National Museum of African American History and Culture gives lessons on fighting ‘whiteness’

This is a rush transcript from “The Ingraham Angle,” July 15, 2020. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

LAURA INGRAHAM, HOST: I’m Laura Ingraham. This is “The Ingraham Angle” from Washington. Why is the African American history museum in D.C. separating people based on race? It can’t be. Well it is.

We have a can’t miss debate in moments. Also, last night, we brought you an investigation into over counting of those positive COVID tests in Florida. Tonight, we show you this failure isn’t contained to just the sunshine state. And Raymond Arroyo will tell us what CNN’s Biden versus Trump coverage yesterday actually revealed. And why Burger King is targeting cow flatulence, Seen and Unseen has answers. But first, what they’re not telling you. That’s the focus of tonight’s Angle.

Last night, we exposed the lies and the fear mongering used to justify closing schools across America. We showed the best science out there on why all schools, all schools should reopen to their students preferably five days a week. The response I have to say was huge and it was bipartisan. Children must be taught in-person.

Nevertheless, Louisville, Kentucky just announced that all fall classes will be online, same with San Francisco schools. Now forget that extensive new German study showing that kids can’t readily spread the virus or that schools across Europe have not seen any major spreads, those schools have been open can’t let the facts get in the way of spreading panic.

As far as the media’s hyperventilation about rising hospital numbers. Remember, this is chiefly tied to what’s happening in four states, Florida, California, Texas, and Arizona where numbers did increase after a perfect storm of reopening protests, riots, and travel from south of the border.

Now by the way even in Arizona, the rolling number of confirmed cases is already lower compared to one week ago. That’s good news. We hope it continues. But now we talk about the issue of mask mandates.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We’ve seen what can happen when people come together with face coverings.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We want to give people more confidence to shop safely and enhance protections for those who work in shops. Both of these can be done by the use of face coverings.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You could literally kill someone because you didn’t want to wear a mask.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I’m convinced that the benefit of wearing a mask clearly is there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Now, I want to make clear, I’m not telling anyone not to wear a mask. That’s not what we’re here for. Instead, I want to move beyond hyperbole and focus on what the latest science actually tells us. Now, we’ve heard for months that wearing face coverings even homemade ones, cloth ones is a selfless thing to do and it’s even a patriotic duty, which I have to say sounds pretty cool and it even sounds like a unifying thing.

The emotional argument is really wonderful. But again, what about the actual data. Now consider the following from the very medical journals and organizations that were led to believe are infallible.

A 2015 study recruited health care workers from hospitals in Hanoi, Vietnam and examined the benefits of cloth masks used in the health care setting and then measured flu and flu like virus transmission. Well, the results may surprise you. The rates of all infection outcomes were highest in the cloth mask arm, penetration of cloth masks by particles was almost 97 percent. And medical masks, 44 percent.

Now, this was a randomized controlled trial of more than 1600 health care workers and had this stunning conclusion. The results caution against the use of cloth masks. This is an important finding to inform occupational health and safety. Moisture retention, reuse of cloth masks and poor filtration may result in increased risk of infection.

OK. Well, what about the World Health Organization. I’m sure they recommend masks. Well, just go to the W.H.O website where they say, there is limited evidence than wearing a medical mask by healthy individuals and households, in particular, those who share a house with a sick person or among attendees of mass gatherings may be beneficial as a measure of preventing transmission.

At present, there is no direct evidence on the effectiveness of universal masking of healthy people in the community to prevent infection with respiratory viruses, including COVID-19.

(VIDEO PLAYING)

INGRAHAM: Then there is the gold standard itself, the CDC. Now, back in January, it recommended against masks. And Dr. Fauci repeated that guidance in March.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NIAID DIRECTOR: There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you’re in the middle of an outbreak wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better. And it might even block a droplet. But it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Now, Fauci recently explained his mask flip. He’s now in favor of them, saying those comments initially were motivated by his concern for saving masks for health care workers.

Facebook, by the way, I found this out today now flags the old interview with Fauci as false information, but he sure seemed convincing. But that’s not all, an April study published in nature seemed consistent with the old Fauci as well. It measured and compared viral shedding in the coughing of 111 participants, some wearing masks, some not.

The results among the samples collected without a face mask, we found that the majority of participants with influenza virus and Coronavirus infection did not shed detectable virus in respiratory droplets or aerosols. For those who did shed virus and respiratory droplets and aerosols, viral load in both tended to be low.

Wait, what. The majority of confirmed Coronavirus infections without a face mask didn’t shed detectable virus and respiratory droplets or aerosols. And for those who actually did the minority, there was very little virus present. OK, wait, it gets better.

The major limitation of our study was the large proportion of participants with undetectable viral shedding and exhaled breath for each of the viruses studied. We could have increased the sampling duration beyond 30 minutes to increase the viral shedding being captured. But apparently people didn’t want to do that.

So, again, let me just explain this, over the space of 30 minutes, they were unable to capture any viral shedding in a large proportion of participants with confirmed known infections. Again, what? Indeed, they go on to explain that perhaps forced coughing, forced coughing might have helped. Forced coughing?

So, the issue, as is explained in this study, is that non-coughing or sneezing people are by and large not shedding virus in their ordinary breath. If they’re coughing, well, of course, that’s a different story of course, someone who is actively sick as well, they’re actively sick, but especially now many Coronavirus infections are not symptomatic for cough. And among those actively sick, but not coughing, they had great difficulty in this study finding virus expelled under lab conditions and lab conditions has extremely sensitive equipment.

Again, these are people who are actively sick and had a fever. So, much for the theory of asymptomatic shedding of infectious virus out of one’s mouth or nose. By the way, the entire premise on which the mask mandates are predicated.

Do you see or smell or hear a problem here? There’s conflicting information, scientific findings on mask use and masks on kids? Well, it’s hard to see how any of that should be the new normal given reported low levels of infectivity and infectiousness of children.

Again, I’m not discouraging anyone from wearing a mask. But the world is full of experts who got big issues wrong, isn’t it?

Before Americans are forced to accept new restrictions on their freedoms or even be shamed or even beaten up for not complying with these mandates, shouldn’t state legislators hold hearings and discuss the findings that I just brought you tonight? Then they should pass actual laws about masks, social distancing. All of it that can withstand judicial scrutiny.

We must insist on all of this demand to see all of the science behind the lockdown, social distancing, and the masks. Otherwise, don’t be surprised, if you lose your pre-COVID way of life for the rest of your life. And that’s the Angle.

Joining me now is my medicine cabinet, Dr. Scott Jensen, physician and Minnesota state senator and Dr. Ramin Oskoui, Cardiologist and CEO of Foxhall Cardiology. Dr. Oskoui, that same April study I just mentioned showed very little viral shedding in COVID coughs. It did go on somehow to conclude that our results indicated that surgical face mask could prevent transmission of Coronaviruses and influenza viruses from symptomatic individuals. So, this can be confusing if you actually don’t read the whole science and study. So, what does this actually mean? Are the mask mandates really slowing the spread?

DR. RAMIN OSKOUI, CEO, FOXHALL CARDIOLOGY: The short answer is no. There’s no evidence. There’s no evidence that isolation of the virus is really a major transmitter. I think it’s very clear, and we’ve known this since February with the Crown Princess, that’s oral fecal spread very much like polio or norovirus. And that’s where aggressive handwashing really plays a role.

You also didn’t mention the CDC guidance from May 20th of this year that quotes other randomized controlled studies, some of which you referenced, that simply show that masks for influenza like illnesses simply aren’t effective. It’s simple. Does your chain linked fence stop a mosquito? It doesn’t. That’s I think the fundamental problem. And there is good randomized controlled data that suggests that the masks outside a strict medical setting simply don’t slow transmission for viruses like Coronavirus.

