RUSH: Okay. I’ve been watching the Senate committee hearing with the testimony from all the CDC people and Dr. Fauci. And folks, I’m really fighting, I’m trying very hard not to be a cynic. But I think this is an exercise in nothing but a bunch of gum flapping. This is just a bunch of people trying to get themselves on the record to cover their rear ends if the worst happens down the line.

I am certainly not inspired watching any of this. And by that, I mean, I haven’t heard anybody say anything remotely positive. I haven’t heard anybody extol the virtues of the people of America. Well, I take it back. A couple of witnesses have given lip service to that. But this has been an exercise in what Washington has become. And that’s many things. This is an exercise in self-focus, self-aggrandization, self-promotion.

And for the Democrats, the only reason for this hearing today was to get Dr. Fauci up there to warn that the biggest mistake we could make is what Donald Trump is doing, trying to reopen country. Biggest mistake we could make. It will lead to needless suffering, will lead to needless deaths. We cannot open the schools in the fall and that’s why they wanted Dr. Fauci. And Dr. Fauci came through. And even Chuck You Schumer before the hearing today, before the committee hearing told Fauci to “go for it.” He was on MSNBC last night, and he said, “Dr. Fauci will have the opportunity to testify for the first time without Donald Trump lurking over his shoulder.”

Do you realize what a crock that is? How many times has Fauci been on Meet the Press by himself? How many times has Dr. Fauci been on Face the Nation by himself without Big Orange Man lurking over his shoulder threatening to beat him up and to pound him in the ground if he doesn’t say what Big Orange Man wants him to say. And so Chuck Schumer says, “You know what I say to Dr. Fauci? Go for it. Tell us the truth. America needs to hear the truth. And President Trump, your boss, needs to hear the truth.”

I’m sorry. The Democrat Party is the last place to go to get the truth. The Democrat Party is the home of the ruination of this country. If the Democrat Party prevails in this Coronavirus fight, if their policies prevail, then you can say good-bye to this nation as a constitutional republic. Look. There’s always gonna be an America, there’s always gonna be a place called America, but you cannot sit by and watch this, the world’s greatest economy, purposefully destroyed and hold on to what this country was. Just can’t do it.

Now they’re making this big pitch, universal basic income, $2,000 a month for every American. I warned you this was coming. They’re getting close to this point in time where they think that they can convince a majority of Americans the government can provide for everybody. You don’t even have to work. You don’t even have to go school. We can keep you fed. We can keep you in your house and we’ll give you $2,000 a month. Vote for us. They’re seriously pushing it out there.

And I’m telling you, all of these medical and science experts, I mean, if you just take their testimony today before this committee and isolate it, they are much closer aligned with the policies and wishes of the Democrat Party. You take a look at these blue states that are still shut down. People are getting restless. They’re opening up various businesses in defiance of the governors in these states. California Elon Musk is one. Pennsylvania is another example.

This is seen as an opportunity by the Democrat Party to finally achieve their objectives. I can’t believe that they’re this close to it, and that they’re openly advocating it, but they are. They’re making no bones about what their desires are here. Rand Paul today, I asked Cookie to get me the sound bite of this. Rand Paul said to Dr. Fauci — and I’m paraphrasing ’cause I don’t have the quote right in front of me. But he said, “You know, Dr. Fauci, you’re not the end word for me. You’re not the final authority. You’re not the only authority on all this. I don’t think you’re the last word on all this.” You know, I silently stood up and cheered at that, because it’s absolutely correct.

Dr. Fauci said, “Hey, there’s 32 seconds left. Could I respond to that?” Of course, Dr. Fauci wanted to respond, so they let Dr. Fauci respond. Dr. Fauci said, “I’ve never positioned myself as the world’s final authority.” No? Well, you’ve sat by and let the media do it for you, and you have happily accepted the role. Anyway, we’ll get into more of this as the program unfolds. I just…

I think it’s all worthless. I don’t think anything’s being accomplished here. I can’t imagine your average, ordinary American citizen watching this, looking for some kind of upbeat news. The American people can take bad news, but you watch this, and you want to have some confidence that the people you’re watching have got this.

When somebody in the U.S. military says, “Don’t worry, we got this,” you believe them. When somebody from the CDC comes along and says, “Don’t worry, we got this,” you don’t believe ’em. If any of these people come and say, “Don’t worry, we got this,” don’t believe ’em. This is out-of-control, out-sized, administrative state bureaucracy on steroids.

