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Well, we've got some fun news. Now it's the good kind. Well, except for the coronavirus. That's not very good. But there's funny news, and when the news is funny it makes me happy. So let's talk about some of the funny news.

Well, I guess this first part is not too funny, but I started prepping for the coronavirus. Now I don't want to panic anybody, but there are a number of people, especially on Twitter — Marc Lipsitch being one of the leaders among them — saying maybe you should just be ready because our supply lines and a lot of our economic connecting tissue is sort of falling apart quickly. Now I don't think it's going to be a long-term problem. I think that we'll get through it. We'll be fine, right? Most of us. Well, some people will no doubt die, but probably not more than will die on bicycles this weekend, etc. So I think the United States is going to do a capable job of keeping the damage to the lowest level it can be kept to. So I have some confidence. But there may be a period where our government says, "Hey people, can you just stay home for two weeks?" So I've got enough stuff in that I'm not going to, you know, none of us will starve to death if it has to happen. I'll probably put an NRA sticker on the door just in case and just see, you know, how irrational all of this is.

A lot of people, including me, bought a lot of bottled water. Why do I need bottled water for a virus outbreak? Let me think about it. It's not like the virus is coming through the faucet, and it's not like the water company is going to stop sending me water because they've got a fever. I have no idea why I'm prepping and stockpiling water, but I saw other people doing it and I thought, well, I don't want to be the idiot who has no water. So it makes no sense at all, but I did it anyway. So you might want to think the same way.

Apparently the Rasmussen poll is showing that Trump has reached a new all-time high in approval. Now I know, I know, it's the Rasmussen poll and it's friendlier to Trump than others, but if this one is up, the others are probably up from whatever base they were as well. So I think he's like five points higher than Obama was at the same point. And so I ask yourself, what is it that's making the president's numbers go up? I think it's probably a bunch of stuff, but very near the top of the list of what is making Trump look good is the more we see the Democrats. And I know that sounds like a hugely partisan thing to say, but I think Democrats would agree, right? Just objectively speaking, I would say that even Democrats are looking at their own best candidates and saying to themselves, seriously? There are a lot of Democrats. There are millions of us. And that was our best group right there? That's the best they can do?

Now because they're tearing each other apart, the president doesn't even need to do much but, you know, lob a grenade into the mess every now and then just for fun. So the Democrats are doing a good job of tearing each other apart, which is making them all look kind of bad at the moment compared to whatever you thought they looked like a month ago. It's just part of the process. So the president being somewhat above the fray at the moment, they're sort of turning their fire on each other. It makes the contrast a little bit better. So he just looks good because they're making each other look bad.

But there's some other things happening that are helping the president, and really a lot of stuff going his way. Now his trip to India — did you see some of the footage of the outdoor scenes in India where the president was? I looked at it and I said to myself, is this a really foggy day or is this major city in India so polluted that you can't see a hundred feet? And I wasn't sure at first because I thought, well, it might have been fog. I don't know. But then I saw another article with another picture that looked similar and it talked about how bad the pollution was. And I thought to myself, holy hell. Seriously? You have that many people living in those conditions that literally can't breathe the air?

And when you see our president go over there you say to yourself, well, there's something that the United States is doing very right compared to that. Because remember, they are a highly educated, advanced, democratic society. You know, they have all of the assets that we have and more in some cases, certainly people. But they're not doing it right. I mean they've created an environment that's killing them just by existing. And yeah, in this subtle way you say to yourself, my God, look outside. I'm looking at my window right now. It doesn't look like that. So whatever the United States is doing is way better than that. And the president just irrationally gets some credit for that because you associate him with the better result.

So I think the whole India trip has been really positive for the president. Of course he got a hero's welcome there. And then everybody looks at it and they say, wait a minute. The Democrats have been telling us that this president is disrespected overseas. But a hundred percent of what we're seeing on this India trip is exactly the opposite. So clearly it has to do with, you know, some people, some situations, they don't like him. But that would be the same everywhere. We've never had a president who was equally liked everywhere in the world. So I think the foreign trips always work in the president's favor because he gets a hero's welcome and that just doesn't match what people are saying about him in the way you would be accepted overseas.

