Dr. Phil Goes After People Carrying on Affairs Amid Coronavirus Pandemic

Dr. Phil McGraw criticized cheaters hoping to keep affairs going during the coronavirus pandemic. The daytime talkshow host told TMZ Live people who are trying to continue affairs and ignore the social distancing guidelines from officials "entitled," selfish and reckless. Government officials have promoted social distancing to help slow the spread of the virus, which causes the illness COVID-19.

"It's just not having an affair," McGraw told the TMZ hosts. "If people are invested in anything, and they're hedonistic and entitled, then they're reluctant to give it up. That's just so selfish and immature that they're putting people at risk... Everything's about a sacrifice right now."

"No one wants to give up their activities, whether it's illicit like that or it's your work or it's something like the trip you had planned or whatever you wanted to do," he continued. "Look, we're all in this together. We've got to be willing to make sacrifices."

McGraw said it was "those people that really lack empathy and really don't care what the impact is on somebody else and they're so immature that they're not willing to discipline themselves" that he is worried about because they continue to put other people at risk.

When asked why there are people who have continued to ignore government guidelines, McGraw chalked it up to denial.

"Part of it is just denial of not wanting it to be true," he explained. "I talked to several people last week when I was taping the show right here from the kitchen and they're just telling themselves 'This just isn't true.' They don't want it to be true, so it isn't true."

McGraw called the behavior "immature" and "it's just people not wanting to accept reality because they don't want to make the sacrifices."

McGraw announced plans to film without a studio audience on March 10, but Monday's episode was filmed from the host's home.

The number of coronavirus cases eclipsed 43,000 in the U.S., and more than 500 deaths have been reported. However, during Monday's press conference, President Donald Trump hinted that business would resume as normal soon, despite health experts continuing to advocate for social distancing.

"Our country wasn't built to be shut down," Trump said, reports ABC News. "We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself. We're not going to let the cure be worse than the problem. At the end of the 15-day period, we'll make a decision as to which way we want to go."

The president did not offer a timeline, but said the "opening of our country" could happen a "lot sooner than the three or four months that somebody was suggesting."

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