INGRAHAM: Dr. Jensen, I want to get you to on this, because when I watched that original interview with Dr. Fauci, I think it was on 60 Minutes extra show, he seemed really convincing and he seemed really empathetic. He understood why people wanted to wear masks. But then as this went on, it’s like the mask becomes a symbol of unity or patriotism, which is nice. I like all of that and maybe it has some minor effect. But what is the truth here?

DR. SCOTT JENSEN, PHYSICIAN: Honestly, I think Dr. Fauci is conflicted. He used to be quoting data that came from decades of learning and teaching in medical schools. If you mention this study from 2015, that was a study that was done when we didn’t have scientists and doctors have such an agenda. Right now, we’re getting a lot of garbage and people are absolutely identifying their position before they released the study, before they even do the study. I think, Dr. Fauci used to follow the science and now he’s pandering.

INGRAHAM: Yes. So, Dr. Oskoui, as you said the CDC’s own guidance from May says that although mechanistic studies support the potential effect of hand hygiene or face masks, evidence from 14 randomized controlled trials of these measures did not support a substantial effect on transmission of laboratory confirmed influenza. So, this is influenza. And I believe I also read that the size of the droplets of the Coronavirus can be even smaller than the influenza droplets.

OSKOUI: Correct.

INGRAHAM: Is that correct?

OSKOUI: That’s correct. That’s correct. I think we need to fall back on proven science, not fear. And we need to help people understand because people are becoming maniacal about masks and it’s leading to short, medium, long-term effects such as school closure.

INGRAHAM: Yes, it’s emotional and it’s patriotic and it’s unifying. That’s fine. But is it scientific? That’s the only question we’re asking tonight. All right. Dr. Jensen, it isn’t just mask we’re missing the science. So, here’s what a teacher in Orange County, California, told CNN today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DENISE BRADFORD, ORANGE COUNTY, CALIF. TEACHER: To put it out there, just in the two-week period between June 22nd and July 6th, cases among zero to 17 years of age have risen 65 percent. That’s concerning and alarming to teachers who want to go back to school to be with their students. But we fear for their safety.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Now, in reality, Dr. Jensen, that 65 percent increase is really only 0.1 percent when measured against the 8.9 million kids in California. Again, why do you think this perpetual drumbeat of fear and panic is really the hallmark of all reporting? Almost all reporting on this COVID, what’s going on here? This is frankly disturbing, beyond disturbing at this point.

JENSEN: I think a fair amount of people in public health in this country have actually fractured the trust with the public. The public isn’t buying it. This idea of a teacher saying that it’s gone up 65 percent, quite frankly, I think Dr. Atlas out of Stanford came out and said, if you’re under the age of 70, your case fatality rate is 0.04, which is less than half of a lot of flu epidemics.

Quite honestly, we’re not getting facts anymore. We are just getting opinions and we need to focus on sustainable measures. We know that if you keep your hands away from your eyes, your nose, your mouth, cover your mouth when you cough. Don’t go out if you’re sick. Do some physical distancing. But a lot of this stuff is just whack a mole versus actual science. And quite frankly, science has been sacrificed at the altar of panic.

INGRAHAM: Yes, and panic in politics. I mean, there is a concern that they want to keep this panic going into the fall election season. So, Dr. Oskoui, people are afraid to go vote. They have to vote by mail, et cetera, et cetera.

I want to get to the news on these vaccine trials. The ultimate success is predicated on producing antibodies. But didn’t Dr. Fauci and others say that the antibody response may vanish after a few months? So, don’t these things seem contradictory? Dr. Oskoui?

OSKOUI: They do. One really doesn’t know whether these antibodies, how long they will last and whether they’re effective. But what concerns me is none of these vaccine makers are looking at in a T-cell immunity, the T-cells very important in this viral response and our response to this virus. And I don’t see any metric by which any of these vaccine makers are measuring this.

And that’s really the important question to ask, how long will this immunity last and what are we showing in terms of T-cell training to fight future viral infections or this viral infection? When the vaccine is given?

INGRAHAM: Well, we certainly hope we can make a lot of progress, but we have to just be honest about what we know and what we don’t know. Gentleman.

