Live from Music Row Monday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. –  host Leahy welcomed Breitbart’s leader on economic reporting John Carney to the newsmakers line.
During the third hour, Carney discussed economics due to COVID and the decline of New York City citing that the city may come back in another 40 years due to the increase in violence. He dispelled the narrative that Trump had caused the current unemployment numbers and recession when it was happening internationally simultaneously.
Leahy: And we’re joined on the news maker line by my good friend and colleague at Breitbart, leader on economic reporting, John Carney. Good morning, John.
Carney: Good morning! Thanks for having me.
Leahy: It’s a delight to have you on. We’ve worked together at Breitbart for several years now? When did you join Breitbart John?
Carney: Actually almost exactly four years ago. It was right after the 2016 election.
Leahy: Great. So we’ve worked together that for that long, and we have not worked in the same specific area. I’m more in the political Arena, but you are the man reporting on the economy. If you listen to Joe Biden, the economy has collapsed. It’s all Donald Trump’s fault, but you’re reporting suggest something quite different.
Carney: That’s right. Look the economy has suffered mightily and there’s no doubt about it. We went from one of the lowest ever unemployment rates that Americans have ever seen to the highest because we shut down the economy. We locked down businesses and told them that they couldn’t be open. So of course the economy has suffered mightily. The thing that Joe Biden has done that makes no sense at all is that he accused this of being President Trump’s fault.
He said he literally said during the last debate, I mean it’s unbelievable when I write it down or say them out loud. I almost can’t believe somebody would be this dishonest. But he literally said that Donald Trump caused the recession. The easiest way to disprove that notion is to just notice that there’s a recession in Germany.
There’s a recession in France. There’s a recession in the UK in and in Spain and in Italy and in Japan. Now, I understand the Democrats don’t like Donald Trump, but there’s no way he caused a session in each of those countries as well. The fact is that the coronavirus guaranteed that you would have a recession everywhere.
Leahy: And that was I think John wasn’t that based on the actions of governors. Many blue state governors who have kind of put these Draconian shutdown efforts together ‘based on the science.’ But it looks like it’s based upon their desire to tell people what to do. In Michigan, the Michigan Supreme Court said Governor Gretchen Whitmer you’ve put on too many unconstitutional and illegal controls. You can’t do it anymore. What do you make of that John?
Carney: Yeah, I think that’s right. I think that now I get it. Back in March and April and even in the beginning of may we didn’t know very much about the virus. We learned either China didn’t share very much information at all. SI can kind of understand the Draconian shutdown in the beginning. Remember when we were all afraid to touch things because we thought we were going to get coronavirus?
Leahy: Yes. I remember that. What does science say about touching things? (Carney chuckles)
Carney: Right. Well, we don’t get it from touching things. There is very there’s very little evidence that anybody gets it from, you know, touching a box that somebody touched yesterday. remember there were people who didn’t want to bring things into their house for three days. So very early on we didn’t know a lot and there’s a lot of kind of panicky thoughts about the way things were working. What I would say is we now know you’re not going to get it by touching things in general.
Sure, if somebody just sneezed on a place you put your hand in their sneeze you can get it. And then you put your hand in your mouth after you put it in there sneeze. But that’s a series of events that don’t touch your face thing is not really going to be how it’s transmitted. And so a lot of the early ways we shut down the economy and social distanced didn’t really make much sense. But again, I will say, you know, that’s only in retrospect.
We didn’t know. So people thought that there were a lot of things we need to do that we don’t need to do. Now we know for instance that keeping the schools closed is mostly insane. That there’s very little evidence of any transmission internationally from children to adults. That the fear that children were going to be super-spreaders and give it to you both contract coronavirus from each other and then spread it to adults was way overblown. And in fact, children are not major sources of what the scientists call community spread. So probably we could have the schools opened. Other than in New York City where we are open two days a week for most kids there is no major school system in the United States that is open for children to go to school.
Leahy: You know, you mentioned New York City. I think you live in New York City.
Carney: I do.
Leahy: New York City is perhaps the poster child of the very worst Draconian shutdowns. Not only by Governor Cuomo but by your Your Mayor de Blasio up there who’s got to be the worst. One of the worst mayors in the country. Is New York City ever going to come back?
Carney: I think it will come back but in 40 years. So New York City is a resilient place. New York in one form or another ever since it was New Amsterdam, going back 400 years. So yeah, it’ll come back. but New York takes 40 to 50-year breaks in which it’s a terrible place to live. And I think New York is really setting up for being a pretty bad place.
Both with the defunded but which they are defunding the police here in New York, But also demoralized police. Spiking crime rates. You have murder shooting up to twice shootings that are four hundred percent higher than they were a year ago. And frankly, a lot of the things that people want to live in New York City for or even visit the city aren’t operational. So you have no restaurants. No bars, no museums, and no theaters.
Leahy: It sounds like a pretty miserable place to be raising a family these days.
Carney: It is. And the value proposition right where you say Yeah, you’re not going to get as much space. You’re going to live in a tiny apartment, but you’re going to get to do all this cool stuff is gone. It’s a wonder and you look at what’s happening. The other factor is that there were a lot of good jobs people can get in New York City. Those jobs still mostly exist. But you don’t have to go into New York City to do them anymore. So a lot there’s a lot of remote working.
So one thing that means is that all of the businesses set up to serve those people from you know food carts to lunch spots and to the salad chop salad place. Those are all ruined businesses. They’re shutting down in there may never come back. But also a lot of people are deciding, you know, if I’m going to work from home three to four days a week? Why would I live here? Maybe I could live an hour outside of New York City. It makes the commute easier to handle if you only have to do it a couple of days a week.
Leahy: John, I don’t know if you followed this news but last month our friend Ben Shapiro used to be with us at Breitbart now runs is involved with the Daily Wire. They are based in Los Angeles with 75 employees. They announced that they’re moving. They’re leaving Los Angeles and guess where they’re coming. They are coming to Nashville. How about that?
Carney: I really want them to set up. I always thought this would be super cool. If I was running the Daily Wire and I was moving to Nashville I’d set up a live show each night out on the street there. You know, like just you Daily Wire and let everybody come out and see Ben Shapiro live nightly.
Leahy: The only problem with that John. Is that our city? The man Nashville is run by the de Blasio of the South John Cooper who has That’s not my line originally, but it came from John Rich of Big & Rich. But it’s a great line, and he’s shut down the restaurants to 50 percent capacity. Even though get this, only 146 of the 25,000 cases of coronavirus in Davidson County are traceable to bars and restaurants. We have one minute left John. What’s the bottom line? What’s going to happen in this election? Who’s going to win?
Carney: So here’s the thing. I think if Donald Trump comes back from the virus and can come roaring back and tell people, look I made it through. I’m healthy and I’m going to help America make it through this. I think he can win. Remember last October in 2016 people were desperate. They thought we were done and Donald Trump came back. That said, if he can’t campaign and if he’s sick for the next four weeks I don’t think he can win.
Listen to the full third hour here:
