrat Party and all these people public speaking — like Pelosi, Schumer, media — I don’t think they’re really that worried about the coronavirus. Because if they were, they’d be going about this an entirely different way. If they were really worried about this, they would not be trying to weaponize this as a way to end Trump’s presidency or to blame it all on him. They’d be worried about getting it and they’d be demanding that somebody do something to protect and save everybody.

They’re not doing that. You know, this is the point. They keep talking about, “We need to end the partisanship, we need to end the chaos, we need to get back to where things are peaceful!” Now we got the supposedly deadly pandemic virus, and what are they doing about it? Nothing but trying to say, “This is a reason why we gotta get rid of Donald Trump.” They don’t even believe it yet that it’s that big a deal.

It’s just the latest thing that’s come along that gives them hope that somehow, they can get him thrown out of office before the next election. Let me give you give an example of the kind of stuff going on. At 12:05 this afternoon, right as this program began, the FDA — an anonymous person at the FDA, Food and Drug Administration — “warned the coronavirus is on the cusp of a pandemic.” I’m sorry, it is not a pandemic yet in the United States. There are 57 cases.

They’re all known and contained. “12:05 — FDA Official Warns Coronavirus on the Cusp of a Pandemic.” At that time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 300 points. It’s now down to being up 65 points. Do not doubt me. The forces arrayed against Donald Trump are doing everything they can to weaponize this to harm the economy, to harm the stock market in hopes of harming President Trump. The people doing this do not present the profile of people seriously worried about a pandemic disease, and they need to be called out on it.

Let’s go to audio sound bite number 1 here just to illustrate how my name, your beloved host, is being quoted even on Capitol Hill. This morning, the House Appropriations Subcommittee hearing on Trump’s 2021 budget request. The Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar testified, and here is Mark Pocan (Democrat-Wisconsin), asking Azar about the coronavirus and Azar’s reaction…

POCAN: You’ve heard Larry Kudlow say it’s contained. We have heard Rush Limbow (sic) — Medal of Freedom winner and White House surrogate — say it’s no worse than the common cold. And yet we have also heard from CDC officials it’s not a question if this will happen anymore but rather a question of exactly when — and Dr. Fauci, who many of us really respect said it’s inevitable this will come to the United States.

AZAR: The risk right now is very low to Americans. As Larry Kudlow said, from a public health perspective, we technically are in a state of containment in the United States. But we have always been clear that, number one, that could change rapidly — and from the outset, I and the public health experts have said we fully expect we will see more cases here in the United States.

RUSH: “The risk right now is very low…” It’s not a pandemic. It’s just a panic — a created, coordinated, media-driven, Democrat Party-sponsored panic. People are smart enough. They hear this thing’s floating around, and people smart enough to do what it takes to protect themselves. But see, the media thinks, “You’re not capable of protecting yourself. You’re not capable of it. You can’t stop from getting this virus because of Donald Trump.

“Since Donald Trump’s president, you’re gonna get it. You may die. That’s why they got rid of Donald Trump, ’cause Donald Trump doesn’t care and Donald Trump is incompetent — and Donald Trump wasn’t even in the country when this thing happened. He was over in India and so forth. Donald Trump doesn’t even care about you,” whatever the hell these people are trying to say today.

It’s all rooted in the fact you have no idea how to take care of yourself. You have no idea how to fend for yourself — and if you get it, you’re gonna die. They’re trying to make everybody think this stuff. Last night, Fredo Cuomo had the director of the National Institutes of Health, Anthony Fauci, on. Once again, I’m not gonna play the bite, but he’s quoting me (impression), “Limbaugh says it’s no big deal, just a common cold. What do you think about that, Mr. Fauci?”

FAUCI: Well, right now we’re pretty well prepared for what’s going on right now. We have 14 cases in the United States that are travel related. Twelve are travel; two are spouses. The rest of the individuals we actually evacuated from the Diamond Princess ship in Yokohama. So the idea of identification, isolation, and contact tracing has been successful in the limited number of individuals we have.

RUSH: Okay, so this is the second government official saying, “We’re prepared. Everybody is prepared. The risk, right now, is low. It may get worse.” All I’m trying to do is illustrate that we’re nowhere near the level in this thing that the media and the Democrat Party are trying to convince you we’re at today — and they’re doing that, trying to make it look like, “This thing has snuck up on us ’cause Trump doesn’t care! He’s not even smart enough to know that there was a coronavirus out there, and then he’s not smart enough to know what to do about it because he has dumb people working for him.”