OSKOUI: Exactly.

INGRAHAM: Invaluable. Thank you so much. And the National Museum of African American History and Culture, they have a new mission exposing whiteness and scandalizing things like the nuclear family. A debate over what your tax dollars are actually funding in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: When the National Museum of African American History in D.C. first opened its doors to the public, President Obama was there to commemorate it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT: Perhaps they can help a white visitor understand the pain and anger of demonstrators in places like Ferguson. But it can also help black visitors appreciate the fact that not only is this younger generation carrying on traditions of the past, but within the white communities across the nation, we see the sincerity of law enforcement officers and officials.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Imagine a Democrat saying that today, he or she would be thrown out of the party for that level of nuance. Well, now, instead of being a symbol of progress and reconciliation, the museum has embraced the radical left’s language of racial retribution, all to cast America as irredeemably racist and an evil country. And you, the American taxpayer, are funding it. Isn’t that neat?

Now, the museum now has a website dedicated to explaining the concept of whiteness and why it’s the root cause of racism and oppression in America today. According to the website, the normalization of white racial identity throughout America’s history has created a culture where non-white persons are seen as inferior or abnormal. And when they see whiteness, they don’t just mean skin color, but also people who value things like individualism, a stable nuclear family. The scientific method, rational, linear thinking, hard work, Christianity and being polite.

Of course, these are all values that most Americans, especially African Americans see as necessary for success and happiness. So, why the heck is the African American History Museum telling them otherwise? Here to debate it, Horace Cooper, Project 21, co-chair, author of How Trump is Making Black America Great Again. Also, with me is Scotty Smart, activist, and founder of the Smart Foundation.

Horace, it strikes me as odd that this African American museum would scandalize things that the data has always shown help Americans, including African Americans, climb up the ladder.

HORACE COOPER, CO-CHAIR, PROJECT 21: So, you have a $500 million that’s a half a billion dollars structure edifice that apparently thinks its purpose is to offer advice to cripple black America, to say to black America the very tools that black Americans, like white Americans have used to succeed and become prosperous. Hard work, tenacity, faith, the types of success skills that work to call those somehow a racial category would make David Duke proud. This is really, really sad if that’s the direction this museum is trying to go.

INGRAHAM: Now, Scotty, the following is from the African American History Museum’s online lesson on whiteness. It says whiteness operates and covert and overt ways that affect all of us. It can appear as practices within an institution or accepted social norms, since whiteness works almost invisibly.

We may not always be aware of how it manifests in our daily lives. Scotty, isn’t that just making people paranoid, that somehow, they’re unconsciously using racism when they’re just like many people just trying to get through the day? It’s pretty tough time for a lot of people right now. So how is this work?

SCOTTY SMART, FOUNDER, THE SMART FOUNDATION: Not at all. I think that I actually loved the article. I think a lot of people should actually go and read the article. We can’t keep pushing whiteness and white privilege under the rug like it’s not an issue. It’s a deep-rooted issue that we have to address.

And I think even to have two black people myself and Horace to be against one another to have a debate on this topic is a whole matter of whiteness in itself, because he’s going to sit here and try to contradict what we’re talking about.

So, I don’t want to talk over Horace. I don’t want to be disrespectful to Horace. But Horace is that token black friend, only a few white people have as well. And so, we’re not here to debate or not to have a dialogue, but we have to have this conversation between – it’s an uncomfortable conversation. And most people aren’t willing to have and to educate blacks and whites on our different perspectives, different narratives that we have that we grow within. So, to have someone who is a representation of black people on your network is disrespectful.

INGRAHAM: Scotty, so I invited you on the show in good faith.

SMART: Thank you.

INGRAHAM: To actually have a conversation. And yet you come on the show and you kind of give a little back hand to Horace. And it’s dehumanizing. Well, it’s dehumanizing to call someone a token. It’s dehumanizing. And that’s a language that whether you’re white, black, brown skin, whatever you are, that’s a dehumanizing word. He’s a human being with thoughts. Maybe he disagrees with you. That’s OK.

