Clay and Buck

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Daily Review with Clay and Buck - Dec 12 2025 Friday - Dec 12, 2025 • 51:41

Hour 1 - Get Out of Jail Free Card Friday - Dec 12, 2025 • 36:50

Hour 2 - The War on Drugs Friday - Dec 12, 2025 • 36:48

Hour 3 - Nerding Out with Ryan Girdusky Friday - Dec 12, 2025 • 36:53

Wellness Unmasked Weekly Rundown: Fixing America’s Healthcare: Dr. Nicole Saphier on ACA Failures, Subsidy Battles & Real Reform Friday - Dec 12, 2025 • 6:23

Best Of Buck Brief - Here's How a China-Taiwan Invasion Ignites Global Chaos Friday - Dec 12, 2025 • 18:6

The Tudor Dixon Podcast: Ozempic, Obesity & the Body Image Crisis: Aimee Donnellan Breaks Down the Truth Friday - Dec 12, 2025 • 37:42

SNL Plays Mask, Vax Tyranny for Laughs Now?

28 Feb 2022

CLAY: We just talked about California, Washington, and Oregon ending their covid vaccine mask mandates and everything that’s going on in New York and New York City, and this SNL skit that are now coming out where you have all of these educated, liberal New Yorkers sitting around having quiet conversations where they actually say, “Wait a minute. Did masking make any sense? Did the covid vaccine mandates make any sense?”

Even, “Heck, did the covid shots themselves make any sense?” You know the pivot has happened in a fast manner when skits like these are on Saturday Night Live of all places. Buck, you well remember, Saturday Night Live was making fun of Joe Rogan for being a “horse dewormer” like a month ago, six weeks ago. And they were making fun of everybody out there like you and me and most of our listeners who have been saying the data to masks didn’t make sense and Dr. Fauci was a liar and much of the covid vaccine data was also not adding up. Suddenly, “Oh, let’s play it for laughs!” Listen couple of these SNL skits.

BUCK: By, it’s actually not incredibly complicated. They were wrong.

CLAY: Yeah, in.

BUCK: And so now we’re gonna have this whole, “Oh, my gosh.” Yeah, ha-ha, guys! They were screaming! People were vicious morons about, “You better wear a mask if you’re gonna come into this grocery store! You better wear a mask if you’re coming in this elevator,” for nothing, for no reason! They were just harassing their fellow human beings because they can’t think for themselves, and the synapsis of their brains have rewired by the Fauciite messaging machinery.

And now we’re just gonna walk away from this. This is what SNL thinks. Oh, yeah, it’s all so funny. Ha-ha. They called people who did not mask up murderers! Governor — former governor — Cuomo said (impression), “You could give your grandmother covid! If you don’t wear a mask, she’ll get sick; she’ll die.” He actually said that stuff like you were a threat to public safety unless you masked up. And then of course he was seen all the time without a mask on.

CLAY: Well, and, Buck, to me what’s so interesting about this is, they’re playing it for laughs, but it is striking home for a lot of people like you and me, Buck, who would have been at a dinner party, by the way, and been, like, “Yeah,” and I have to watch so I don’t curse, “Masks are total BS,” right? So many people would say, “Thank you for saying that” because there was a huge fear because the stultifying atmosphere that the Dr. Fauciites and his cronies created.

You weren’t even allowed to have a conversation at a dinner party like that because you might be considered to be a part of wrongthink. That’s how much what was acceptable discourse was policed, that people legitimately felt that they couldn’t say, “Man, I don’t know if our kids need to be wearing masks at school.” And imagine, Buck… You lived through it. I would have pulled my hair out. I would have gone crazy if I had been in New York and California having to deal with this.

I’m sorry so thankful that my kids didn’t have to wear masks for the entire year ’cause I live in a sane state that actually followed the data and the science. But don’t mistake what happened here. They tried to bully you and me and every single one of us listening right now: Every mom, dad, every grandma and grandpa, every aunt and uncle, everybody out there, every teacher.

‘Cause a lot of teachers saw this data, too. If you dared to say that wearing masks in school didn’t make any sense, you were — as you said Buck — a murderer. You didn’t care about anybody’s health. How dare you! They told you that you were anti-science if you actually talked about the true data (chuckles), which is the essence of science.

BUCK: I remember there were some Blue Checks who got it going for a while because I thought we shouldn’t continue lockdowns that I was Thanos and wanted to eliminate all of humanity with the snap of my fingers and that was all ha-ha-ha. Okay, well, they’re all morons. I was right and they’re wrong. Where’s my apology? I just won.

I sit here and say, “We’re gonna have to track people down, gonna have hold them accountable, find some of what was said, find some of the clips and all the rest of it where the people that pushed for this because everyone now sees, as Omicron fades — exactly on schedule with the respiratory virus season, not because of vaccines, not because of social distancing, we didn’t flatten the curve, we didn’t lose hospital capacity and couldn’t treat anybody. It was all lies. SNL, though, making a big ha-ha out of it.

(playing a second clip of the skit)

BUCK: Look, it is kind of funny. I’m not trying to be a scold here. But it took them this long to try to figure out things that they’re making jokes about in this sketch?

CLAY: And, Buck, this is what comedians should do, right? And this is why I’ve been so disgusted that it’s fallen to people like you and me to be truth-tellers. Comedians should be pointing out uncomfortable truths in a comedic fashion because sometimes it’s more comfortable to do that than it is to sit and sort of run through the data on a daily basis like we’ve done, you and I, for years now. And suddenly everybody just is willing to recognize — and here’s what happened, Buck.

Here’s what it is. It’s not science. It’s political science. Joe Biden is getting destroyed, and Democrats are getting destroyed because enough people have finally joined Team Reality. And when you get to that 60 to 65% mark, which is where I think we are — and we’re rapidly every single day adding more and more people to Team Reality as it pertains to covid restrictions and masks being a joke. That’s why suddenly, where is Dr. Fauci?

Think about this, Buck. The dude you couldn’t escape him on the weekend television shows for two years, they relieve all of these different restrictions, and Fauci’s not out there talking about ’em at all. They have basically sidelined him because the American public, it took a long time, but they’re finally recognizing — and, Buck, I really believe this is gonna turn into like Vietnam. There’s not gonna hardly be a single person out there before long in the next year, couple years ahead that is ever willing to say they supported any of these restrictions at all. You and I were one billion percent right on this.

BUCK: And we’re not gonna forget it. We’re not gonna let them get away with it, folks. We’re gonna keep reminding the apparatus of how they failed us, how they were wrong, how they were authoritarians.

The Science Changed Just in Time for Biden’s Big Speech!

