Media attack President Trump over COVID-19 response

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Media attack President Trump over COVID-19 response

The U.S. may be turning a corner in the coronavirus crisis but you wouldn't know that from the media coverage; reaction and analysis on 'The Five.'

This is a rush transcript from "The Five," April 9, 2020. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

NEIL CAVUTO, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Others are saying stretch it out a little longer. We'll find out very soon. Fox continues now.

JESSE WATTERS, FOX NEWS HOST: Hello, everybody. I'm Jesse Watters, along with Juan Williams, Greg Gutfeld, Dana Perino, and Emily Compagno. It is 5:00 in New York City, and this is The Five. A decade of job growth vanishing in just less than a month, the Coronavirus crisis crushing American workers as pressure mounts to reopen the economy.

The COVID-19 task force will brief the nation very soon. It comes as brutal new numbers show 6.6 million people filed for unemployment last week alone. And at least 10 percent of the workforce is unemployed and now out of the job. A new report says President Trump is planning to announce a second task force to restart the economy as soon as this week. Here is the president on that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We could do it in phases. We can go to some areas, which you know some areas are much less affected than others. But it would be nice to be able to open with a big bang and open up our country, or certainly most of our country. And I think we are going to do that soon. You look at what's happening. I would say we are ahead of schedule.

Now, we will be sitting down with many different people, making a determination. And those meetings will start taking place fairly soon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WATTERS: And here's something the American public doesn't need, more partisan politics. Democrats blocked Mitchell McConnell's clean proposal to give another $250 billion in relief funds to small businesses. The White House expects the current pool of money to run out very soon. Dana, is it Jasper's birthday?

DANA PERINO, FOX NEWS HOST: It is. He is -- it is Jasper's birthday today. That's true. And he had been -- he has come to The Five every day -- I'm sorry, every year that he had a birthday. And so we wanted to make sure -- oh, we are having a little technical problem behind me. That is a Google screen, in case you were wondering. Anyway, it's Jasper's birthday, just wanted to make sure he had a moment.

He's been pretty good in hanging out with us. To this point, one thing about this is that the Democrats are just asking for more trouble when -- because they didn't want a clean bill. They wanted all these unrelated priorities. Now, some of the things they were asking for, for example, money for hospitals. That might be needed at some point.

But I think that the Congress has shown that they are willing to spend money. They're willing to get together and do this. But unrelated priorities right now are not necessarily a good idea.

WATTERS: You know, Juan, what does it take for the Democrats to stop delaying things? You know, you have these numbers that just show the American workforce has been decimated. And at the same time, you see just more partisanship on Capitol Hill. How does that look?

JUAN WILLIAMS, FOX NEWS HOST: Well, I guess it depends how -- which way you are looking from Jesse, because where I'm looking, I think, wait a second. What the Democrats are proposing is more money for hospitals and the healthcare industry in the hospitals. They are at the frontlines and need more resources right now.

The Democrats are also saying we need to do a better job for American families in terms of -- for example, food stamps. Making sure that we extend those benefits, increase them at a time when, as you pointed out, unemployment is skyrocketing. At a time when the Federal Reserve is saying we're going to put $2 trillion out there, more money for loans for small business.

And the Democrats want more money for small business. They also want an inspector general who is not going to get fired right out the box so he can oversee that this money is not being spent in a partisan matter, but actually going to the American people. So I think that those things are reasonable. And I think if you are saying, at least from my perspective, Jesse, that there's politics blocking it.

It's that they're -- you see Mitchell McConnell just saying, look, give this to the big businesses. And big business will give this to small business. Forget about the hospitals. Forget about the working men and women in the country. That's not right.

WATTERS: Well, I think you know it's not true to say that the Republicans are saying screw you to small businesses and to the working men and women of this country. You don't really believe that. You are just saying that. Greg, when you look at these numbers --

(CROSSTALK)

WATTERS: -- if you are some guy that's in Minnesota, and, you know, they've made your company shutdown, and there are not a lot of people with the virus in Minnesota. It's kind of hard to stomach. I don't know how you get around it.

