E9: Trump has COVID, First debate reactions, Coinbase letter response & more

**Jason Calacanis** (0:00)
Hey, everybody. Hey, everybody. Welcome to another All-In podcast. We just got the show notes, and I'm ripping them up because the president has the rona. We knew this was a possibility. We had an incredible docket brewing. But as fate loves irony, we found out on Wednesday night, I believe, just in a brief timeline here, Wednesday night, Hope Hicks, his personal assistant, got the rona. And then, of course, President Trump announced late last night that he, in fact, had the rona and that his wife, Melania, also had the coronavirus. So with us today to discuss all things tech, politics and coronavirus, David Friedberg, David Sacks and Bestie C, Chamath Palihapitiya are with us.
I guess maybe we'll just drop it right to you, Friedberg. You are our science kid here in the class.
What is, when we look at the president's physique, he's clinically obese. Technically, I'm not saying that to be cruel, but he's a 74-year-old who's clinically obese and snorts Adderall. We don't know that. That's just a claim. But seriously, what is the prognosis here? And then I understand he's now got a experimental treatment was just announced an hour ago, the taping of this on Friday afternoon.
And, of course, we wish them all the greatest speedy recovery, etc. But let's get into the facts here.

**David Friedberg** (1:31)
I think the overall mortality rate for someone of his age is in, call it the 2 to 4% range, right?
And for someone with, you know, he's not known to have diabetes or high blood pressure, but generally, you can kind of say there's some risk factors maybe associated.
So a couple points. But the reality is, the treatment that he got is one that's not available to the public and is effectively like creating these, you know, taking these antibodies to the coronavirus. And he got 8 grams of this immunoglobulin therapy that is basically a bunch of antibodies that will eliminate the virus. And they're not widely available. They're not publicly available, these treatments. But, you know, based on the early trials and the general experience with using synthetic and, you know, polyclonal antibodies for infectious disease like this, it's pretty effective and he should kind of, you know, recover pretty quickly, I would imagine.

**Jason Calacanis** (2:29)
So him dying would basically be a two-outer, him getting this special treatment makes it a one-outer if we were talking about this in poker terms. Chamath, when you when you look at this turn of events, and you saw the news, what was your first thought?

**Chamath Palihapitiya** (2:44)
That it's now basically 100% guaranteed that we will have all of the most transparent data about coronavirus soon. So for example, you know, we we've been in this position where we've been debating hydroxychloroquine, we've been debating these, you know, all of these different regimens. And the reality is the president of the United States, if he doesn't get the absolute top notch care, we're all in some ways fucked.
So it's probably likely that he's going to get the thing that folks know to work. And then it'll be hard for everybody else to not want to ask for that. And then it's going to be even harder for everybody to then not get some version of it. And so I think probably we're going to de-escalate a little bit of mask stuff, of testing stuff, of what the right course of care is. And frankly, I'll be honest with you, I hope I wouldn't vote for him, but I hope he's well. I don't want anything to happen to the guy.
And I hope that he recovers and he kicks it in the ass and that whatever he took to get better, everybody else can get it too.

**Jason Calacanis** (3:59)
All right, Sacks, coming around the horn here, talking about the political ramifications of this, you were feeling that Trump was likely to lose.
But here we are with the October surprise. And I hate to make this handicapping of the election, but this certainly is going to have some impact. So with your Rain Man mind, and when you go through this deck of cards here, what is your brain? How do you assess this as the Rain Man?
Is this going to be a net positive for his election results? A negative neutral? Handicap this for us in your mind. You must be thinking through this. And again, disclaimers, we all want him to get better. Nobody wishes him ill. I'm sure some people do, but nobody wishes him ill.

**David Sacks** (4:47)
I'm seeing a lot of glee, frankly, on Twitter.

**Jason Calacanis** (4:50)
Yeah.

**David Sacks** (4:51)
A lot of people saying, I told you so, or karma is a bitch, or something like that.