28 Feb 2022

CLAY: I want to talk about with you what we are not going to allow to happen, which is what is attempting to occur right now, Buck, which is, “Hey, oh, masks are just gonna go away and let’s just pretend that we didn’t sell you on a lie. Covid vaccine mandates are going away. Let’s just pretend that all of that wasn’t a lie.” We are not going to allow it to happen on this show, and we don’t want any of you out there to allow this to happen in the midterms. There must be severe consequences for all of the people who got this 100% wrong.

BUCK: Clay, anybody out there — any lib — who continues to believe the official line — which, I want to be very clear on this. The official line for everybody for everybody from the Fauci… Where is Fauci? So good —

CLAY: He vanished. He was doing every show, Buck. You couldn’t escape him. And all of a sudden — since Ukraine — they’ve been dialing back all these restrictions; Fauci has vanished.

BUCK: It’s amazing how that happens. It’s been at least 24 hours since I’ve seen him on CNN saying some total nonsense. So here’s what they want you to believe, everybody. They want you to believe that after two years of this — just days, really, in the case of New York State, hours before Biden’s State of the Union address — the science changed. This is the official line. This is what they really are saying.

I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that their claim here is that this had nothing to do with politics. This is something that you can see over and over again from their actual official line, the way that they talk about this, they seem to really believe that there is gonna be no connection made in the public’s mind between the timing of this and the State of the Union. Here’s Kathy Hochul, definitely among the dumbest, maybe among the worst governors in America. Here she is. Play.

HOCHUL: No, it has to do with when the CDC came down with their decision and the fact that on January 25th, I saw when the numbers were trending downward. I did say after that winter break — which just ended today — that we’d be assessing this. So absolutely no connection. But I will say, uhhh, they have been pounding on this for —

BUCK: Absolutely no connection. Yeah. Sure. Nobody with an IQ higher than a toaster believes her. When she’s still out there saying this, because, Clay, the alternative is, once people realize that the folks in charge — the Fauciites — will make decisions now based on politics, there’s this little part of the lib brain that goes, “Wait a second. Maybe they were making decisions based on politics and pretending they were based on the science a lot sooner than yesterday.”

CLAY: How about just the fact that Wednesday you don’t have to wear a mask in school, but Monday and Tuesday you still do? So the science is saying that it’s not safe in New York State on Monday or Tuesday, but suddenly on Wednesday, miraculously, you can take your masks off inside of schools in New York? And, by the way, this is the right result, but it’s the right result that should have happened everywhere in this country for every school student this year. And this is not a new argument for us to have been making.

You’ll remember, I went to my local school board along with many of you out there listening to make the argument against masks when my kids went back to school — and after about a week, they tried to reimplement masks. And so many people looked at the data and said, “This is an unforgivable sin on some level that we are putting forth on our kids.” And as a result, you gotta fight back against this. This is a failure of public policy of epic result. And, Buck, just think about how crazy this is right now.

We got a ton of people listening all over New York. In New York right now, your kids have to wear a mask on Monday and Tuesday but miraculously on Wednesday, they don’t have to anymore, and the same thing in New York, New York City. On March 7th. whatever day that’s gonna be, like Saturday or Sunday, suddenly you don’t have to show any evidence to get into your gym or to get into a restaurant but prior to that you do? It’s all nonsense.

BUCK: I almost want to run the experiment and videotape it of walking into — and there are certain places. I’ll never forget there’s a restaurant in my neighborhood — and this was during Omicron, so this was recent — where they told me not only did I have to mask up for the walk to my table after checking my vax passport, but that they insisted — and they actually insisted — that I stay masked until my drink arrived.

I got a class of wine, and I remember I said to them, “Okay, but there’s water on the table. So what’s…?” and they’re like, “No, sorry, only drinks that you order,” and they had come up with this completely arbitrary, idiotic rule, and they were serious about it. I could walk into a number of restaurants in the next few days in New York City, and I guarantee you there would be people, there would be patrons…

Forget about the restaurant ’cause they can always say, “We don’t want to get a big fine from the city,” which is fair. That is fair. I understand. You know, some of my favorite places in New York have gone out of business and I’m sure there are a lot of other people in cities if you live in have. Not in Florida where we just were for… I was I just there for 10 days.

CLAY: There’s higher employment in Florida right now than before the pandemic, I believe. They’ve regained every job plus more.

BUCK: Yeah. No great restaurants that my friends in Miami and Tampa and, you know, in West Palm, no great restaurants that have closed for covid forever in those places. But in New York tons of them have. But patrons, Clay, would still feel virtuous, they would still feel like they’re the good people shouting at me to put on my mask while I’m walking to the table or show my vaccine passport for the next few days, as if that’s in any way reasonable.

Their brains have been melted by the Fauciite lunacy. They’re gonna need help. I mean, they actually need… They’re gonna need long-term therapy and they’re gonna have to talk this stuff out, because they were brainwashed. I mean, these people — the libs in major cities across America who believe all this Fauci, double mask, get your fourth booster bullcrap — they have emotional difficulties now. They have problems.

CLAY: Have you also seen, Buck, in New York City, Kyrie Irving, who is a basketball player for the Brooklyn Nets, when they implement the new New York City guidelines… I want you to think about this. I’m not even sure if you’ve seen it, but I saw and I was like, “This can’t be real,” but it is. Kyrie Irving can go and watch a Brooklyn Nets basketball game as an unvaccinated spectator, but he’s not allowed to play in the game.

This now is on top of the fact that everybody who is unvaccinated that travels into New York can play in the games. But think about this, Buck. He could get some popcorn and a soda and sit courtside at the basketball game eating and drinking — no mask, living his normal life — as a fan watching the game, but he’s not allowed to actually play in the game. Just think about how mind-numbingly broken is the science. Just think.

I wish… I hope Kyrie Irving is willing to do this. I’m sure there are some Brooklyn Nets people who listen to this show. I have confidence in that. I would love for them to say, “Hey, Kyrie, here say front court seat right on the front row. I want you to go just eat some popcorn, have a soda. Sit there as a fan. That is permissible come March 7th in New York City, but you can’t actually play in the game.”

BUCK: I want to get this message out as much as possible. You and I are completely united on this mission of not just letting this go because memories are short and okay and we’re happy to be freer in some places. Remember, if you live in Florida, Texas, Tennessee, the Dakotas, Wyoming, okay. It hasn’t been as bad for you. But every time you get on a plane still, by the way, and in the airport, you’re still masking up. This needs to be… Anybody who does not vote… I mean, I’m a single-issue voter at this point on this.

CLAY: I’m with you.

BUCK: If you are not going to slap down the moron Democrat Party that made us do all this stuff for two years by voting against every single Democrat, you deserve to mask up for the rest of your life on airplanes. You deserve to have your children masked in school. You are getting what you deserve. I want everyone to remember that” You are voting to perpetuate the abuse and the lunacy and the authoritarianism. I’m a single-issue voter on this.