And it really is a bunch of people trying to protect their little fiefdoms or their areas of so-called expertise. “Thank you for that question, Senator,” after the most ridiculous question you can possibly imagine. “Thank you for that question.” Like Bernie Sanders. Crazy Bernie says (impression), “We have the president of the United States who doesn’t care, who doesn’t care!”

“Thank you for that question, Senator.”

These are people from the Trump administration!

“Thank you for that question, Senator.”

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RUSH: No, that’s another thing going on. I guarantee you, this committee hearing… I even had a bunch of people say to me in the emails, “But, Rush, you realize the Republicans run the Senate, right? They’re running it.” I don’t care, folks. This has gone way beyond the standard way you look at this. What’s happening in this committee, everybody there is looking out for everybody else.

They are making sure nobody gets harmed, nobody gets criticized, nobody loses their job, nobody has their reputation sullied. That’s what’s going on here. This is a collective CYA hearing. I haven’t learned a single thing I didn’t know. I know that Fauci cannot possibly be goaded into talking about the possibility of opening up too late.

Don’t you think we ought to be looking at this that way? You hear Fauci, you hear Pelosi, you hear all these people. They’ve got plenty of money, their refrigerators are fully stocked, their jobs are not threatened, and they’re all out there saying, “Don’t open too soon. It could be disastrous! It could lead to needless suffering and death.

“Don’t open too soon. Don’t open prematurely.” What happens if we open too late? What happens if the economic damage is so bad that we can’t recover? What was the goal here, to flatten the curve or to flatten the U.S. economy? And this hearing is not helping us answer that.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: No, I’m just telling you, as far as the Democrats are concerned, as far as the media’s concerned, this Senate committee hearing today has been for one reason, and that’s to showcase Fauci. And, by the way, you think Fauci’s not in on it? You know what he did? Fauci sent an email to Sheryl Gay Stolberg, reporter for the New York Times last night, telegraphing his testimony.

Now, he’s the director of the National Institute of Health, infectious diseases, and whatever the hell else they put in his purview. He’s sending the New York Times reporter an email previewing his testimony today. So the New York Times gets to write what Fauci’s gonna say before he says it. And so the news on every network today before the hearing even the began was what Fauci was gonna say. Then Fauci got up there and he said it. And he basically warned the Senate that reopening too quickly could lead to needless suffering and death and that there’s no way we’re opening the schools in the fall. We’re just not gonna do it.

Okay. Mission accomplished as far as the Democrats and the media are concerned. And the Republicans become bit players in all this because that was the acknowledged objective. Now, Rand Paul pushed back against it a little bit. I’m gonna get to that in just a second. But the option here that we’re looking at with this is we’re getting paranoid and worried, are we opening too soon? We better start looking at, are we opening too late?

Dr. Fauci, his acolytes — Schumer, Pelosi, the media — as I say, folks, this matters. They’ve got their jobs. They have their money. They’re not threatened with losing their jobs. They’re not gonna need the $2,000 check every month from the government. Their careers are not threatened. They work for the government. And they’re deciding that they know when it’s too early on open. So they’re out there saying don’t open too soon, don’t open prematurely.

Isn’t it about time we started asking, what if we open too late? I know some people are. They’re not doing it in these exact words. But that’s the real concern: What happens if we open too late? What if the economic damage is so severe we’ve killed the patient in order to cure the disease? What then? You telling me that the only way to fight this pandemic is to destroy the U.S. economy? Because that’s what they’re telling us. When Fauci says, “Well, reopening too quickly could lead to needless suffering and death,” he’s advocating for keeping it shut down.

So we’re being led to believe the only way to defeat this virus is to keep this nation’s economy shut down and locked down. That really is what they want to go with? I thought the goal was to flatten the curve, not flatten the U.S. economy. But now I’m beginning to rethink what their original objective was. ‘Cause that’s how everybody ought to be looking at this. What happens if we open all this way too late?

Man, the power of the forces arrayed against reopening the economy, it’s startling. It’s such a teachable moment. It’s such a wonderful opportunity for people to finally learn what the modern-day Democrat Party is all about.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I mentioned earlier that Rand Paul got into it a little bit with Dr. Fauci at this hearing today. This is the… Let’s see. What is the name of this committee? It’s the Senate Health Committee.

Well, it’s the HELP Committee — Health, Education, Labor, and Pontifications, I guess. I don’t know what the name of it is. Doesn’t matter. Now, Dr. Fauci has already testified at the time Rand Paul speaks, and Dr. Fauci has warned the Senate that opening too quickly could lead to needless suffering and death, that kids should not be going back to school in the fall, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh. Dire circumstances await us if we don’t follow Dr. Fauci’s guidelines.