That’s essentially the message out there, and you just wait ’til the press conference at 6 o’clock.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: By the way, in addition to sound bites 4 and 5 have number 24 standing by. That’d be Pelosi. I’m gonna play you a couple more bites here, going back to CNN. I’m not gonna play you the bite of Fredo ’cause Fredo’s question is nothing more than a 25-second attack on me and asking these guys to respond to it.

“Rush Limbaugh says it’s just a common cold, what do you think of that?” And then these guys answer, and it’s their answer, Sanjay Gupta is the medical expert, whatever, at CNN. And “So you’ve heard Limbaugh say that it’s not bad, but people are walking around with masks in and out of airports, political season -” Political season? So he then gets to the “What are the realities here, Dr. Gupta?”

GUPTA: Look, if you talk about the risk to the average person still in the United States as things stand, it’s still low. Those are still low numbers. You know, the numbers are still small here. With flu in 2017-2018, 60,000, roughly, 61,000 people died of flu. The fatality ratio with flu is .1%. With this coronavirus it’s closer to 2%, depending on how you look at the numbers.

RUSH: Two percent in China, where they don’t care, where they don’t have advanced medical care, and believe me, they don’t care as much about individual patients in China. The government, the health care could not — folks, they got a billion people they can’t feed as it is. I’ve seen video of Chinese authorities taking suspected coronavirus patients, literally kicking them out of their houses, dragging them out of their houses, taking them to camps. They don’t care. They’re not taking ’em so hospitals.

So the fatality rate — I’m gonna go out on a limb — the fatality rate for coronavirus in an advanced health care system like ours may not be 2%. So far it isn’t. We have 57 cases in the country. Nobody’s died yet. Look at the flu numbers here that Sanjay Gupta — stop and think of this now, if he’s right about this. He said, “With flu in 2017-2018” — so that’s two years, two flu seasons — 60,000 people — I want somebody that’s good with numbers to run some numbers for me here in a second. ‘Cause Dr. Gupta said 60,000 people died of flu, and he said the fatality ratio of flu is .1%.

So would somebody tell me if 60,000 people died, that 60,000 is .1% of what number? It must be millions and millions who get the flu, if the fatality rate is one-tenth of 1%, and one-tenth of 1% is 60,000. I got numbers crunchers working on this right now. I know this is gonna be a challenge. This is something I can’t do without a calculator, even with a calculator I have to use a piece of paper and a pen. ‘Cause I have to start… (interruption) How many? Did you say 60 or 50?

Okay. So roughly 60 million people — that makes sense — 60 million people would have had the flu over two years if 60,000 of them died, and that’s .1%. We’d have to look up those numbers, see if that’s right. I’m not questioning Dr. Gupta, do not missunderstand. Those are incredible numbers. Sixty million people with the flu, 60 million with the flu, 60,000 of ’em died, 150 million people died with guns, according to Joe Biden at the debate last night.

And here comes the coronavirus. We’re not gonna have a population, maybe, by the end of the year, folks. Better cram all your living in as fast as you can here, ’cause between Joe Biden’s guns — 150 million people a year. I mean, it could wipe out the country in two years if he’s right about that. Now the coronavirus with a fatality rate that’s much higher than the flu, according to Dr. Sanjay Gupta, 60 million. Does that sound right, 60 million people had the flu every year, out of a population counting — mostly the people that die from the flu are elderly. But still you could use the whole population, 300 million people, 60 million of them get the flu. Is that accurate, do you think? I would have no idea. I don’t spend my time studying this stuff, so I don’t know. Look that up.

Next sound bite is CBS This Morning, cohost Anthony Mason talking to the CDC principal deputy director, Dr. Anne Schuchat. Now, I want you to remember something. It was yesterday that the CDC’s infectious disease director, Nancy Messonnier, who is the sister of Rod Rosenstein, came out and panicked everybody. Do you remember?

She said (paraphrasing), “It’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when. We’re gonna have to make sure kids don’t go to school and that they learn on FaceTime, communicating televideo with their teachers. We’re gonna have to make sure people don’t go to work in order to keep ’em safe. You’re going to have to go to work via FaceTime on your iPhone, your iPad, or your laptop computer.”