I don’t care that you disagree with him, but you call him a token.

SMART: Like I said, no disrespect to Horace.

COOPER: No, you mean no disrespect.

INGRAHAM: OK, go ahead. I want you both to have time to talk.

SMART: Go ahead, Horace.

COOPER: I would like to focus here on the facts. Here are the facts. One of my museums that I enjoy the most is the Smithsonian Museum of American History. It is not a place where you go and you learn all about how evil America is, all about the struggle that became America.

What you learn about are all of the great things that are in America. But if you want some context, if you’re going to have this museum, where is the part about slavery? Because today on planet Earth in Africa, dominated by black people, that is the ground zero of where slavery is. And if you had a history museum about it, it would show the role that those countries and that continent played in getting it started in the rest of history. That’s a fact. And that has nothing to do with tokenism.

SMART: Yes. But a lot of times what you’re doing is you’re avoiding the issue at hand. Well, we have to do for us to grow as a country. We have to address these issues head on, not sweep it under the rug, not try to give us alienated or descriptive facts that don’t address the whole issue. We have to speak truth to power.

COOPER: That’s exactly what I want to do.

SMART: That’s the same here. And that’s why I said I – to be honest with you, Horace. This is not a conversation that two black men should be having. This should be a white person–

COOPER: Absolutely.

SMART: Listen to one second.

COOPER: You misunderstand.

SMART: For a white person who lives within the realms of white privilege and how their differences are between black Americans. For you to have this point of view, for many black Americans, that’s not the norm. Maybe, it’s your norm.

COOPER: That’s not true.

SMART: To be a representation–

COOPER: That’s absolutely not true.

SMART: Of black American is very disrespectful, to Black America and for you to be the talking point or the face of black America on this network.

COOPER: The radical view that you are expressing is actually the minority view. That is not the popular view. More black Americans than white Americans are faith, people of faith, more black Americans than white Americans believe in the value of having law enforcement protect their communities.

Many of the very things that you’re sitting here saying are the exact opposite of what surveys say that black Americans think. So, let’s stick with you have an opinion. You have a radical minority view opinion, but it’s just an opinion and it’s not informed by history at all.

INGRAHAM: Yes. Scott, we have to go. I’m glad you came on tonight. I think.

SMART: Thank you.

INGRAHAM: You know, I want to continue to have this conversation with you–

SMART: Can I make one final point.

INGRAHAM: Sure. Go ahead.

SMART: Did you read the article, Horace? There was a point that call it internalized racism. And what that is, is when the oppressed group believes that the racial views that society communicates are true.

COOPER: Did internalized racism cause blacks in the 1500 and 1600’s to sell other blacks to Europeans–

SMART: As the Great–

COOPER: Did internalized racism calls blacks to own slaves in America? This norm that you’re presenting as mainstream is extremely radical and extremely a result of lack of understanding of our actual history.

INGRAHAM: I think, well, this is a big conversation. I’m glad you both come on.

SMART: I loved it.

INGRAHAM: I think we have to remember that in a lot of these cases, white academics, white liberal academics came up with the lingo, right. They’re kind of foisting lingo on black and brown skinned people that they think is adequate to whether control them or define them. So, that’s part of this. This is a white construct put on black people in many cases.

SMART: Exactly. And that’s why white and black people have to have this conversation together.

COOPER: Any American should be able to join this conversation.

