On Monday’s Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 am to 8:00 am – host Leahy welcomed back good friend and undisputed King of Boston Talk Radio Howie Carr to the newsmakers line.
During the third hour, Carr talked about his recent Tweet which was acknowledged by President Trump and that inspired Leahy’s Breitbart story about the average age of coronavirus deaths. The men later discussed Governor Andrew Cuomo’s late turnaround which left 5,200 deaths at nursing homes on his watch.
Leahy: We are joined now on the line by our good friend, Boston talk radio king Howie Carr. Howie the President of the United States is reading what you Tweet about coronavirus.
Carr: Yes Michael Patrick Leahy. But he read it in your story that you wrote for Breitbart about the prepondurous of deaths being in certain age groups and certain facilities (i.e. nursing homes). I’d like to thank you for getting my Tweets to his attention. (Leahy chuckles) I’m glad somebody picked up on them.
Leahy: Well, it was great work on your end. So what’s interesting is the Massachusetts Department of Health was putting out all these lengthy, lengthy documents and you found in it a slide that was just stunning. And that was the average age among the 4,000 plus people that have died of COVID-19 in Massachusetts are 82 years old. This was like on page 11 of a 100-page report. You found it. Tell us how you found it first. Then you Tweeted it out and I’ll go from there. How did you find that information?
Carr: Actually I should give credit to John Hinderaker at powerlineblog.com. This is how the modern media works. He’s very interested in this and he’s a lawyer in Minnesota. He actually was just scrolling down through documents and found it and printed it.
And I said holy bleep! Where did this come from? As you said, this is a lengthy document that they post everyday. They call it the coronavirus dashboard. So I looked at it and I Tweeted it out. I’m in based in Boston but I’m in Florida. Then I see a guy from Minnesota post it. You’re in Tennessee and yo usee it and you put it into Breitbart and then the President of the United States sees it.
Leahy: It’s amazing.
Carr: It should be the Washington Post or The New York Times picking this stuff up. Not people like us. We are sort of reporters but we don’t have exactly what you call a national platform.
Leahy: Well, apparently we do now Howie. (Laughter)
Carr: Again the thing is a legitimate media plural would be interested in this kind of thing. As I said in my column yesterday that there is another very interesting chart I didn’t notice in there until one of my listeners pointed it out. Every day they point out how many deaths were in nursing homes.
And it’s up over 60% in Massachusetts and it’s rising higher and higher. Cuomo has taken a lot of grief in New York state as well he should for that idiotic directive that said if you’ve recovered from COVID-19 you have to go back to the nursing homes rather than say the Javits Center or field hospitals.
They had these field hospitals set up just for this purpose and he was pushing them back at the nursing homes. As the New York Post said today on its front page he changed the policy 250 deaths later. Even in New York state, the rate is only 25% out of nursing homes. I don’t know what it is in Tennessee. It’s over 60% in Massachusetts where John Hinderaker is in Minnesota its over 80% in nursing homes. This is a nursing home crisis is what this is.
Leahy: That’s why this information is so important. I don’t know that you saw it with John Hinderaker with Powerline Blog. He’s a friend of ours and will be involved in our Constitution Bee. He’s a great guy. It’s interesting how this works. He finds this. You highlight it. Now let me tell you how this got into a Breitbart story. I’m here doing the radio show Wednesday morning at about 7:30 am and a caller talks about the average age. And I say let me see what I can find.
So I start scrolling through my Twitter feed and boom! There’s this great Tweet from Howie! (Carr chuckles) Wow 82%. That’s pretty significant. I wonder what it is around the country. Half an hour later or an hour and at around 9 am and a half later I’m on a regular Breitbart call and our editor Matt Boyle says I need somebody to write a story about the average age of death of somebody who has COVID-19 and I said, hey I want that one because Howie has shown me the way.
Just got this note from the White House. POTUS liked my tweet from Wednesday (see below) that was included in this Breitbart story. Thanks, Mr. President! We'll get through this together! @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/PKu5O7ybCZ
— Howie Carr (@HowieCarrShow) May 8, 2020
Carr: I think even more telling than that average age of 82 is the chart showing how you have at this point in Massachusetts if you are over the age of 80 you have a one percent chance of dying. If you are under the age of 30 you have a zero percent chance of dying.
Zero. And it’s just amazing. There is no reason for the state to be shut down just like there’s no reason for the country to be shut down. And I like the way the President put it. He just said, amazing. He didn’t comment. He didn’t go overboard.
He just said amazing. And it is. These are amazing charts. He’s just laying it out and sort of telling people, take a look at this stuff. I can’t say for sure but what I think he seems to be telling people is ask yourself why you can’t go to Mother’s Day dinner with your mom yesterday. Why you can’t go to church. Why you can’t get a haircut. It doesn’t make any sense.
Leahy: So Howie then Wednesday night my story sees the average age of those that have died from COVID-19 being 75 including your Tweet with the chart showing the average age in Massachusetts as 83. Then it’s published at Breitbart late Wednesday night. I guess what happens is they have a crew in the White House and they print out stuff for the President to read in the morning.
They printed out my story and my byline and then you get this handwritten note from the President on my story highlighting your Tweet and he says, Howie, this is amazing! Great work as always, Donald J. Trump. (Laughs)
Carr: (Chuckles) It made me very happy. It made me very happy that he was paying attention. And also that he knows what’s going on. He’s in kind of a tough spot here you know? He’s going to get criticized if he pushes to get these states open. Look, Michael, remember a couple of weeks ago they were killing Brian Kemp the governor of Georgia.
This is going to kill all these people! And all this stuff. And all these deplorables are going to come over from Florida and South Carolina. And guess what? Nothing has happened. So nothing to see here folks. Move along. They just go to the next step purported scandal that they can lay at the feet of Republicans.
It’s just total nonsense what they printed about what was going to happen in Georgia. Nothing happened. And by the way, I don’t believe anything is happening in Colorado either. Colorado has pretty much the same plan as Georgia but their governor is a gay democrat so he’s immune from any kind of criticism. He can open his state and not have to worry about being slammed by the left-wing media.
Leahy: So about three weeks ago everybody was saying what a wonderful job Andrew Cuomo was doing in New York because he was glib in the press conferences. Now it’s turning out he’s made perhaps the most disastrous executive decision by saying if you are a nursing home resident and they take you out and test you positive they’re going to push you right back in that nursing home and spread the disease rapidly in that nursing home.
Carr: And actually there was at least one director of a nursing home in Cobble Hill Brooklyn who said, are you crazy? Are you sure about this? There are other places we can send them. And they just came down hard on them and said you have to do this. I’m looking at the headline in the New York Post today. Govs About Face, 5200 Deaths to Late, Cuomo Finally Flips on Nursing Home Scandal. That is a tough headline. But it’s totally accurate.
Leahy: That’s really tough. There was some talk that Joe Biden who shall we just say has been hidden away in his basement in Delaware for some time and who’s not quite all there.
Carr: I thought it was Memphis I believe it was.
Leahy: There was some talk, well maybe they’ll replace him with Andrew Cuomo. What talk are you seeing up in New England about the Democratic nomination now?
Carr: I think he peaked about three weeks ago before this news started trickling out and now its a flood about what he did at the nursing homes. And then also the fact that he was screaming about the ventilators. And they got him the ventilators and now he’s just dolling them out to whatever state needs them as far west as Michigan I think.
His response has been totally fraudulent. They pushed him because he’s a democrat. They think he’s glib and he was married to a Kennedy before she cheated on him with a polo player. (Leahy laughs) I don’t think anybody is taking him seriously anymore. He has that kind of abrasive style.
It’s not so much that its an ethnic thing but that he’s entitled. He’s like Pritzker in Illinois. These guys were born on third base with silver spoons in their mouths. And they think they can tell everybody else who doesn’t have a trust fund and who didn’t have a totally easy path and get all these federally appointments. He thinks he can tell all of us and Pritzker how to live our lives. It’s the same with Charlie Baker the Rhino in Massachusetts.
Leahy: Howie Carr. The king of Boston talk radio. We didn’t even get to Elizabeth Warren but we will next time. Howie thanks for joining us and keep up the good work. The President is watching what you’re Tweeting.
Carr: And watching what you’re writing, Michael.
Listen to the third hour here:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 am to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Howie Carr” by Howie Carr.