So now here’s Rand Paul with couple sound bites here of Dr. Fauci, dustup over children returning to school and Dr. Fauci’s infallibility.

PAUL: With regard to going back to school, one thing that was left out of that discussion is mortality. The mortality between 0 and 18 in New York data approaches zero. Between 18 and 45, the mortality in New York was 10 out of 100,000. We need to observe with an open mind what went on in Sweden where the kids kept going to school.

The mortality per capita in Sweden is actually less than France, less than Italy, less than Spain, less than Belgium, less than Netherlands, about the same as Switzerland. I don’t think any of those are certain when we do up these modelings. There have been more people wrong with modeling than right. We’re opening up a lot of economies around the U.S., and I hope that people who are predicting doom and gloom, saying, “Oh, we can’t do this. There’s going to be a surge,” will admit that they’re wrong if there isn’t a surge.

RUSH: Well, they’ve not gonna admit that they’ve been wrong yet in any of the modeling. Why would they admit they were wrong if there isn’t a surge? That’s… (sigh) Dr. Paul, that’s the thing about doomsayers. They’re never wrong. That’s the genius of being a doomsayer! You’re never wrong. Here’s how it works. Doomsayer comes along and says (accent), “Do not open too quickly. There will be needless suffering and there will be death!

“And we will make a terrible mistake if we open too soon. People will die! Could be upwards of 150,000 people will die if we open too soon! You do not do it. Listen to me! Do not open too soon!” So we come along and the death toll approaches 80,000. What does the doomsayer say? The doomsayer doesn’t say he was wrong. The doomsayer says (accent), “That’s right!

“The death total will only approach 80,000 because I warned everybody to behave in the proper way — and because people listened to me, the figure of 150,000 deaths was not reached!” This is how they do it. Pick a figure. Anything less, they credit themselves for the number coming in low.

At the same time, they get away with doom and gloom. So Dr. Paul, they never acknowledge they were wrong. (laughing) They never, never, ever — ain’t gonna — admit they were wrong. Now, here is Dr. Rand Paul speaking with Dr. Fauci on the subject of the infallibility of Dr. Fauci.

PAUL: In rural states, we never really reached any sort of pandemic levels in Kentucky and other states. We have less deaths in Kentucky than we have in an average flu season. It’s not to say this isn’t deadly, but really, outside of New England, we’ve had a relatively benign course for this virus nationwide. And I think the one-size-fits-all that we’re gonna have national strategy and nobody’s gonna go to school is kind of ridiculous.

So I think we ought to have a little bit of humility in our belief that we know what’s best for the economy. And as much as I respect you, Dr. Fauci, I don’t think you’re the end all. We can listen to your advice, but there are people the other side saying there’s not going to be a surge and that we can safely open the economy, and I think it’s a huge mistake if we don’t open the schools in the fall.

RUSH: So Dr. Fauci, I respect you, of course, everybody has to say that, but I don’t think you are the end all, Dr. Fauci. And Rand Paul’s exactly right, by the way, in his statistical data presentation here. You know, if somebody charted this, you’d probably be amazed if you color-coded the areas of the country where the vast majority of deaths have occurred. We have a different color for areas that are way below that. And you’d be surprised at how tiny the geographic area is where the majority of deaths of COVID-19 have happened.

You’d be flat-out amazed. You’d be stupefied. You’d look at a map or a chart and say, “What the hell have we been doing?” Because the deaths to coronavirus are concentrated — Dr. Paul said it here — in New England. Some in the Michigan and in the Great Lakes and Chicago area. But most of it is New York, New Jersey, some Connecticut, Tri-State area there. Here’s Dr. Fauci responding to Rand Paul claiming that he, Dr. Fauci, is not infallible.

FAUCI: Mr. Chairman, could I respond to that even though there are only 32 seconds left? I have never made myself out to be the end all and only voice of this. I’m a scientist, a physician, and a public health official. I give advice according to the best scientific evidence. There are a number of other people who come into that and give advice that are more related to the things that you spoke about, the need to get the country back open again economically. I don’t give advice about economic things.

RUSH: Whoa. Wait a minute.

FAUCI: I don’t give advice about anything other than the public health. So I wanted to respond to that.

RUSH: He doesn’t give advice about economic things? Well, I’m confused. Well, because he’s warning reopening too quickly would lead to needless suffering and death. Don’t do it, mistake, we’re not opening sports this fall. We’re probably not gonna be able to go back to school, and he says that he doesn’t give advice about economic things. I’d like to know how he draws the line of separation between what he’s advocating here on the medical and scientific side and the economic side of things. There’s no overlap?