This is what she said yesterday, Rosenstein’s sister, head honcho at the CDC. Remember this? And everybody’s panicked, “Oh, my God. Can’t leave our homes? When?” So this morning the CDC principal deputy director, Dr. Anne Schuchat was asked this question. “Who is most at risk for getting infected by coronavirus?”

SCHUCHAT: Based on what we know so far, the severe cases are primarily occurring in the elderly, in adults with chronic conditions like diabetes or chronic lung disease. We haven’t seen disease to any great extent in children, and that’s a difference with seasonal flu or other influenza. One of the big drivers of our flu outbreaks each year is the high rates of illness in children, but we haven’t seen that with this virus. It’s something we’re on the lookout for, but that hasn’t been detected so far.

RUSH: Uhhhh, so the virus is not that severe. You know what else is very possible, folks? What time of year is it? Why, it’s wintertime. Why, we’re not even out of February yet. What happens if this virus doesn’t survive springtime and summertime temperatures? What if it’s seasonal, like the flu is? What if it just up and goes away sometime?

Who’s gonna take credit for it? Chuck Schumer and his eight and a half billion dollars? The CDC? The National Institutes for Health? The ChiComs? Who’s gonna take credit for it? Who knows how it’s gonna behave. That’s my point, we don’t. All we know now is that Donald Trump needs to be thrown out of office because of it, if you listen to the Drive-By Media and the Democrat Party.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Oh, yeah, grab sound bite 24. I forgot. I told you I was gonna play that and I didn’t get to it. It’s Nancy Pelosi today. I guess she had a little confab with reporters up on Capitol Hill.

PELOSI: This is shameful. He puts forth a proposal now that is meager, anemic in terms of addressing or… (sputtering) With Ebola, we did $5 billion. Now they’re trying to take the Ebola money and spend it here. So what he’s doing is late, too late, anemic. Hopefully we can make up for the loss of time.

RUSH: You see how this works? How stupid does she think we are? For crying out loud. This woman is an embarrassment, saying it’s shameful what Trump has suggested money-wise. Puts forth a proposal that’s meager, anemic. How does she even know? She has no idea what we’re dealing with yet. “With Ebola, we did $5 billion.” Yeah, and how much of it was spent, and how much of that money actually made a difference in Ebola? What, is the Ebola virus saying, “Oh, my God, $5 billion coming my way? We’ll go back to Africa.”

Is that how the Ebola virus reacted? Do these viruses recognize how much money we’re throwing at ’em, Madam Speaker? Is the coronavirus laughing at Trump’s $2.5 billion? “It’s not near enough! I’m gonna infect every American. I’m gonna infect every Democrat.” What? What? How does this work? This is asinine. Now they’re trying to take the Ebola money and spend…” What, what, what? You mean there’s money left over from the Ebola fight? Who knew?

If there is, it makes all the sense in the world to go get the money from the Ebola budget. Does anybody remember the Ebola budget? Do you remember this Ebola business? I don’t even remember. (sigh) But this allows them to hearken back to how prepared Obama was and how on top of things Obama was and how Obama cared — anything to contrast anybody with Trump. So automatically, before… We don’t even have 60 cases in America, and it’s too late!

What Trump is doing is too late. It’s too late; it’s anemic. Hopefully we can make up for the lost time.

You know… Mr. Snerdley, do you remember former Democrat…? No, he was a Republican, a RINO Republican from Massachusetts named Bill Cohen, William Cohen. He married the TV anchor, infobabe in Washington. This guy was on TV today announcing that he has formed a group of former members of Congress, 70 of them — former members of Congress — to deal with the inaction of the current Congress. He is upset that the current Congress isn’t doing diddly-squat about anything compared to past Congresses when he was a member which did great things.

So while Pelosi’s out whining and moaning that Trump isn’t doing enough, Bill Cohen’s coming along and saying, “Hey, this current Congress is a bunch of deadbeats not getting anything done. We have formed a blue-ribbon panel of ex-members of Congress to try to tell ’em how to get in gear.” This is hilarious! Meanwhile, we have one of the most competent presidents we’ve had in a long time running rings around all these establishment types. It’s exactly what’s gonna happen in the press conference at six o’clock today.