GREG GUTFELD, FOX NEWS HOST: Well, first of all, I don't understand how the media is surprised by these job numbers. This is what happens when you shutdown an economy. So what if we didn't do this and have this historical shutdown to fight a virus? Would it have been worse? I would vote yes. The problem is we don't have a control Earth.

We can't do a side-by-side comparison of what our actions are if we hadn't have done them. So we know now more about this virus and this pandemic than we did before. But we do not know is the impact of the shutdown long term. So my feeling is we need to prep for that unknown. Just like we did for the virus, we need to prep for the outcome, the consequences of this shutdown.

We must to figure out how to reduce the consequences, how to help these small businesses, tax deductions for people. We need the same mentality that we had to fight the virus to deal with this shutdown, because this is now part of that pandemic. This is the consequence. So we need to look ahead about that. It's a great truth.

The worst person to give you advice in life is the person who only sees one variable. That's the friend who says, hey, let's go out and get wasted Tuesday night because he doesn't see the other variables. Like that you have a job in the morning. And you don't want to hangover, and it's irresponsible. That's the kind of people that we need to look at this economy the people who are able to look at the cost benefits of every decision.

To realize that there is going to be a risk that you can mitigate it but you can't eliminate it. You got to look at the disease and death reduction over time, the possibility that it might come back. You need to do random testing. You need to do -- what do you call it, trace -- what do you call it, what's the word I'm looking for -- contact tracing.

PERINO: Contact tracing.

GUTFELD: Contact tracing -- and phases for people when they can start work. So you -- there's always variables. If you just stare at one variable, like, you know, the death rate, and that's it. You're never going to be able to understand how to get back to work.

WATTERS: All right. Well, let's go to Emily Compagno who never was the one to call and say let's go out and get wasted. She would never do that. She was always the one that was --

PERINO: That was me.

WATTERS: So -- yeah, right. Emily Compagno, you know, you spoke really passionately about the restaurant owners the other day. But I think, you know, a lot of Americans, they see these as numbers. But behind the numbers, they are real men and women, families that don't have a job, and don't have income right now, and can't wait to open back up.

EMILY COMPAGNO, FOX NEWS HOST: Exactly. Just like my family and our small business that has been really gutted by this. And so speaking a little bit more on that payroll protection program, there's no way that the small businesses, these families, as you pointed out, will be able to meet the payroll forgiveness threshold if social distancing mandates remain after their doors are opened, just like you've said.

Because there will be no revenue revival, and why should the federal government be stipulating how many full-time employees they restore when their revenue streams are being annihilated. And this is what's important for viewers, too, that most of the funds that get paid back via loans are amortized over just 18 months or two years.

So how is an aggressive repayment plan like that sustainable during quarantine, let alone afterward during a period of hopefully growth? And if growth is hindered, that means job creation is hindered. And these industries that you guys mentioned, like, restaurants, Jesse, and hospitality, they've already seen millions of workers laid off.

So what we need in part, like Greg was mentioning specifics, you know, to have allowable funds to include cost of goods for inventory purchased on 30-day terms before foreseeable closures. There are food vendors right now that are sitting on billions of dollars worth of inventory. And like you said, numbers, well, that's good food. That is good food that is being wasted.

Dairy farmers are dumping milk. Farmers are seeing their crops rot. Restaurants can't donate their perishables because of red tape, or they can't afford the labor to deliver it. And the final insult to injury -- I will close with this, is that the government right, just now in terms of regulations and how we think about the future and as Greg, said sort of creating plans or the larger picture of preventing this in the future or addressing it.

Is that, for example, those dairy farmers that are dumping thousands of gallons of milk, they need permits to do so. And OSHA, in its infinite wisdom right now, has been paying surprise visits to these skeleton crews in the hospitality industry to make sure that they comply with regulations. That's not what small businesses need. That's not what families need. They need action.