“I don’t give advice about economic things. I don’t give advice about anything other than public health.” Is he really saying that his advice has no economic impact? See, that’s what, I mean, folks. This hearing today has so largely been a bunch of people running CYA operations, just making sure that whatever negative blowback there is on this thing doesn’t stick to them.

This is not a profile in courage day, if you ask me. I haven’t seen the whole thing, but in what portions of it this morning I saw. One more sound bite, then we’ll do a break and get started with the phones after that. This is Senator Tim Scott from South Carolina at the hearing just a minute ago.

SCOTT: We didn’t set out with the goal of preventing 100 percent fatalities. That would be unrealistic. It is impossible. And we didn’t set out to keep quarantines in place until we found a safe and effective vaccine. That would take too long. While I respect the need for caution, we’re too often presented with a false dichotomy, either saving our economy or saving lives.

We’ve seen the goalposts around flattening the curve move. And I think that’s unfortunate. Because at the same time we’re doing that, businesses collapsed, mental and physical health have declined, deaths of despair escalate, educational outcomes nosedive, as we wait in our living rooms praying for some good news around therapies and around vaccines. We set out to flatten the curve, and I think we have done a pretty good job of that.

RUSH: Yeah, but we’re now on to moving on to flattening the economy. He raises some good points here. We didn’t set out to shut down to make sure nobody got sick, to make sure nobody died. We didn’t set out to keep quarantines in place until we found a vaccine. That would take too long. Now we’re moving the goalposts around flattening the curve, because while we do that, businesses have collapsed.

And that’s what I have seen driving around the country as I have been doing, boarded up, closed up shops. I see a human being behind every one of those stores, or a family or group of people, investors, owners, people that took a flier, people that took a chance opening a business, maybe it’s a family-owned business, been there for decades, who knows? But there are people behind every one. And I haven’t gotten the impression that anybody involved in this gives a whit about the people.

All of this is statistics. All of this is flattening the curve and mitigation policy and to what end? We can’t keep this country shut down until nobody dies or until nobody gets sick. It isn’t gonna happen. It’s absurd. And yet that’s what we’re up against. We are actually in a battle with people who want more livelihoods destroyed, who want more businesses destroyed, who want more people in pain and suffering. And, boy, that picture sitting at home desperately waiting for a vaccine or a therapy, a vaccine that may never be discovered. Therapies are gonna take months.

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RUSH: Okay, see, you know what’s happening now? The committee was just adjourned. Lamar Alexander and his dog — he was on from his living room in Tennessee — just adjourned the hearing. And guess what? On both Fox and CNN (those are the two networks I have on), do you know what they’re doing? They’re reviewing Dr. Fauci’s testimony.

They’ve got panels of guests discussing what Dr. Fauci said. “What was it Dr. Fauci said? Dr. Fauci said no schools in the fall! Georgia is opening too soon. Not enough testing, not enough data. Sports? I don’t know. I don’t know. I think this really could lead to needless suffering and death, all this reopening too quickly.” So we just had a 3-1/2 hour hearing, and both networks that I’m watching are highlighting what Dr. Fauci said.

What’s missing? How about Trump put together a new task force in the White House made up of people like Elon Musk who want to open up? Made up of people like Brian Kemp, the governor of Georgia. Made up of other CEOs and businesspeople who want to open up — and are describing how they’ve done it, how they’re gonna do it, how it can be done?

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RUSH: I mean, it’s predictable, but it’s still… I mean, Dr. Fauci is still being talked about on all the networks. When did that stupid hearing end, an hour ago, 45 minutes ago? And you would think the only thing that happened at the Senate hearing was Dr. Fauci’s testimony. That’s all any network is talking about. And what did Dr. Fauci say?

That we’re going way too fast. States like Georgia are getting way out ahead of their skis. We shouldn’t be opening up now! No schools in the fall. People are gonna die. There’s gonna be needless suffering if we keep opening up. AP headline: “As Trump Urges Reopening, Thousands Getting Sick on the Job.” Another headline: “Fauci Warns of Suffering and Death if U.S. Reopens Too Soon.”

“Accidental Poisonings from Bleach and Other Disinfectants Spiked Amid Coronavirus,” and that’s a veiled attack on Trump as well. “Trump Slams Coronavirus Models that Predicted Millions of Deaths as Having Been Way Off.” So the media is fully invested in this economic collapse — fully invested in it, as are these blue state governors.