INGRAHAM: We’ve got to roll. Sorry. It’s the tyranny of the clock here. Thank you so much for coming on. And coming up, Joe Biden’s Green New Deal pitch falls flat, and something really stinks about Burger King’s newest environmental ad campaign has to be Raymond Arroyo. Coming up, Seen and Unseen. Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: It’s time for our “Seen and Unseen” segment where we expose the big cultural stories of the day. For the political and smelly details, Raymond Arroyo, FOX News contributor joins us. Raymond, the president took to the Rose Garden yesterday to hit his opponent.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Joe Biden is pushing a platform that would demolish the U.S. economy, totally demolish. This is Biden. Biden has gone radical left.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAYMOND ARROYO, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: And just as the president started laying into Biden, Laura, MSNBC and CNN cut away from the speech, explaining it all this way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: So Joe Biden and President Obama freely allowed China to pillage our factories, plunder our communities, and steal our most precious secrets.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: All right, we’re going to continue to monitor the president of the United States. He is clearly deteriorating into a campaign type speech.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was rambling all over the place, not expressing coherent thoughts.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This was another one of those rambling, incoherent rally speeches that we see the president give out on the campaign trail.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARROYO: We should point out that CNN covered the entire Biden speech earlier in the day, rhapsodizing over his Green New Deal agenda. They didn’t say he was decomposing or falling apart. They did not dismiss it as a campaign speech, nor did anyone suggest that it was rambling or incoherent. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, D-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We are here today to talk about infrastructure and jobs and a clean energy future.

Ten thousands, actually, tens of thousands of bridges are in disrepair.

We’re going to get to work delivering results right away on day one.

To get our kids to market swiftly, to power clean energy revolution in this country, to swap older, fuel efficient vehicles for new, clean, made in America vehicles, saving hundreds of billions of barrels, millions of barrels of oil.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(LAUGHTER)

ARROYO: Laura, Biden was like a hostage made to read his ransom demands by his captors. In this case, his captors are AOC and Bernie. It’s all out of sync. And even though Bernie read his speech for 22 minutes, he took no questions.

INGRAHAM: Biden.

ARROYO: But Trump is labeled as incoherent and rambling. The president spoke for an hour. He took eight media questions.

But why do you think Biden is trying to tie this Green New Deal agenda to economic development, Laura?

INGRAHAM: Because I think there’s a lot of wonderful companies out there make like Solyndra that want that loan guarantee of $535 million, not repay it, go into bankruptcy, firing all of its employees a year after Obama did that big visit in 2011 to Solyndra. You’re going to see a lot of those. What else?

ARROYO: Unbelievable. Laura, $2 trillion plan he has to revive the climate, protect the climate, and he means to double the taxes that Hillary Clinton asked for. Meanwhile, while Biden tried to sell his climate change, Burger King is doing its part to help the environment by reducing cow flatulence, complete with a new song and a commercial, I kid you not.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(MUSIC)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When cows fart and burp and splatter, well it ain’t no laughing matter. They’re releasing methane every time they do.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My cow ain’t farting. Must be me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARROYO: Or maybe it’s the smell of your Whopper. Burger King is rolling out, Laura, a new reduced methane emissions beef Whopper made from cows that eat lemongrass. Actually, the A.P. revealed the methane comes not from cow farts, 95 percent of methane they produce comes from bovine burps. So we bring you all the goods here.

INGRAHAM: Well, at the risk of getting myself in trouble, I will just let you move to the next story.

ARROYO: OK. We are seeing a cowboy renaissance. You saw the Burger King ad, but in the pop culture cowboys are popping up elsewhere. Mayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago unveiled her own cowboy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR LORI LIGHTFOOT, D-CHICAGO: I’m calling out the Census Cowboy. It’s time to giddy up. Let’s do this, Chicago. Let’s make the Census Cowboy proud.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARROYO: So Laura, John Wayne is out. You can’t have the Texas Ranger. But we can have yodeling cowboys singing about cow farts and census cowboys bullying Chicago residents to fill out their census. I understand now.

INGRAHAM: Who was the congresswoman during impeachment that always had the rhinestones on her cowboy hat?

ARROYO: Oh, from Texas, yes, I can’t remember her name, with the little cowboy hat. That’s an acceptable cowboy.

INGRAHAM: Frederica Wilson from Florida.

ARROYO: Frederica Wilson, yes.

INGRAHAM: No, no, Frederica Wilson from Florida. She was styling. So you can have certain cowboys, OK?

ARROYO: I suppose so.

INGRAHAM: Certain. All right, Raymond —

ARROYO: But we need the Lone Ranger.