WATTERS: Yeah. You have to cut back on the regulatory crackdown at a time like this. I think everybody would agree with that. All right, good conversation, the white House Corona task force, they're going to brief in a little bit. But ahead on The Five, it looks like America is turning a corner in this COVID crisis, but you wouldn't know that from the media.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COMPAGNO: The White House Coronavirus task force is coming up. And there's been some encouraging news this week. One key model forecasting far fewer deaths from Coronavirus than earlier estimates. But we still need to keep up the social distancing across the country to keep that trend going. The media is not making the situation any better with attacks like this on President Trump. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tens of thousands of people will die in the country or half -- some of them have already died. More are soon going to die because of Donald Trump's incompetence and lack of leadership.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here we have a president who is exploiting a national crisis to move forward his own agenda, his own revenge, his own profit.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COMPAGNO: And it gets worse. NBC's Chris Hayes promoting a conspiracy theory that the Trump administration inflated the death toll projections so the president could take a, quote, "victory lap" when they came in much lower. Greg, I want to start with you. You always feel so strongly about the media. And I wanted to ask you. Is there anything that you think the mainstream media will have an appropriate perspective on?

GUTFELD: I think -- you know, I completely understand the political -- the politics. It's a team sport thing. And it's like -- like some viruses, it's incurable. The only thing that bothers me is that the media is so clearly on one side. I would like to change that. It's never going to happen. Acosta asking about whether Trump had investments in Hydroxy, that wasn't - - as if Trump would risk his re-election, his legacy for a couple hundred dollars in stock is just moronic.

But what's even more moronic -- it's not even an Acosta original. He stole that from that the hack buffet, known as -- that dopey duo, Morning Joe. So I think we should start doing contact tracing on really dumb ideas in the media. You know, identifying someone who's been near somebody who has been infected by a dumb idea and then try to trace it back.

So it starts at MSNBC, and then the virus moves to CNN, and then moves back to MSNBC. It keeps going around. And if we could stop it, we could prevent more infections. But one last point. If this pandemic is far less than what we predicted, it is going to create a swirl of un-provable arguments. So we might as well just get used to it.

We're going to have one side saying it's all social distancing. Another one saying that fear was oversold. The projections were ridiculous. People will say that Trump saved lives by shutting down travel. Others will say he put the economy before people. These things are going to go on for the rest of your life. You don't want to get sucked into it because they are almost all un-provable.

COMPAGNO: Dana, I wanted to play a video for you and get your thoughts on it. This is what James Carville had to say -- what Republicans will do to stay in power. Take a look and then we'll get your thoughts.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What I do fear is what you had in Wisconsin, where they try to muck with the election --

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- one of the most awful things I've ever seen in my life. Just the extent they would go to hold onto power. It was all about one Supreme Court seat in Wisconsin. They will kill people to stay in power, literally.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PERINO: So you wanted me to react to that. So OK, the Wisconsin thing, I think that clearly there is a lot of criticism that could be thrown that way. I don't know -- why they couldn't have worked it out. I know there was blame to be had on both sides. The Republicans and the legislature, the governor being a Democrat, slow to move. They couldn't work together.

I do think the most ridiculous thing was you had the Speaker of the House - - the leadership of the state legislature, a Republican, in full-on protective gear with a mask doing an interview, telling everybody in Wisconsin that it was perfectly safe to go outside and vote. That I think opened them up to a lot of criticism. And it's not too early to start thinking about what to do in the future.

There are criticisms about mail-in voting, though you have a state like Utah. It's all-mail in. They don't seem to have a problem. Nobody questions it. We can have that debate. And this issue of voter suppression, the Democrats are going to talk about that a lot between now and November. And I think the Republicans have to have a much better answer as to how they are going to try to deal with it, so all of those things are happening.

If I could say one thing about the question that Acosta posed to the president about the funding, it reminded me of -- for eight years, the media would go after Dick Cheney over and over again for investments in Halliburton. He had no investments in Halliburton when he was the vice president. He would not be able to benefit.

