Last week you may recall we addressed speculation

about the sudden disappearance of my copy of "The Thorn Birds,"

the 1977 Australian romance novel that inspired

the hit 1983 miniseries

starring a frequently shirtless Richard Chamberlain.

In 1983, it turns out that was the exact right amount

of chest hair for a leading man.

Chamberlain never would have survived in these hairless times

we're living in, where our sex symbols are all Chrises

with chests smooth enough to eat off.

Anyway, the point is, I left the window open overnight

to get rid of the wasps, but then "The Thorn Birds"

flew out, we think, because it's mating season.

But as you can see, Thorny is back

and maybe with child? Impossible to tell.

Meanwhile, the president is pregnant with rage --

that's a segue, a bad one, but technically still a segue --

and decided to give up in the fight against coronavirus

in order to reopen the economy.

For more on this, it's time for "A Closer Look."

♪♪

You would think that putting aside his venality,

his narcissism, and his deadly incompetence,

Donald Trump could at the very least muster

a little empathy for the victims of this pandemic,

their loved ones, and the millions

who have put themselves in harm's way,

lost jobs, or made tremendous personal sacrifices

during this crisis.

But of course, he can't do that,

because he's incapable of empathy.

He only has two emotions -- boredom and rage.

He's either staring off into the distance

while someone talks about complex policy details

or hissing at reporters like a snake

whose nest was just disturbed.

In fact, just listen to the cold, detached way in which

Trump talked about allowing Americans to die

in order to reopen the economy

and the 30 million people who have lost jobs

because of his handling of this crisis

during an interview on ABC yesterday.

-Do you believe that's the reality we're facing?

That lives will be lost to reopen the country?

-It's possible there will be some, because you won't be

locked into an apartment or a house or whatever it is.

-There are 30 million Americans who are unemployed.

You don't need me to tell you that.

We're expecting the new unemployment rate this week.

There have been forecasts, 15, 16, 17%.

One of your advisers projected an unemployment rate of 19%.

That's nearly one in five Americans without a job.

How bad is this going to get?

-Well, that is what it is.

-Wow. What soaring words.

It reminds me of Martin Luther King's

"I slept pretty good last night" speech.

Or FDR's famous response when they told him

about Pearl Harbor -- "Well, [bleep] happens."

Usually when someone is that soulless and dead-eyed,

you're not asking them questions about the economy,

you're holding up a Rorschach test.

"And what is this, Donald?"

[ As Trump ] "It is what it is.

"Very, very interesting. Okay, guards,

you can put him back in his restraints now."

"Oh, I don't think the guards can hear you."

"Donald, what have you done?"

Yesterday Trump also made his first major trip in months

to tour a Honeywell factory in Arizona, a trip that gave us

what may end up as one of the enduring images of this crisis.

Trump toured a mask factory as his White House signaled

they were basically just giving up

on suppressing the coronavirus pandemic

to focus on reopening the economy instead.

And has he was doing that,

someone chose to blast "Live and Let Die"

on the speakers.

-The material traps the particulates.

-♪ Live and let die ♪

♪♪

-Wow. Welcome to the resistance,

Honeywell factory floor deejay?

Doesn't get much more on the nose than that.

What were the other songs on that play list?

-♪ It's the end of the world as we know it ♪

♪ It's the end of the world as we know it ♪

-You can hear all those classic hits and more

on "Now That's What I Call Symbolism."

"Live and Let Die" playing while Trump tours a mask factory

during a pandemic is the surest sign yet

that we're living in a video game.

And if we are in a video game, does anyone have the cheat code

to get rid of wasps?

Because I tried up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right,

B, A, start, and that just made them angrier.

Anyway, sure enough, during that same trip,

Trump brushed off the growing death toll

and said he was eager to force Americans

back to work prematurely,

telling them to think of themselves as participants

in an armed conflict.

-And you see what's going on. They have to open.

And the people of our country should think of themselves

as warriors.

Our country has to open.

I'm viewing our great citizens of this country

to a certain extent and to a large extent as warriors.

They're warriors.

We can't keep our country closed.

We have to open our country.

The people of our country are warriors.

And I'm looking at it.

I'm not saying anything is perfect.

And yes, will some people be affected? Yes.

Will some people be affected badly? Yes.

But we have to get our country open,

and we have to get it open soon.

And I said it before and I'll say it again.

The people of our country are warriors.

-That's right, Trump wants you -- you to be a warrior

while he sits safely in isolation in the White House.