(LAUGHTER)

INGRAHAM: Thank you so much. I’m going to go have some lemongrass.

The scandal in Florida regarding the massive inflation of COVID positive rates has all of us wondering where else is this kind of thing happening? Well, we found out, and we’ll tell you in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: Now, we have been documenting the misreporting of COVID deaths – – COVID test results, excuse me, in Florida, in hospitals and labs there. Sadly, this turns out to be a kind of COVID misfire that isn’t just confined to the sunshine state, because not long ago, Virginia was also caught double counting the number of COVID positive residents. In May, the state finally had to fess up. “Joe Macenka, a spokesman for Virginia’s COVID-19 Joint Information Command, said that repeat positive cases are counted as separate cases only if the tests occur on different days. If a Virginia resident tested Monday and Tuesday, and both are positive, that’s two positives.” What?

My next guest found out something interesting going with the COVID stats in one county in Ohio, and he joins me now. Phil Kerpen has been on this better than almost anyone out there. He’s president of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity. Phil, this is ridiculous, counting the same person multiple times if they keep testing positive over a two week or month period. But what is going on with what you’re looking at in Ohio?

PHIL KERPEN, COMMITTEE TO UNLEASH PROSPERITY: Yes, this was really interesting. This was actually a Twitter exchange I saw earlier today. Someone said, look, the numbers in Ohio are crazy. I have a parent who they won’t let out of the hospital until we get a negative test. And they keep testing and testing and testing, and it’s going in the case count every time. And it’s been 10 or 15 times.

And then another Twitter user name Kyle Lamb who has been a really good researcher on this stuff pulled up the Ohio case file and found the exact person she was talking about who was listed as 15 cases, who was listed as someone of unknown gender in Mahoning County, age 80 plus, symptom onset May 25th, 15 cases. And it was added up into the state count as 15 cases.

INGRAHAM: A friend of mine’s mom is 92 who keeps testing positive. She has no symptoms. She told me the same thing, that every time she tests it is counted as a separate case. But you have actually now have documented it. El Paso County in Texas has seen an explosion of new cases, Phil, and this might be one reason why.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID STOUT, EL PASO COUNTY COMMISSIONER FOR PRECINCT 2: It seems there still may be some confusion on the number of people that are tested. There are individuals that are tested multiple times, especially if they get a positive test, from what I understand. You’re not counting somebody twice, are you?

DEPUTY CHIEF JORGE A. RODRIGUEZ: We do if they are tested more than once, but that number is very, very small.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Do you believe that number is very small, Phil? They just say this like it’s no big deal.

KERPEN: I think that that number might have been small a couple of months ago when we had a severe testing shortage. We now we have a severe testing surplus. They’re tests everywhere. We have this huge discontinuity in the data around June 10th where you can just see the number of positives and the number of tests takeoff everywhere in the country.

And states were told to do this. The panic purveyors said you have to test everyone, mass testing is the greatest. Then we start seeing these huge numbers of tests, including huge numbers of positives. Then it’s oh, my God, panic, shut everything down again based on those numbers. But a lot of the tests are repeat tests. A lot of the tests, as you alluded to in the open, like Florida, lots of other states are reporting positives only and not negatives. A lot of employment-based testing, they come in, test everyone. The positives have to be reported to the state, the negatives, no one pops negative, they don’t report it.

So the data is a big mess. And it’s really unfortunate because we have had a real rise in some places, much more modest than the big peak we saw a couple months ago, but it’s very hard to differentiate that and understand how serious it actually is when you have this sea of bad data that we know have as a result of this hyper-testing.

INGRAHAM: And 15 seconds, the hospitals now are required to directly report their data to HHS, not to CDC. How significant on a scale of one to 10?

KERPEN: We will have to see how well HHS does, but I give it at least a seven or eight, because CDC has been atrocious. They’ve been so bad that most people are using a website from “The Atlantic” magazine to track national statistics instead of using the CDC website, which is pretty telling. And so I don’t think they could be worse, let me put it that way, Laura.