CLAY: And we need to reiterate because some people are saying, “Well, now they’re changing. You’re starting to get some of what you’ve been arguing for for years, honestly.” Yes, that’s true, but look at what happened last May. They said no more masks, and then what did they do? Within a couple of months they brought them back. So my fear is they’re going to do away with masks and they’re gonna try to say, “See? We beat covid! We’re back to normal.”

As soon as the midterm elections happen, come November as we get cold again and as virus season and cold and flu season goes up — and there will be more covid in December and January as there was this year and as there probably will be for years and years to come — they’re going to try to bring back all of the restrictions that they’re walking back now.

Don’t let them do it. Give such an ass kicking to every Democrat that was remotely connected to masking up your kids and masking up with covid vaccine requirements and everything else — such an ass kicking — that they’re terrified to do it because otherwise they’re gonna do their best to bring it back. That’s the reality that we’re dealing with.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

BIDEN: There’s a phenomenal negatively psychological impact that covid has had on the public psyche, and so you have an awful lot of people who are, notwithstanding the fact that things have gotten so much better for them economically, uhh, that they are speaking — how do you get up in the morning feeling happy, happy that everything’s all right?

BUCK: (impression) “Yeah, why don’t you realize how great it is? No joke. It’s great. It’s amazing. You’ve got emotional problems. Yeah, I’m telling you the truth here, folks. Stop being crazy. It’s awesome out there. You just don’t see it.” Can I just say…? That was Biden and then my version of Biden. Welcome back to the Clay and Buck show, and another area where I’m not gonna let this slide is the people seem a little overwrought and maybe emotionally damaged by the hysteria over covid.

The Democrat Party — and this became — and all the polling shows it. Very quickly, by April of 2020 effectively, covid was a partisan issue. March, fog of virus war, the stuff going on, two weeks to slow the spread, Trump was in charge, okay. By April, certainly by May it was a partisan issue. Democrats weaponized it. They used it as a club to bludgeon their political opponents at every opportunity. Big Tech used it as an excuse to censor and shut down people on the right they did not like who were questioning the narrative.

Clay, I’m just… I know I keep saying I’m not letting this go. They created… Biden is correct that there are people who are emotionally unwell now because of covid. I see them walking around New York City to this day outside with masks on, with N95 masks on, N95 masks on their 8-year-olds they’re walking with on the street. It is a psychological disorder. It’s obvious that basically what Biden is saying, but they created the psychological disorder component of this by never being honest with people about the real risks, by shutting down everything, and by making masks some virtue-signaling lunacy. So, Biden is the worst, and tomorrow will be the State of the Dumpster Fire Address. Sorry.

CLAY: No. I can’t wait to hear what he is going to say, honestly, because you nailed it. They don’t know how to turn off the panic that they have created, what I called “fear porn,” the idea that everybody was going to die of covid, and if you got triple vaxxed and if you wore a mask, you were going to be perfectly fine. The mask is totally worthless, and I would venture a massive amount of money that in the years ahead more and more people are going to come around to the position that you and I have been in for a long time, Buck, which is arguing, “Hey, yeah.

“We knew the masking never really worked, but we just wanted to send a message of how important it was to try and fight back against covid.” No, no. A huge percentage of people out there argued that masking worked, including Joe Biden himself, who as recently as January of 2021… Let’s not forget, Buck, when he took office, Joe Biden’s first comments were, “If everybody would just wear a mask for a hundred days, covid would go away.” That’s what he said. It was totally a lie, even as people were getting vaccinated.

And that’s why I’m not willing right now, as suddenly on Capitol Hill, you don’t have to wear a mask for the State of the Union address, which… Come on. You can’t…? I mean, I know Kathy Hochul in New York tried to say, “Oh, it’s totally not connected.” The CDC comes out on Friday saying, “Hey, basically masking is over for people with a functional brain, and then on Sunday in the Capitol they do away with it? Come on.

BUCK: Yeah. Aggressively stupid. That’s what they’re doing right now.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: It’s aggressively stupid.

VIP Bonus Video: C&B Kick Off Monday’s Show

28 Feb 2022

Take a look inside the New York and Nashville studios as Clay and Buck discuss how the covid science apparently changed just in time for Joe Biden’s State of the Dumpster Fire speech tomorrow night. Democrat states are dropping their mandates, but we’ll never let them forget how wrong they were.

Only 24/7 members can watch this exclusive video.

If you’re not a member, sign up now. You can also use the special VIP email pipeline to Clay and Buck to share whatever is on your mind.

Watch It Here:

If Biden Gets Us Nuked, Mask Up in the Bunker

28 Feb 2022

CLAY: If you’re just getting into your cars, you’re just starting — California, Washington, and Oregon — the day before Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, they also have dropped the mask mandate on Capitol Hill for congressmen and women, senators. They dropped it in the state of New York. They are about to drop it in New York City. Even I, Buck Sexton, am stunned a bit about how just absolutely politically driven Democrats have suddenly recognized masking is.

After all their talk about how they were gonna be using the science to justify what they did or did not do as it pertained to covid. Friday, the CDC effectively does away with the mask mandates. Saturday and Sunday you got New York, New York City, and now you add in California, Washington, and Oregon doing away with school mask mandates. I just…

It’s so much laced with lying that even I, Buck, am a little bit surprised over how blatantly just deceitful this process is now that masks are finally coming off. And this is why — for every single person out there — we have got to hold all of these politicians accountable for the failure of their forcing our kids to wear masks and beyond.

BUCK: Clay, Joe Biden was videoed today walking into the White House outside alone with a mask on —

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: — and I just want to remind everybody, this is lunacy, okay?

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: There is no basis for this. There was never a basis for this. This a long time ago, almost two years ago, became the leftist version of the MAGA hat. You wear a mask, you comply; you’re part of the left wing Borg (for those of you who are Star Trek fans) or the left wing hive. That was what this was all about. So obvious now, it has been obvious to you and me for a long time.

There were not a lot of people even on the right back when… I got give credit to my producer, Mark, who told me he was a big fan of OutKick and your work on the sports side, and he told me… This is before anyone had ever talked about Clay and I teaming up on radio. He said, “You gotta talk to Clay Travis. He agrees with you on masks.” I was like, “Well, at least there’s somebody else.”

CLAY: There was almost no one.

BUCK: Two years ago. I almost want to go be back in the archives and find the exact dates so we can have the two-year anniversary of it. I’m, like, Clay, you came on and we… Anyway, we had a great discussion about it, and we were right, which is also nice. Nice to be right. Clay, they just put out some guidance. I did not believe it was true. But did you see this? It has been confirmed to me by Ryan Girdusky.

CLAY: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Last night. Talking about the nuclear attack?