And it didn't matter how many times you explain this to them in a very logical way. The media just didn't care. They just continue to try to pummel somebody. But I think if I could be use a sports analogy, this one at $450, if that's the investment, that's what would you call a swing and a miss.

COMPAGNO: Jesse, ABC published a damaging report on President Trump's reaction to this. And then a military official refuted it and they refused to issue a correction. Will we ever see some type of acknowledgment of the responsibility that they've had in shaping that narrative?

WATTERS: Probably not. You didn't see it with Russia. I don't know why you wouldn't see it with this. I mean, if we had today's media during World War II, they would blame FDR for Pearl Harbor instead of the Japanese. They would probably blame the House Republicans at the time. But you see my point. This is China's deal. China lied. The WHO botched this.

The virus, Mother Earth is killing people, not the president. I mean, there's still so much we don't know about this virus. This is an invisible enemy. We shutdown the entire U.S. economy, that wasn't aggressive enough? I mean, they criticize the president for acting too late or not listening to the scientists. Show me in February where Dr. Birx and Fauci said we need to all shelter in place. You can't find it because it didn't happen.

You know how many deaths there were in this country from COVID-19 on March 1st, one. Show me one pundit that spoke on television for the need to have the whole country shelter in place. If you can find that person, I will buy them a round of drinks. But it didn't happen. They were obsessed with Mike Bloomberg at this time. And to Greg's point, you can play with these models and projections however way you want.

You could say Trump saved lives. You could say mitigation works. You could say the models were wrong or the models were updated when new information was put into it. Look at the climate change models. All of them have been wrong. Yet, people are obsessed with the climate change models. I mean, I could play this game all day.

I could say Barack Obama did nothing while the opioid epidemic cost 200,000 American lives, and that's on him. I could say that, but I won't, because I'm a very classy guy.

COMPAGNO: All right. Juan, what are your thoughts on anything you like from whatever everyone said?

WILLIAMS: Well, let me just -- Emily, let me just go back to this business about what happened in Wisconsin. You know, I just thought that was a huge flaw. I think it was an embarrassment for us as an American people. I don't think people should have to choose between staying healthy and, you know, participating in an election.

I thought it was wrong. And, you know, even when there were questions about mail-in voting to the president yesterday, the president said, oh, no. It's terrible. You could see it all in front. And then they said, Mr. President, you voted by mail in the last election in Florida. He said yeah, that's true. I mean, to me, it's just, again, about voter suppression.

So we will come back to that topic. As to the media, well, I think a lot of what we're hearing their, to me, I would put it in the category, Emily, of not helping us to move forward, not, you know, not helping us to progress and get out of this situation. This thing is so serious. I would rather not get hooked up in those kind of trivial finger-pointing, backbiting, backstabbing.

I will say that a non-partisan basis, the fact is that we as a country were slow to respond is specific. The president when he was downplaying the seriousness of it, I think the administration was slow to respond. But let's leave it there. And let's now try to pick up pace and do the things that are necessary to get us in the right place.

Because I think that -- we don't -- there's no need for us to get involved in harsh conspiracy theories that don't actually lead us in a more productive place.

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFELD: Just one point, though --

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFELD: He did shutdown travel three days after it was raised. So I mean, maybe you could have done it the same day.

(CROSSTALK)

GUTFELD: And he got criticized. He was called racist.

WILLIAMS: Well, listen. In fact, he was send -- people who were still coming in -- I think it's more than half million people still came from China because you had Americans coming back from that area. And you had people coming from Italy. You had people coming from Germany and from Britain. So it -- let's argue about the effectiveness in another way.

I'm just saying, we as a country, were slow to respond. And let's focus now on what we can do, because right now even as we reopen businesses, what we are going to see is that people are slow to get back to the restaurants, slow to get back on an airplane, slow to get back --

(CROSSTALK)

WATTERS: Enough with the blame game. It's on China.