"I would join in, but I feel another bone spur coming on,

which is devastating to me, because the last one happened

right before the Vietnam War.

I mean, what are the chances that it happens again now?

I mean --"

This is truly sadistic.

The president is telling you to go out and face off

against a deadly virus all for the sake of the stock market.

The only way that could be more out of touch is if he said it

while dousing himself in Purell

and holding a 36-pack of toilet paper.

Every day it seems we pass a grim new milestone

in the coronavirus pandemic, with more than 70,000 Americans

now dead and at least 30 million out of work,

which, according to Trump means it's a perfect time

to stand down and wrap things up.

-We can't keep our country closed for the next five years.

You know, you could say there might be a recurrence,

and there might be.

And, you know, most doctors, or some doctors say

that it will happen.

And it will be a flame and we're going to put the flame out.

We've learned a lot, you know.

We've learned a lot about the coronavirus.

-First of all, who's "we"? You haven't learned anything.

Whenever the doctors are up there talking,

you do that thing where you zone out

and sway back and forth like a drunk guy

who's trying to pretend he's sober.

And then you get back up to the podium having only heard, like,

three words and try to sound like you know what's going on.

"So what I'm hearing is -- what I grasped when the scientists

were talking, is that powerful lights will cure the coronavirus

and give you superpowers.

You know, I saw that in a documentary once.

Only down -- turns you green.

That's the downside side effect.

So still -- still pretty promising news."

You are incapable of learning.

You showed up to the CDC in Atlanta surrounded by

some of the best doctors in the world and all you did

was hold up a printout of a virus like a kid

who forgot to do his science project until the last minute.

"As you can see here, the virus is called Wikipedia.

Side effects include further reading and external links."

Although actually I will give Trump credit.

In the span of two months, he did at least learn one thing --

the name of the virus.

-So you can't put them down in the, uh, in the category

of the overall population in terms of this, uh, corona flu.

-Yes, corona flu.

Remember when a deadly virus was racing across the globe

and the president was getting intelligence reports about it,

and he got the name wrong,

like the worst member of your bar trivia team?

"This English rock band is led by front man Mick Jagger."

"Oh, I know, it's The Rolling Scones.

Rolling -- In America they're called The Rolling Muffins.

That's an extra piece of trivia."

Second, no one, and I mean no one,

wants to keep the country closed for five years.

It hasn't even been closed for five months

and we're already losing our minds.

I spend six hours a day washing my hands,

I wipe down every package like it's coated in anthrax.

I've watched so much Netflix that my home page says,

"We have nothing left for you. Try Hulu?"

And I've inhaled so much Lysol, my urine smells like lemon zest.

No one wants to live like this.

In fact, we didn't have to.

Lots of other major developed countries

have successfully suppressed their outbreaks by acting early,

testing aggressively, and implementing a system

of isolating cases and tracing their contacts.

Some never even had to fully lock down, and others

have already reopened, like in South Korea,

where they had their first case on the exact same day

we had ours.

And while here in the U.S.,

almost every day at least 25,000 new coronavirus cases

are identified, in South Korea,

the rate of new confirmed cases of coronavirus has slowed down

dramatically in recent weeks to less than ten a day.

Of course if you pointed that out to Trump,

he probably wouldn't accept it.

"It's not a fair compar--

South Korea is 13 hours ahead, so they had a jump on it."

In fact, while we're all stuck in our homes watching reruns

of "Blue Bloods" at 2:00 in the afternoon,

Korean baseball is already back playing games,

just without fans.

In fact, ESPN is now airing them here in the U.S.,

which has introduced us to some truly incredible

team names, like the NC Dinos and the SK Wyverns,

which are mythical winged two-legged dragons

with barbed tails.

Last year they even used augmented reality

to have a dragon fly into the stadium and breathe fire.

Our baseball teams need more mascots like that.

The only mythical creature we have is, I don't know,

is it like an aardvark?

Like a -- like a hairy aardvark who loves baseball?

Hmm.

We've been highlighting success stories like that

from South Korea to Iceland to New Zealand to Taiwan

because they're out there.

There are lots of countries with competent governments

that managed to suppress the outbreak

and allow their societies to safely return

to some semblance of normalcy.

Trump has repeatedly lied and claimed that, as he put it,

the cupboards were bare when he took office three years ago

and that's why he's failed to fight the virus.

But in a new ABC interview, Trump was asked

why he didn't do anything to fix the situation.

-You're three years into your first term.

-Yeah. -You're now applying

for the job again.

What did you do when you became president