BUCK: If you are in the midst of a nuclear attack, folks, make sure you mask up and socially distance in the bunker. That is from the Biden administration. That is a real thing that they have done. I actually did not believe it at first. I thought it was Steven Seagal going in with the Russians to fight for Putin-like fake, as in it was not real. Turns out it was real. These people have lost their minds, and that is why ABC News Chief White House correspondent Jonathan Karl, Clay, is pointing out Republicans have, you know what? How big an advantage? Listen to this.

ABC News’ Jonathan Karl: “The percentage of voters saying they will vote for Republicans in the midterm election is at the highest level since 2010.” pic.twitter.com/uEWE8SCgbY

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 27, 2022

BUCK: Anything less than 60 seats for the Republicans in this midterm, as Joe Biden dodders around, wandering confused with his mask on outside — less than 60 seats — we did not hit our mark. Sixty seats or more.

CLAY: I just wish that we could have the election right now. You know? I mean, to your point — and you’ve been on this for a while — a lot can change over the next seven or eight months, right? Let’s be honest. We’re about to hit to March, and you gotta go all the way to the first week in November, and my concern is just that a lot of people who are angry today, justifiably, the Democrats are basically showing you their hand.

They’re saying, “Hey, we need to make changes on covid right now so that we can hope six months from now people are over their anger and they don’t take it out on us.” That’s their game plan. We cannot allow that to happen. This is… Buck, you said it earlier, and I think you’re right. Everybody should be a single-issue voter right now, and that issue is: Democrats failed on covid.

BUCK: Yes.

CLAY: And if you don’t hold them accountable… I understand there are all different sorts of issues that people care about, a huge panoply of issues that are important in America today. But the number one issue that I believe everybody has to be voting on is: Your elected officials failed you, they failed your kids, they failed your economy.

Everything directly ties into covid, and so if you are voting for a Democrat, you are voting in support of the covid insanity over the past two years, and there have to be consequences. There have to be. They were wrong, and when you are an elected official and you get something this important this wrong, you have to pay the consequences.

BUCK: We’re gonna play that. Now you’re gonna see a whole a rewriting of history, a slow walk back, soft-pedaling as we move into the future of what’s happened here.

Alex Berenson: The Pandemic’s Rightest Man

28 Feb 2022

CLAY: We bring in now Alex Berenson. We were scheduled to talk to him on Friday. He joins us now. Alex, appreciate you making the time. Everything good in the family?

BERENSON: Everything is fine. The emergency is over and say no more.

CLAY: Okay. Good deal. All right. Let’s dive into the latest on covid. I want to know what your reaction was from the CDC’s statements on Friday dealing with mask wearing. Then on Sunday, we had the congressional health officials say, “Oh, by the way, you don’t have to wear a mask on Capitol Hill anymore.” We’ve seen certainly cities and states — New York City and New York memorably — of late saying, “Hey, kids don’t have to wear in the state of New York,” starting Wednesday masks anymore. New York City’s done away with outdoor masking, and they say maybe by March 7th it can go away overall. What are we seeing? And is this all an example not of science but political science based on the data?

BERENSON: Well, I mean, it’s science in the sense that, you know, masks do nothing and, you know, and cloth and surgical masks certainly do nothing and N95 probably do close to nothing unless you, you know, wear them properly. We talked about this for years!

CLAY: Yeah.

BERENSON: So, they are finally following… You know, they have cover to do it right now because Omicron, you know, is fading in the United States, fortunately. There will be another variant, almost certainly. Cases will go back up. Whether that’s in the summer in the South, you know, as has happened two years in a row or whether, you know, something else happens in, let’s say, California, you know, which hasn’t been hit as hard, you know.

The West Coast hasn’t been hit as hard as some other places for whatever reason so they’re a little bit more vulnerable, there will be more covid. But the Democrats know, you know, where the country is. They know this is killing them politically, and the zeitgeist has changed. I don’t know. You mentioned Friday and Sunday. But Saturday night there was maybe the most shocking thing of all was the Saturday Night Live skit where —

CLAY: Which we’re gonna play in this hour for everybody out there you didn’t see it.

BERENSON: I will not step on it, then. I mean, but, you know, if Saturday Night Live — which is, you know, as liberal a place and, unfortunately, as unfunny a place these days as they come — you know, feel that they can make jokes about masks and make jokes about… You know, the skit, really, as your listeners will hear, is more about the attitude of these people, then something has changed.

And, you know, I Substacked about this yesterday, and I said, you know, my joke was — two jokes on this. One, thank God I never have to go to dinner with any of these people ever again. You know. They won’t have me, and I don’t want them. You know. And the second joke is, imagine what they would think if they actually knew what the data about vaccines really says.

BUCK: Well, Alex, that’s what I wanted to ask you next. We’re talking to Alex Berenson, author of Pandemia. Subscribe to his Substack. I get it every day. I’m a subscriber, and it’s been fantastic. Alex, the final stronghold, really, of Fauciism — the one that they view as unassailable — is that vaccines were incredibly effective as stopping hospitalization and death.

Clearly not effective as stopping spread, which they said, and we have the receipts and we played that audio many, many times on the show. That was wrong, full stop. Wrong. I think everybody who just witnessed Omicron in America realizes, it did not stop the spread and really, I don’t know if it stopped the spread at all. I don’t know if anyone can make the case that even 30% or 20% or whatever. But put that aside for a moment. The final stronghold is hospitalization and death. We haven’t heard a lot about updates in the data. What is the data telling us now about that final assertion of Fauciism?

BERENSON: So, it is… It is incredibly clear that the vaccines are less effective against hospitalization and death when it comes to Omicron. You know, that’s inarguable. Whether… Here, you know, listen. Here’s the thing. The (garbled) epidemiology is really complicated. My best take on this is that you, once you’re vaccinated — and you saw this last year, okay? You saw it in Israel. You even saw it in the U.S. last spring.

After that second dose hits, you get a couple months of real protection, real protection from infection and then downstream protection from hospitalization and death. The protection from infection, as you just said, goes away. It goes to zero. It probably goes negative for Omicron, because Omicron is… The spike is different, there’s some evidence of, you know, immune imprinting.

Again, it gets complicated, but I would say there’s pretty good evidence that it’s not zero protection but certainly more likely to be infected. And I think everyone in the United States saw this. They saw people where they personally were vaccinated — and in many cases boosted — and then they got Omicron. So, the question is, do you have some protection either, you know, at the antibody level or at the T-cell level that’s gonna provide protection from really negative outcomes?

And the data is just… It’s just messy and muddy. You probably get some protection, again, in that first few months after the second dose. This against Omicron, I’m talking about. Then it goes away. Then if you boost, you get it back very briefly — more briefly, okay? And that’s why they were talking about a second booster in a place like Israel. But they dropped that because it’s clear that there’s diminishing returns. So what I’m saying to you is, when I tell you we really don’t know but the protection is at best very limited, that is the best answer, okay?

And, but there’s a flip side to this, okay? It’s not just protection against covid. You’re vaccinating healthy people! If there are other risks, whether those risks are cardiac or otherwise to a vaccine, those have to be taken into account before you vaccinate. Even pretending that it’s all free and, you know, it doesn’t disrupt people’s lives when they get sick for 24 hours or whatever.

If there’s other risks, you need to net that out — and we’ve never done that and we’re never going to do it. I think the powers that be are too afraid of what the answer would be. Even if we could do it, they’re not gonna do it. And the big clinical trials from 2020 have been completely disrupted because everybody who was in the placebo arm, everybody who didn’t initially get the vaccine, almost all those people wound up getting the vaccine very shortly thereafter.

And the truth is it’s gonna be really hard to get the data. I’m gonna give you one other fact about this. In the last summer and fall, especially in the fall — in Europe especially where the data is quicker and better — there was a significant rise in all-cause mortality, okay? That rise seems to have ended in Germany and U.K. We should all be very happy about that. But to me that raises the question.

I’m talking about noncovid. I’m talking about mainly people dying from heart attacks and heart disease. What happened last summer and fall to drive that? And if you want to tell me that somehow it was disruption in medical care or people — you know, people didn’t get their care or they were afraid to go to the hospital — you have to tell me why it didn’t happen before that and why it hasn’t happened since then.

And yet it happened in the months following these mass vaccination campaigns all over Europe, and it happened in the U.S. too. And I suspect the answer to that is probably that for some people there’s some cardiotoxicity associated with these vaccines. We know that’s true with myocarditis in young people. We don’t know if the, you know, if the risks extend sort of out past that. And that’s the kind of work that we — as “we,” you know, not we but scientists and we as a country — and scientists as researchers should be doing. We’re not really doing it.

CLAY: Alex, do we have any indication what percentage of Americans have now have Omicron? Buck and I have both had it, a huge percentage of our listenership has certainly had it, and many of them may have had it and not even known it. Do we have any kind of reliable data — I bet the answer is “no,” but — on what percentage of people had Omicron now as we come out of the Omicron surge?

BERENSON: We really… We really don’t. The one good number that I’ve seen — and this is sort of it’s a partial data point, but it’s an interesting one. In the U.K., where they weren’t vaccinating kids under 12 until just recently, and they just… They just started a vaccination campaign, but they really… It’s a really weak vaccination campaign. They really don’t want to vaccinate kids under 12.

But they just sort of didn’t want to go against — you know, they didn’t want to annoy — Pfizer, or I shouldn’t say they didn’t want to annoy Pfizer. For whatever reason, they decided to move forward with this incredibly weak vaccination campaign. The reason I mentioned this is kids under 12 were not being vaccinated, so you could see who had antibodies in that population.

And in the U.K., before Omicron, 60% of all the kids in the U.K. had antibodies. So that tells you how widespread it was and how little damage it was doing to those kids. Now it’s like 98%. So that tells you that at least in Britain, basically anybody who wasn’t already infected with SARS-CoV-2 got it during the last surge. And I suspect it’s the same in the U.S.

BUCK: Alex — we’re speaking to Alex Berenson, author of Pandemia — I have this dream that the people who were pushing all this and were so adamant that they were right — and were really vicious to people like you, specifically, and others who even raised alternative points of view in interpretations of data, whether it’s Fauci or people in the media — will have to defend some of this at some point publicly.

I want there to be debates where someone gets to show up, and I want to see Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg on TV try to defend the mask mandate on planes when masks have been dropped everywhere else. Do you have any faith that there will be accountability for some of this stuff? Do you have any vision for how we can make it happen, ’cause I don’t think this stuff is gone for good; I don’t think you do, either.

BERENSON: No, I don’t. I mean, here. In fact, I just put out on my Substack just before you guys called — and I’ve never heard of this person, but there’s someone on Twitter called “Unacceptable CanadianGirl,” and she just tweeted — she tweeted three hours ago, this is only three hours ago — “I guess everyone owes Dr. Robert Malone, Alex Berenson, Dr. Peter McCullough, Jordan Peterson, and Joe Rogan an apology.” That tweet in three hours has been liked now 30,000 times.

Okay? So, they’re never going to admit it, but they know, and we know they know, and the world knows, okay? And, you know, The Atlantic about a year ago, almost a year ago, wrote a piece about me that was headlined: “The Pandemic’s Wrongest Man,” and so every, you know, few days I put something out on my Substack and something that, like, “I was right about six months before,” you know, or sometimes, you know, 12 months before, and is now being said, you know, and agreed. And I call it “The Pandemic’s Wrongest Man,” and occasionally —

CLAY: Yeah. But, so, Alex, to that point, I’ve seen you point out that Twitter actually — in retrospect now — changed the way that they flagged some of the tweets that got you suspended.

BERENSON: Yeah.

CLAY: And we know you’ve got the lawsuit against Twitter. Do you think it’s possible that Twitter could ever allow you to return based on the shifting guidance that they are putting on your tweets that they labeled as not permissible?

BERENSON: It’s possible. I mean, you know, whether or not, you know, I have to, you know, win not necessarily the whole lawsuit but survive what’s called the motion to dismiss to get them to do that. Whether they’ll do that simply on their own because they’ve seen, you know, I don’t want to speak for Twitter. You know, it’s up to them. I think that I have been, you know, essentially proven correct and should be let back on. But, you know, if they don’t want to let me back on, I…

You know, I have this lawsuit, and I am pursuing it. You know, but again, whether or not people are going to admit this, it’s not just you and I know. It’s that the world knows. And, you know, the guy who wrote that piece about me in The Atlantic, wrote this piece a couple weeks before this. This is in February 2020, and I didn’t have time to put it out. But there’s this amazing paragraph in it about how wonderful the vaccines are, and there’s five sentences in it — and four of the sentences are provably wrong, and the fifth one says we need to collect more data. Okay? So, these people are morons.

BUCK: Sounds like me. (chuckles)

BERENSON: Sounds like me talking to my wife. You know, and they’ve been proven wrong, and they can’t take it back. So what we need to do is focus on a couple things, I think. One, you know, make sure this doesn’t happen again. Make sure there’s never this kind of overreaction. And then I think the second thing, you know, when the Republicans presumably they’re gonna take Congress next year, early next year, what they need to do is chase down the lab leak issue and whether or not Fauci — what he knew and why he tried to discourage anyone from investigating those issues, because that is potentially criminal behavior —

CLAY: Can you come back, by the way, Alex, ’cause we didn’t ask you about that lab leak theory and that lab leak theory is getting a wild amount of attention right now. Can you come back and tell us what you’ve written about that?

BERENSON: Sure. Love to.

CLAY: All right. When we come back, we’ll ask him about that story that the New York Times is flagging like crazy saying that it didn’t come out of a lab.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

BUCK: We are talking to Pandemia author and the man with the best covid Substack out there, Alex Berenson, about all things going on here. Just so you know, breaking news, Alex — and we want to get you on the lab leak theory. We’ve only got about two minutes. But they just ended the mask mandate for schools in California, Washington, and Oregon just in time!

Because the science changes when the politics demands it. These people are a joke. Everyone who… Every mask shamer in the country should be ashamed of themselves. But put that on hold for a second here. The lab leak theory. The New York Times says actually it didn’t come from a lab. You say what?

BERENSON: Real quick — I know I don’t have much time — I actually… I hate to keep talking about the Substack, but I just wrote about this in an extensive piece this morning that that article is a joke. It’s based on a preprint which is a scientific paper that’s been released online that came out this weekend that basically maps cases in Wuhan, early cases and says, “Look, they were all around the seafood market; therefore, the seafood market must have been the source of this.” Here’s the problem.

We’ve known for two years that there were a lot of cases in the seafood market — the seafood — or near it. The seafood market is crowded. It’s in the center of Wuhan. There’s a lot of commerce down there. It’s not very clean. It doesn’t mean that this came out of there! It means that there were cases there. Okay? And the same guys whose names are on this are the people who we know two years ago told Anthony Fauci — including a guy named Kristian Andersen, who was in California at Scripps in Southern California…

He told Tony Fauci privately, “I’m concerned about this. It looks like there’s some features that are not natural,” and six weeks later, he wrote something publicly saying exactly the opposite, which basically made it impossible to investigate the lab leak. This is a guy who needs to be subpoenaed and he and Fauci and all the others who were on a conference call that happened on February 1st, 2020, and they were just trying to fill smoke. They found (garbled) University of Arizona to carry water for them. This guy has written the same paper now basically three times. So, this is a joke — and all it is, is an effort to obscure how much evidence there is in favor of the lab leak theory.

CLAY: Alex, fantastic, as always. Go read his Substack.

The Embarrassing Ignorance of Howard Stern

28 Feb 2022

BUCK: We refuse to allow narratives that are a lie to just continue to grow and be pushed around, particularly because you could see they seized on the wording that Trump used in the interview that Clay and I did with him last week in Mar-a-Lago. They’ve seized on this to create this, “Republicans are backing Putin.” This is a lie, and Howard Stern, who… I mean, I never was a fan of his work. Would you say you liked his work?

CLAY: I used to be impressed with Howard Stern’s rebelliousness, and I enjoyed listening to some of his long-form interviews. But since covid started, he has been an abject embarrassment. The Howard Stern of the ’90s and the 2000s — the Private Parts Howard Stern — would despise what he has become. He is now The Man.

BUCK: Yeah. He’s a tool of the apparatus, the apparatus that he once proclaimed to be fighting against. And it’s actually sad on some level to watch it, but here he is going along with the talking point about Republicans.

STERN: I hate the Soviet Union. I hate the communist regime. I always hated communism because it always turns into an autocratic situation like in China where they cut off your freedoms. I hate… I hate the fact that… I used to love the Republicans and their stance firmly anti-communist, firmly anti — pro-capitalist, anti-communist and certainly a staunch defender of free people and free elections. I voted for many Republicans. I don’t see how I’ll ever get back to that. They’ve just totally disappointed me in their support of Vladimir Putin, the praise they heap on him, Trump’s praise of Vladimir Putin. This guy’s a f(bleep)ing animal, and I wish he was dead like I wish Hitler was dead.

BUCK: The Republicans do not support Vladimir Putin. I just don’t know how much more we can scream this from the rooftops. Please stop repeating this lie. Libs and Howard Stern and whoever else, stop. The Republicans are the ones who armed the Ukrainians so that they can actually fight back with Javelin anti-tank missiles. Trump sent sniper rifles and missiles, which is why you’re seeing all the video of the wreckage of armored personnel carriers and tanks all over the country Ukraine right now. Obama’s regime was too cowardly to do that.

CLAY: This is just further evidence of — as Rush would call them — “Drive-By Media,” but the number of people that don’t even read articles or don’t do any research at all. It would be a fascinating story, if you’re a kid out there and you’re in college or you’re in high school, probably get some of these questions like I do, Buck, where people are thinking, “Hey, I want to do a paper on something interesting,” this would be a fascinating story to examine.

Our interview with Donald Trump on Tuesday and how quickly it was turned into the entire essence of that interview being, “Oh, Trump praised Vladimir Putin,” which is not at all reflected in the interview, it reminds me of the “very fine people” lie which obviously took root and Biden used it as part of the justification for why he was gonna run for president. I know a lot of you out there remember that this lie that Trump braced Nazi protesters, neo-Nazi protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia.

When if you actually look at everything that he said, it was the exact opposite of that, and so it’s amazing how quickly — this was where Trump was correct — the fake news element of our world will grab a 30-second clip. Remember, he talked to us for a full hour, talked to us for a full hour, and really analyzed the Ukraine situation in an intelligent, I thought, manner. And they took off a joke and a piece of sarcasm and an analysis of a tactical issue and turned it into an endorsement of everything Vladimir Putin was doing, and they’re still trying to make that argument almost a week after our interview.

BUCK: It’s amazing to see how there’s no introspection ever, even about something as serious as this, from the media. Also interesting, isn’t it, how many times have you and I been asked, Clay, by these people that are commenting on this. Has anyone reached out to you from Politico or the Washington Post, “What did you take President Trump’s…? You were in the interview. What did he mean?” Of course not.

CLAY: Not one person.

BUCK: I love that they go, “Some right-wing show,” like we’re sitting by the side of the road somewhere with placards and trying to convince people the end is near as they drive by. It’s the biggest radio show by audience, according to Nielsen, in America. So I don’t know. Maybe they should some idea of what we’re doing here and who’s actually talking to the former president. But can’t expect the media to do their homework or be honest. And that’s what we see from all this.

Beware of the Narratives and Don’t Underestimate Putin

28 Feb 2022

BUCK: Clay, I’ve gotta say, you’re seeing all this analysis of Putin might be crazy; Putin is erratic. Again, I don’t tell you that I have all the answers here, and I think there are a lot of people running around acting like they do have the answers on this because I’ve just seen how people — very smart, very attuned people — get major foreign policy-related issues quite wrong.

I think the foreign policy establishment in America has been pretty consistently wrong when there’s consensus over the last 20… Well, some would say “the last forever,” but certainly over the last 20 years, mostly in the Middle East and South Asia but in other places as well. I would be cautious about saying Putin’s crazy. I think that’s something that people might want to hear right now, or maybe they don’t because they’re worried that that means he’ll use nukes.

But they think that there’s no strategy behind this. He thought about this for a long time. I wouldn’t comfort anybody by telling them Russia’s plans have already fallen on the rocks, so to speak, have come apart on the shoals and maybe now it will be a matter of days before he’s retreating. He knows a lot about this region and has a pretty good understanding of what he’s trying to accomplish. So I just think… People that say they’re in Putin’s head, Clay. I think they’re going too far. I would caution against thinking that they know the mind of this man.

CLAY: One of the guys that’s been the best, I think, at sharing information — Marco Rubio, senator from Florida — tweeted out in the last 30 minutes or so that based on what he is seeing and hearing, that now there is going to be an old school-style medieval siege of Kiev —

BUCK: Yes.

CLAY: — trying to cut it off, that the attempt to just march the army right in and have all of the defenders lay down their weapons and effectively decapitate the government has not worked. But now you enter into a long-running siege. And I think that’s an important, interesting discussion here, Buck, because then it gets into — and Marco Rubio’s asking this question, too — how committed are all of these alliance countries that are supporting the resistance in Ukraine to helping to get materiel into Kiev to allow the fight to continue?

Not just, by the way, weapons, but also fuel, food, everything that would allow a modern metropolis like Kiev is to continue. And to your point on Vladimir Putin’s mental state, what I understand most intriguing now is, as things start to spin — I think it’s fair to say — a little bit out of control, every day into the future gets harder and harder to predict. Is it possible…?

When you look at the ruble dropping 20%, with the Russian stock market being closed, interest rates doubling, effectively, overnight, and some of those oligarchs out there, the billionaires that have helped to support Vladimir Putin, is it possible that that economic pressure that’s brought to bear starts to put Putin himself under pressure in his native country in a way he has not been in a long time?

When you got everybody standing in line, Buck, trying to get cash out of the ATM because they’re worried about whether the banks are going to have runs on them, that is something where some of that quiet resistance that Putin has dealt with in the past could suddenly become more pronounced and more prominent. I think it’s an intriguing thing to contemplate.

BUCK: I do. I’ve seen some analysis of this, and I would tend to agree with Putin could not survive this as an abject disaster where he’s humiliated — mean his regime, his power. I don’t know if he could survive that back home, although if anyone could it’s Vladimir Putin who is a true author torn, a true dictator. But it certainly would rock his rule to its foundation.

On the other hand, when we look at what’s being done, I try to caution everybody because I can see this narrative of a glorious Ukrainian resistance kicking Russian soldiers’ butts all over the country and Putin’s gonna go back with his tail between his legs, I think — I don’t know — that underestimates the planning, the will, and the goals of Vladimir Putin in this situation.

I just don’t want to underestimate the opponent in this context, and I think people that are getting caught up in the, yeah, there’s the ghost of Kiev which apparently doesn’t even… It’s not even real, the fighter plane that’s shooting down all these other planes, the Snake Island situation which turns out they actually surrendered it. There’s all the — you know, the grannies taking up arms. Okay, fine. You know, when it’s true, that’s one thing.

Some of this stuff isn’t even true. Do not underestimate. Look at what has happened over the last 10 years. Somehow this guy oversteps and gets what he wants time and time again. Maybe this is the turning point. Maybe this is where he gets slapped down. But the fact that we’re not even willing to go after the Russian energy sector —

CLAY: That’s the big issue.

BUCK: Here is a Ukrainian member of Parliament, Alexey Goncharenko, who is calling for the embargo of Russian oil, saying, “Look, if you guys want to really hit Russia, you gotta cut off their oil exports.”

GONCHARENKO: We need embargo on Russian oil and gas because now Russian oil and gas is full of Ukrainian blood! More than 350 civilians are killed, 16 children are killed, and their blood — the innocent blood — is inside Russian gas and oil. So embargo — ban — Russian gas and oil. That is something from moral point of view but certainly from a practical point of view too. Russia is just a big gas station of the world. Two-thirds of their exports are oil and gas. One half of revenues of Russian state budget is gas and oil! So let’s stop it, and you will see that Putin will surrender just in the days. And that will enormously help not only us but the whole world.

BUCK: Half the budget of the Russian government comes from it. Think about this. Now, China will still buy it. We know that so they do have an outlet, another people. There are gonna be black market sales of oil. But, Clay, eventually the very uncomfortable conversation that’s gonna have to happen in this country if the government is really devoted to standing for the principle of democracy in Ukraine is, “Okay. We really want this thing to end?

“Do the American people want to see their gas prices go up 100% and all products along with it or 10% or 30% or whatever the number may be, a dramatic increase in prices and cost of living for all Americans to stand with Ukraine? Are people willing to do that? Do people want to do that? Is that in the interests of the American people?” This is something you’re going to have to think about, I think, going forward.

CLAY: And I think we need to continue to hammer Democrats who allowed our own production of oil and gas to be dialed back down. We could in theory, if we really got rolling, make up for much of the oil and gas that Russia would otherwise be providing to Europe, around the world. We need to get Saudi Arabia, who we have decent relationships with, to agree to pump more oil and gas.

But, yes, he’s right. You can’t win an economic embargo when you allow the most valuable asset of the country that you are economically embargoing to continue to be sold — and, by the way, Buck, to continue to be sold at a higher and higher price, because the price of gas is going up due to the crisis that’s existing right now.

BUCK: This would be like someone like, “I’m gonna boycott OutKick.com. I’m only reading their sports coverage,” like, well, that’s really not gonna do it.

CLAY: It is a unbelievable failure. Could be far more successful.

Kudlow on How Trump Would’ve Beaten Putin

28 Feb 2022

CLAY: We’ve been talking a lot about Ukraine, a lot about the masking sudden disappearance as we get closer to tomorrow’s State of the Union address with Joe Biden. And the American public, despite the fact that Democrats are trying to in some way argue that Trump is still colluding with Russia, they’ve so committed to that narrative that they aren’t willing to actually recognize that it’s completely untrue.

But the American public, as we said, 62% of them believe, according to a Harvard-Harris poll, that there would not have been an invasion of Ukraine by Vladimir Putin if Donald Trump was still in charge — and 59% of them believe that Joe Biden’s own weakness helped to lead Vladimir Putin into this charge. We’re gonna talk about whether or not Putin himself could be in trouble going forward.

But Larry Kudlow from CNBC actually spoke out on what he believes would have happened if Donald Trump were still in charge and this situation in Ukraine had arisen. He did a really good job laying it out. I believe this, Buck, was at CPAC, if I’m not mistaken, where Larry Kudlow was making this analysis and discussion. Let’s listen.

KUDLOW: Trump would have said Thursday, “I am ordering my energy secretary to accept and authorize these LNG export applications. I am ordering my interior secretary to open up all federal lands to drilling and production, and I will encourage our great fossil fuel industry to open the spigots, make as much money as you can, hire as many workers as you will, pay them high wages as you must, and that’s how we will defeat Putin and Russia.” That’s what Trump would have done.