COMPAGNO: All right, guys. We are awaiting President Trump and the Coronavirus task force briefing. In the meantime, President Trump is already launching attacks on Joe Biden. We will play that tape for you next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WILLIAMS: Welcome back. We continue to monitor the start of the White House Coronavirus task force briefing. But let's turn to some 2020 politics first. Now that Joe Biden has become the presumptive Democrat nominee, President Trump is mocking the former VP for not yet picking up a key endorsement. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I don't know why President Obama hasn't supported Joe Biden a long time ago. There's something he feels is wrong. He will come out. I'm sure he's got to come out at some point, because he certainly doesn't want to see me for four more years. It does amaze me that President Obama hasn't supported Sleepy Joe. It just hasn't happened.

When is it going to happen? When is it going to happen? He knows something that you don't know. But I think I know. But you don't know, so it will be interesting.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAMS: And speaking of President Obama, Democrats are reportedly salivating for the former president to come off the sidelines to take on President Trump. Greg, I wanted to go to you and say it's the -- is President Trump just the lighting and sowing disarray and, you know, this unity among Democrats at this moment?

GREG GUTFELD, FOX NEWS HOST: It's weird, you know, I hadn't seen that clip. It is -- it is kind of amazing how real Trump can be, and how like almost street level, that kind of commentary is, and that everybody knows what he's talking about. And he says, it's so clearly. Obama reminds me of when I've committed to do some kind of function that I want to get out of.

He's like, get the bachelor finale, right? And he's, he's faced with his final rose, and it's supposed to be that person and he doesn't know how we got there, and he's beginning to think I need to get away. So, the bad news is Obama hasn't endorsed Joe Biden. The good news is Joe Biden has endorsed Obama.

WILLIAMS: Emily, but isn't -- I mean, does it matter when he does it? I don't think there's any question that he's going to endorse Joe Biden.

EMILY COMPAGNO, FOX NEWS HOST: I think it does matter, Juan. And here's why I totally loved your intro song to this block. Do you remember Eddie and the Cruisers which that song was in that soundtrack? When Wordman is sitting at the computer or sitting at the at the piano, and he was teaching Eddie about this stanza, remember? And it was basically that after a pause, what follows holds more weight.

And I think I assume that's what is happening with the Obama endorsement. Of course, it's inevitable, but it's probably going to happen around the convention post Coronavirus, when Democrats who are totally thirsty and ready for that messianic moment will lap it up and then it'll dominate all the airwaves.

And I think Joe Biden obviously what he has in front of him though, his two biggest challenges while uniting the party, but we've already seen him sort of capitulate to Bernie and Elizabeth Warren in that, but it's (AUDIO GAP) and then how to attack the president post (AUDIO GAP).

WILLIAMS: OK, Emily, we're having a few technical problems with that. Let me -- let me ask Dana to pop in here. Dana, Emily was making the point that right now Coronavirus dominates everything. Don't you think it would be smart to save a big endorsement for when it could dominate the news, that would be Obama endorsing Biden?

DANA PERINO, FOX NEWS HOST: Well, I think President Trump is probably the number one politician that's ever understood mass media in the -- in the moment, and he knows how to dominate it, and he's done super well. The second best is President Obama and his team. So I think that if they were to do it now, it would just get buried and it would be fizzled. And then that big punch that they would get out of it would just go away.

I don't know if it'll happen around the convention, I would imagine so. But also, we already know that President Obama has been working the phones behind the scenes. He was on the phone with Bernie Sanders, in fact, right before he dropped out.

I do want to say one thing about Joe Biden. He announced a couple of things today that might have -- people might have missed. He has gone Bernie Sanders way on a couple of things. He announced two policy proposals today, and I'm sorry, I'm looking down at my phone just to tell you. He said he would lower the Medicare age to 60, which would blow up that program even faster.

That's not Medicare for all, but it's still not going in the right direction with longer lifespans, and people healthy and able to work. And the second thing he said is he would do a huge, massive amount of student loan debt. Now, let me qualify that by saying low and middle-income borrowers, but again, it just shows how far Bernie Sanders was able to pull Joe Biden to the left.