INGRAHAM: All right, Phil, great seeing you.

And George Soros’ foundation just announced a $220 million investment in a push for racial justice. So who are the equality groups he’s funding, and what about his own company record on racial equity? Raheem Kassam has some answers next.

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INGRAHAM: After getting millions from virtue signaling, corporations and celebs, the Black Lives Matter movement is about to get another massive windfall, this time from liberal megadonor George Soros’ foundation Open Societies. It’s injecting $220 million into the movement in order to radically change America’s criminal justice system, $150 million will be doled out to the so-called racial justice group. Can’t wait to see those, including those that want to end policing as we know it. That’s the language he used.

Joining me now is Raheem Kassam, the “National Pulse” editor in chief and cohost of “The War Room Pandemic” podcast. Raheem, you looked into these groups. Tell us what you found.

RAHEEM KASSAM, CO-HOST “WAR ROOM: PANDEMIC” PODCAST: Look, I think one of the things we have to remember here and dispose of the idea is that George Soros is some philanthropist who just wants to do good in the world. He’s not. He’s an activist and he doesn’t particularly care about minorities or migrants. He showed that in 1992 when he bankrupted minority families and migrant families like my own when he shorted the pound to enrich himself, and he is showing it now again.

What he cares about is getting Democrats elected, and he’s willing to throw money at whatever causes allow that to happen. And these causes that he’s looking at right now are effectively tied to Democrats. They’re inextricably linked. You look at who Black Votes Matter, for instance, is one of these groups on the receiving end of all this money. They are intrinsically linked with the Netroots Nation, this hard left, progressive conference that goes on every year to push further and further to the political left.

These aren’t the kind of arms-length NGOs without partisan agendas that Soros and the mainstream media would have you believe. You have to look beneath the surface. You have to look at their charitable status and what their charity rankings are. And frankly, these are just political organizations we are seeing Soros giving to. Again, they have been there from the beginning, saying for themselves we exist to get rid of President Trump. That is what they’re saying in their own words. Now Soros again, arguing under the guise of philanthropy, is trying to get Donald Trump unelected using these groups.

INGRAHAM: And what has he done in his own vast corporate structure as far as elevating minorities into senior position?

KASSAM: Nothing so far as we can see. We actually went to Soros’ hedge fund yesterday and asked them the question, how many ethnic minorities, how many blacks have you had, African-Americans have you had at the top of your organization as managing directors in that Soros hedge fund? The answer is none, of course, we checked it out. But they won’t respond to the question. The truth is it’s only of use to him to help out with these issues when it helps him push his bargain-basement pseudo Karl Popper philosophy. He doesn’t actually care about these issues. As far as I’m concerned, Laura, he’s wearing political blackface. But the left loves that. You look at Governor Northam, you look at Justin Trudeau. This is the new Democrat policy, the same as the old.

INGRAHAM: Really quickly, he made all of his money, his billions, in the free market, in the capitalist system. Coming from Eastern Europe as he did, what’s going on with him? Everyone I know his age from Eastern Europe are conservatives. They love America and they don’t want it to change. Fifteen seconds, what’s your theory?

KASSAM: And you look at the recent election results over there. George Soros is trying to pull the ladder up behind him. He’s OK, Jack, and he doesn’t want anyone else to be. It’s disgusting and it’s a disgrace. He was offered the best, and he now wants the worst for everyone else.

INGRAHAM: Raheem, it’s wonderful to see you. Thank you so much for looking into it for us.

And Dr. Fauci like you’ve never seen him before. Stay there.

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INGRAHAM: When you think of Dr. Fauci, you kind of think of him behind closed doors working with the Coronavirus Task Force, very earnestly hosting virtual town halls. But you can apparently also find him relaxing by the pool. Come on, everyone needs a break. Here he is on the newest cover of “In Style” magazine. What is he wearing? Where’s the mask? Just joking.

That’s all the time we have tonight. Shannon Bream and the fabulous “Fox News @ Night” team take it from here, Shannon.

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