All right, so there's that going on. I understand this was kind of weird. I saw Jake Tapper tweet a Fox report story, which by itself was weird. So how often do you see CNN employees retweet content from Fox? I feel like there's something going on, like some kind of rebellion among the staff at CNN. Like I don't have evidence of it, but it's sometimes you can smell things before you can see them. And I feel like the Democrats are feeling, you know, as they watch the Democratic candidates falling apart in front of them, I think they're feeling it's getting harder and harder to take a side against Trump. So I think this is just speculation and I can't — this is really as much a gut feeling as anything else. I think you might see some kind of evolution happening at CNN where you're going to see a little more balance in the reporting, you know, a little less anti-Trump, a little bit more let's talk about what works and what doesn't work. I think, just a guess, but look for that anyway.

Anyway, what Jake tweeted was that Schumer — apparently Chuck Schumer is trying to get way more money to battle the coronavirus. I guess the Trump administration asked for 2.5 billion, which sounds like a lot, and then Schumer came in and asked for 8.5 billion, which is a lot more. Now how much do we need? What's the right number, citizen voter? What's the right number? Is 2.5 the right number? Is it all we need? Or is 8.5 the right number?

Well here's the clever part, and credit to Schumer. You don't know. I have no idea. Could we spend 8.5 billion quickly enough? Because whatever this coronavirus does to us, it's all going to happen in a year, right? I mean whatever happens is going to take about a year. Could we spend 8.5 billion in a year? I don't know. It could be that that's a complete waste of money. But politically, how does it make you feel? Well I feel a lot more comfortable if the government says let's try 8.5. I feel way more comfortable if the government says some form of this. And by the way, I think if I'm being objective, I think Trump is blowing it on his handling of the coronavirus. I think he's blowing it.

Now I'm not the one who's going to criticize the details, meaning I can't tell: Does it matter that the head of the CDC got fired two years ago and budget cuts? I don't know. Does it matter? Because it probably doesn't, but might. Who knows? I'm not the guy who can argue the details because the thing that you never know is if there had been a different president in the same circumstances, would that different president have done something differently that would have gotten a better result? We'll never know because there's no test. All we know is what one president did. So I can't really intellectually honestly criticize or compliment anything the Trump administration does on this unless it's so amazing or so egregious that it's just obvious it's a mistake. But anything in that middle zone of well we got this much money, we did these things, we got this result, we wish it had been better — anything in that vast middle zone, if you're being honest, you don't know. You don't know if another president would have done it better or differently.

But one thing we can tell is how they make us feel. And I feel a lot better at 8.5 because it just feels like the government is making more of an effort. I don't know if we could spend 8.5. I really don't. But I'd feel better if the government took the big number instead of the small number. So I think this is a case where Schumer wins politically because he's doing something that makes the country feel better, and Trump is not. Trump is sort of played it off as, you know, we got this, the United States is in good shape. That's half of what I want to hear. And this is why I say Trump is kind of blowing it on this because he's only halfway right.

So the first half I want to hear is that we're very capable, we've got great people, we're funding them, we're taking this very seriously, and we're in good shape. I want to hear that. Here's the other part I want to hear: We're going to over-prepare. We don't know exactly what the right thing to do is. We don't know exactly the right budget. But we're going to err on the side of being over-prepared. I'm telling you now, people, we don't think it's going to be the big problem that people are saying it's going to be. We think we can avoid that. But here's our approach: Whatever we think is the right amount of preparation, we're going to do more than that. We're going to exceed that. That's the best we can do.

Now if my president tells me that, hey, I think we'll be fine and the reason I think we'll be fine is we're going to really over-prepare, I'm feeling good. But if my president says I think we're going to be fine, here's our 2.5 billion we asked for, and then you see Schumer asks for 8.5,