WILLIAMS: So Jesse, picking up on Dana's point, you see the president trying to separate the Bernie Bros from Joe Biden and saying, hey, come over here. That's what he was tweeting yesterday. And now you see him today in all of these comments saying, oh, Obama didn't endorse and you know, we don't know about whether or not Bernie is really on the train with Joe Biden. Do you see this as just politics? I mean, Greg said he saw it as just brutal direct politics.

JESSE WATTERS, FOX NEWS HOST: I used to pull those kinds of stunts in high school. I used to go up to a friend of mine at the lunch table and said, you know, what, Andy's been talking a lot of trash. And then I go to John, and I'd say, hey, John, you know, Andy's talking trash about you. And then later in the lunchroom, they'd fight and I just sit back and watch the brawl.

But that's what Trump does. He just kind of like makes people go after each other. About the endorsement, you don't endorse during a pandemic, so he's got to wait. But every day he waits gives the president an opportunity to just kind of stoke that fire.

In an ideal world, they do some big announcement in a swing state in front of a huge crowd this summer. But that -- I don't know if that's possible during this time of social mitigation. So you don't know when it's going to be, but if they try to produce something on television, it's just going to look stilted.

But the bottom line is, Barack Obama knows that Joe can't cut it. He doesn't have what it takes. He never did, never will. And if you read any book about the Obama administration, everybody says the same thing.

WILLIAMS: All right, the daily White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing, it's coming up. But directly ahead, President Trump weighing in on the insane documentary Tiger King, yes, Tiger King, so stay tuned. That's next on THE FIVE.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GUTFELD: The White House Coronavirus Task Force is about to come out and give another briefing. While we wait for that, let's do this. President Trump was asked about a potential pardon for Joe Exotic, the star the hit Netflix documentary Tiger King. He's currently serving a 22-year prison sentence over a murder for hire plot. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I know nothing about it. His 22 years for what? What did he do? He allegedly hired someone to murder an animal rights activists, but he said that he didn't do that, and he was --

TRUMP: You think he didn't do it? Are you on his side?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well --

TRUMP: Are you -- are you recommending a pardon?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, I'm not advocating it.

TRUMP: As a reporter, you're not allowed to do that. You'd be criticized by these. Would you recommend to pardon?

JIM ACOSTA, CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, CNN: I'm not weighing in on Tiger King.

TRUMP: I don't think you would. I don't think you would. Go ahead, you have a question?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE)

TRUMP: I'll take a look.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUTFELD: So Juan, was that inappropriate question to ask during a pandemic?

WILLIAMS: I think it's a waste of time, but it's not inappropriate, Greg. You can ask whatever the president whatever you want to ask. I mean, that's the chair. You're the -- you're in the press. But I did think, as you say, this is an important serious issue in the country, the pandemic, and I think we should be focused on that.

I will say that's -- I've been watching that show, Tiger King -- and man you got, you know, gay polygamy, you got animal abuse, you got -- it's unbelievable, murder for hire plots. And then of course, there's the whole issue of whether or not one of the characters killed her husband. O.J. Simpson tweeting that she may have better husband to the tigers. Tiger sashimi, he said.

GUTFELD: Yes. Just a typical weekend in my house. Hey, Jesse, you know, it was a silly question -- it was a silly question, but unlike like Acosta, it was intentionally silly.

WATTERS: Yes. I mean, I was entertained by it. I don't care. I mean, I don't see how people have Time to watch Tiger King while these Task Force briefings are on. These things go on until 8:00. After eight, I'm exhausted. I go to bed. I like the sound of these things that murder for hire. I'm check. I'm into that. Polygamy, check. Dirtbags, check. I mean, this is right up my alley. I just haven't had time for it with everything is going on.

And Dana has made me read all these books I'm reading, DeMille, and Patterson, and Connolly, and Baldacci, I'm actually -- what's so funny?

GUTFELD: Those are really heavy books.

WATTERS: Why is everybody laughing?

COMPAGNO: We're not going to recognize you on the other side.