You just got a sound bite from John King, and I put it somewhere. I don’t know what the number is, Mike, but you’ve got it there. Go ahead. You do have it, right? I’m assuming you know what I’m talking about even though I don’t have it in front of me. (interruption) Okay. Here. This is an example, folks, of how they are trying to insert me into this while they desperately hope — oh ho, they desperately hope — that I’m wrong about this, and here’s how they’re using it…

KING: The president’s saying everybody in our business is trying to undermine him. No. Uh, no. I hope his friend Rush Limbaugh is right and this is like the common cold. However, uh, at a time like this, you want consistent, clear, and trustworthy information from people in charge, not mixed signals.

RUSH: Like who? You want trusted information from who? Mitt Romney? You want trusted information from Nancy Pelosi? So far what we’re getting, Mr. King, from NIH and CDC is it’s under control right now, and it ain’t a big problem in America right now. That’s what we’re being told. So as it is right now, it’s not even the common cold in terms of number of people affected. It could become more than that. Right now, this level of panic that they’re trying to create is way, way out of proportion.

We all live in the United States of America with the best health care system in the world, the most advanced medical science in the world. We are not communist China which doesn’t care about citizens it will never meet contracting a virus and dying. We are not some backwater like Cuba or Venezuela that cannot handle something like this. We are the United States of America. We are the best at dealing with things like this, and history is replete with examples of it.

Where have many of the cures or vaccines for some of the most deadly viruses been found, developed, and perfected? Right here in the United States — and not with government money. But, folks, I’m just telling you something: When there is a disease like this that’s scorching the earth, being in the United States of America is the best place you can be. It’s the safest place you can be and it’s the place with the best odds.

I think that’s what I resent most about this is these people trying to make it look like, “We have no hope! Oh, my God. This is a pandemic. It’s sweeping the globe — and because Donald Trump is president, we have no hope.” That’s what I resent most about this. Okay. I just talked my way through my intended debate analysis. Let me now grab a phone call here. I’ll do the debate stuff at the top of the next hour. This is Chris in Franklin, Tennessee. I’m glad you called, sir. Thank you for waiting and hello.

CALLER: Thank you, Rush. Such an honor to talk to you, and you and Kathryn are in our prayers every day.

RUSH: Thank you, sir, very much.

CALLER: Real quick: 0.1% would be a tenth of a percent of death rates on COVID-19, which if 60,000 people die from the flu every year — I’m sorry, in the past two years, there’s 60,000 deaths from flu, that would mean everyone in the U.S., that would be 600,000 cases. That would be everyone in the U.S. for the past two years would have to have gotten the flu to have 60,000 deaths.

RUSH: Yeah. I have a table here, Chris, that I can’t make head nor tails of. It’s an official table from the CDC, and it’s “Estimated Rates of Flu-Associated Disease Outcomes per 100,000 by Age-Group in the United States, 2018-2019.” Nowhere on this chart is the number 60,000. Nowhere.

CALLER: Right. Right.

RUSH: It’s divided by age-group, and the estimated number of people with the illness — how many medical visits there were, the hospitalization and the mortality rate — and there isn’t a 60,000 figure on here anywhere.

CALLER: Right. Right. Yes. No, that would mean everyone in the U.S. in the past two years would have had to have gotten the flu — the entire country, for two years in a row.

RUSH: Why? The population of the country is 300 million. So how are you getting these numbers? See, that’s —

CALLER: No, it’s 600 million, sir. It would have had to have been 600 million; 0.1% is a tenth of a percent. So if there were 60,000 deaths —

RUSH: You’re saying if a tenth of a percent is 60,000 —

CALLER: Correct.

RUSH: — then the big number would have to be 600 million?

CALLER: Exactly, sir, exactly.

RUSH: Not 60 million, 600 million?

CALLER: Exactly. It’s 600 million to have 60,000 deaths at a tenth of a percent.

RUSH: Right. Okay. Look, I’m glad you squeezed that in. Your timing was perfect ’cause I just ran out of it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: All right. I ran the numbers myself here when I had time, the caller was wrong. It’s not 600 million. Our original number, 60 million is correct. So Sanjay Gupta says the flu mortality rate, if you average it out among all age groups, it’s higher among, you know, infants and the elderly, but if you average it out he says .1% of people that get the flu die from it. And he said over a two-year period 60,000 people die, 30,000 a year. And 60,000 is .1% of 60 million, 30 million a year get the flu. It could be accurate. Those numbers could make sense.

But it’s not 600 million as the caller stated. I wanted to make sure I corrected that.