GUTFELD: That's quite the literature canon.

WILLIAMS: Yes.

PERINO: Well, we have to work our way up.

WATTERS: Sorry. You know, it's no Gutfeld monologues.

GUTFELD: That is true, which is available on paperback. Emily couldn't this question may have been like a be a signal that maybe things might be getting better. So you could have a little bit of levity because it feels like we're getting some -- we're seeing the light at the end of this tunnel.

WATTERS: Yes.

COMPAGNO: I think that's a good way of looking at it, Greg.

GUTFELD: Thank you.

COMPAGNO: But I will say what's so funny to me is unlike the entire country, I've never watched Tiger King and I never even saw a trailer for it. So in my head, I concocted that it was about this guy who like had all these, you know, rescue tigers and did cool stuff in this kind of big, like farm refuge area. So when Juan was listing the stuff that this is about, I'm like, Oh, my God. I mean -- and then when I heard about the question with President Trump, and that he's been, you know, incarcerated. So the whole thing to me now, my daydream has been shattered.

GUTFELD: Dana, so I put it to you. Should President Trump pardon Tiger King and make him the head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service?

PERINO: That is an excellent question. I think we'll have to wait until after the election to see if that could actually pass muster. One thing about that question is that kind of showed that the President is just like us, right? So maybe he hasn't watched it, he hasn't heard about it.

But, you know, we are dealing with a very serious time. If I was in the room, I wouldn't have asked the question, but I do think that was pretty funny that the President, the way he handled it, and it just gave a moment of levity for the country. That's not a bad thing. That's actually good. But I would also say that show is so boring and stupid. And I watched one episode, and not watching anymore.

GUTFELD: Wow. That's what Elaine has said too. She didn't like it either. And I'm like -- and so then I was interested in all that polygamy, and she was like, not having it, Greg. So anyway, could the pandemic be the end of the handshake? I hope so. Hear what Dr. Fauci said about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PERINO: The White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing, it's coming up. And this pandemic could cause a lot of our normal human behavior to go the way of the dinosaurs. The symbol handshake could be one of them. Take a look at what Dr. Anthony Fauci is saying.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: I don't think in reality that we're going to all of a sudden never again shake hands. But I think I threw that out there to get people to start thinking much more about personal hygiene and the -- and the way that impacts the spread of a really deadly infection like we're going through right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PERINO: Now I have to say, me myself, I have an excellent handshake. And my mom and dad taught me that early on, I have a great handshake, but not everybody does, Jesse. And it does give you a measure of a person if their handshake is weak.

WATTERS: Yes, I size people up like a politician when I shake their hands. You get a measure of a man that way, then you can maybe grab them by the shoulder or the bicep and do that. I like that. I'm a politician like that. Someone like Greg that freaks them out. Greg is looking forward to this new non-handshake world. He doesn't like to be touched. He doesn't like to have to extend his arm. This is just going to create a lot of awkward moments though.

If the handshake all of a sudden becomes optional, you're going to have a lot of -- out there, you know, and obviously the fist-bumps to bro-ey for Greg. He can't pull that off. It's too athletic. There's just a lot of room for error when the handshake becomes optional.

PERINO: Greg, what would you like to see replace the handshake?

GUTFELD: Well, this is another industry that's going to die What happens to the joy buzzer industry? Anyway, I am completely --

PERINO: Great question.

GUTFELD: I am completely for this. Jesse is right. Hands are basically filthy (INAUDIBLE) that you can never take off. And you can keep watching them and watching them like Lady Macbeth, but you never get the bacteria. Was it Lady Macbeth, or was it the lady from Hamlet, or was it the lady down the block? Anyway, you're covered in bacteria, and viruses, and fecal matter, and it's disgusting. So I am -- I am all for no more handshakes. I think we should appropriate from other cultures, cultures that do not shake hands and steal whatever they do.

PERINO: All right, well, maybe we should do a segment on that tomorrow. Emily, any ideas on what that could be?

COMPAGNO: Well, I was thinking about today on my morning walk about the group fitness industry, like never again can I be in a sole cycle class with other people sweat like flying into every orifice and me being OK with it. I just feel like it's going to take me a long time to be comfortable with a lot of things like that and subways. And I mean, frankly, I'm amazed that we've persevered the human species this long anyway.

PERINO: Hey, Juan, what about like an air-kiss?

WILLIAMS: An air-kiss? Yes, well, I don't know. So, I guess -- I guess hugs and air-kisses, that's too close. That's within the six feet limit there, Dana. I think though, I think back to some of the famous people in history like Howard Hughes and Nikola Tesla, even in modern day's Michael Jackson, President Trump, these are germophobes. This is their moment. If you're a germophobe, welcome to the new reality.

PERINO: All right, "ONE MORE THING" is up next. And we are going to have "ONE MORE THING" today.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WATTERS: It's time now for "ONE MORE THING." Greg?

GUTFELD: Well, once again, it's time for Greg's "There's a wombat in my dryer" news. Yeah, this is 10th in a series of 300. You know, in these tough times, everybody could use a good snuggle to get warm and cozy. And look check out this little fellow. Yes, it's actually a wombat in a nice warm dryer enjoying the -- you know, you probably can't get a better feeling than being inside a dryer of warm clothes. Look at that. Isn't that great? And then he gets a spin.

WATTERS: Oh, God.

GUTFELD: He gets to spin. This is the Sleepy Burrows Wombat Sanctuary, which is oddly enough across the street from Fox.

PERINO: Wait, is that their pet?

GUTFELD: It's right across the street from Fox. No social distancing there. And that's my wombat news.

WATTERS: That was a good one, Greg. Dana?

PERINO: But wait, Greg, is that their pet?

GUTFELD: Yes. It's a sanctuary.

PERINO: Oh my gosh. OK. Oh, OK, sanctuary, like a Tiger King. OK, got it. All right, so a senior and high risk shoppers at all across Atlanta and Louisiana, they got a wonderful surprise when they got to the register. When they had all their stuff, and they're going to put it through the register, they got ready to checkout, and then they were told that Tyler Perry had paid their grocery tab in full.

Yes, the T.V. and movie mogul picked up the grocery tabs at 44 Kroger stores across Atlanta and all 29 Winn Dixie locations in Louisiana. The grocery store chain shared photos of a few of their customers learning that their carts were going to be free, and there were a lot of grateful tears that were shed. And if you like stories like that, if you go to foxnews.com/americatogether, you can see all sorts of great wonderful acts of kindness happening all around us. I personally can't get enough of them.

WATTERS: That's fantastic. All right, Juan, you're up.

WILLIAMS: All right, so let's have some fun. Let's go on a teddy bear hunt. Take a look at these windows and in them you're going to see teddy bears everywhere. The bears have been put there doing this coronavirus quarantine to create fun, a game for kids as they take bike rides, walk or get in the car with their parents. The stuffed animals Safari or teddy bear hunters, it's called, it comes from a book called we are going on a bear hunt.

It's very big in my Washington, D.C. neighborhood, even across the city. And I have seen everything thing from Paddington Bear to Minnie Mouse and stuff tigers, yes. So this is a great moment of people coming together to create a moment of fun in the midst of our social crisis. Way to go America.

WATTERS: Very nice. All right, we got Jesse's workout news. OK, so I know a lot of you guys can't go to the gym, so you have to work out at home. So my wife, Emma Watters does a workout video that everybody can participate in. If you go to her Instagram page, she goes live every day at 4:00 Emma Watters underscore, underscore, and you can follow along. I think Emily Compagno actually gets involved. She's feeling the burn. I can't do it. It's way too much for me.

And if you want to go and check out some of her past workouts, she's got a YouTube page, click the link in the bio. There you go. Stay fit together apart. Emily?

COMPAGNO: Cute. Yes, Jesse, your wife has been amazing. I've been working out with her every day so yes, that's awesome. And Juan, I too have a bear in my front window.

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