BUCK: He would have done things differently; that’s for sure. I think even the Democrats would have to admit it. It would have been very different had Trump been the president up to this point, given what we’ve already seen from Vladimir Putin. The issue of energy and energy security and the energy sector, I think, Clay, is something that now people see much more clearly. You know, we had the rising price at the pump. We’ve seen the Biden administration, day one — literally day one of the administration — comes in, cancels the Keystone XL pipeline.

Why? Doesn’t stop… Think about this, everyone. It doesn’t even prevent… If you are a climate-change worshiper, it doesn’t even prevent that oil from going to market. It just means it doesn’t come through the U.S. and it’s not something that we have access to more easily and will be as part of the export, take it out west, they’ll take it across Canada and sell it to the Asian market across the Pacific. That’s the likeliest scenario. So it doesn’t even save the planet if they believe that. But yet here is Jen Psaki, who instead of just admitting what Larry Kudlow said is true, wants to remind everybody, “Yeah, we just need to, like, take more bicycles and, like, more windmills.” Play it.

Jen Psaki says Biden wants to reduce our dependence on foreign oil by using green energy, not by expanding U.S. energy production pic.twitter.com/NqCKmzkCBN

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 27, 2022

BUCK: Exactly the wrong lesson. This is what Democrats do over and over again. They have shut down oil production in as many ways as they can, the Democrats have. It was obviously stupid and now they’re saying, “We’ll just use less oil. Find a way to do that.” No.

CLAY: Yeah. When you can’t actually find a way to do that — and we need to have this discussion, too, Buck, because there is this unwillingness right now to cut off Russian oil. And until we’re willing to cut off Russian oil, we’re basically fighting a battle with one hand tied behind our backs because Vladimir Putin is still getting the opportunity to bring in all of the oil and gas money that he already was. And if we are truly going to ratchet up pressure to him to a degree, we may start to feel some significant political pressure in his own country. We have to have oil and gas also included in the sanctions.

C&B Take a Deep Dive Into What’s Happening in Ukraine

28 Feb 2022

BUCK: Right now, on Ukraine, I just want to give you a few words of caution if you’re paying close attention, as many people are to this issue, if you are particularly transfixed as part of the news cycle on what’s happening over there. I started my career in the CIA Iraq office as an analyst, and what you may find noteworthy about the history of such a position is that that was also an office of the CIA that was certainly very much at the center of the storm around WMD in Iraq and those political debates and what was going to happen when we invaded Iraq, and will we be greeted as liberators and all the rest of it, right?

And here’s what I could tell you having spent time analyzing — years of my life analyzing and then even time in country about — Iraq and Afghanistan. There’s always a lot of stuff you can’t anticipate, a lot of stuff you don’t know, and many things that will come out of nowhere and surprise people — even those who think they are the most well informed, have access to the best information and so forth. I bring this up just because on this Ukraine conflict, it is very difficult right now to sift out what is meant for morale perhaps on one side of the other versus what is factual.

There are memes and deep fakes and all kinds of things flying around the internet. It turns out, for example, that the Snake Island sailors who had that very amusing and stirring line about , “Bleep you, Russian warship,” they surrendered and were taken into custody. I don’t even know if the audio is real of that. But the point is they surrendered, which I think was the right move under the circumstances too. I’ll just add that. They were completely outgunned on an island.

They can’t fight back. So what are they really going to do by fighting at that point? But, anyway, point being there’s a lot of information that’s reported on that is not true and that ends up being either put out intentionally by one side as fake or… Steven Seagal, for example, is not in fact fighting alongside Russians. Not that we ever said this, but he is not in fact fighting alongside the Russians, and this did get out there.

CLAY: That would be amazing, by the way, if he had been.

BUCK: His Aikido is pretty impressive, but I think he’s a little past his period for this kind of a fight. But, yeah, no, it would be amazing. It would be amazing. Point being, he’s not involved, so I just wanted to urge that note of caution. Clay, I want to turn this to you because people keep asking, “Where do I think this is going? What’s gonna happen?” No one knows, including Vladimir Putin, what this looks like in a week. So this is a highly dynamic situation.

There are arguments being made right now that the Ukrainians are just kicking Russian soldiers’ asses all over the country, fighting much better. That may entirely be true. I’m just urging hold and wait before you come to conclusions because the narrative also starts to push policy decision-making. The narrative starts to be, “Oh, well, if only we gave more munitions, or if only maybe we gave more training or did something else, we could push this thing to its terminus very quickly.”

There’s also the concern about Russian nuclear weapons. Clay, everyone needs to watch this with a very skeptical eye in terms of the reporting. I’m rooting for the Ukrainians to expel the Russians, obviously, people want Russia to stop this war of aggression. Fine. But there’s a lot of reporting out there that turns out to not be true.

CLAY: No doubt. Here’s what we know to be true. The Russian stock market is closed today. That’s significant because of all the pressure that is coming to bear on an economic level on Russia based on sanctions that are being put in place. The ruble, the Russian currency, was down 20% in trading today. Interest rates over doubled from 9% in Russia to 20%. And just in the last 30 minutes or so, the New York Times has reported that the World Cup, FIFA, is banning Russia from participating in the World Cup.

This is significant ’cause the World Cup is taking place in November of this year, and Russia was in the process of trying to qualify as a part of the European group and several of the other teams that they were scheduled to play against said, “We won’t play against Russia while this invasion is going on.” Okay. Big-picture question that I have for you, Buck. You’ve done so much of this game theory strategizing, sitting down and trying to analyze where things go.

If… If… Again, we stress “if.” If Russia is truly struggling, which there does seem to be evidence that they are, in their efforts to take over Ukraine — maybe more so than they anticipated, taking more losses, having heavier resistance than they would have anticipated — are you at all nervous that Vladimir Putin becomes enraged over being embarrassed and decides that he has to take this to the next level psychologically, trying to get into his head?

In other words, a lot of people out there have heard, just take it outside of Russia and Ukraine, it’s not uncommon, unfortunately. Two guys get in a fistfight. One guy gets his ass kicked. Sometimes that guy then decides to accelerate it by bringing a weapon, right — bringing a weapon, a knife or gun — to try to get back over the ass kicking that he took in that fight. Everybody has heard and or seen a situation like that.

Maybe you bring in other people to try to kick that guy’s butt because you’re embarrassed by what happened to you. You are the big bully, and the big bully gets whipped. Are you at all concerned that Vladimir Putin in that analogy could be the big bully that is starting to get his nose bloodied, and when that happens, that he decides to accelerate rather than dial back the levels of aggression that he’s committed so far?

BUCK: Yeah, I’m very concerned that what you’re going to see is the frustration of this Russian blitzkrieg — and we’ve been using that term on this show stretching back for weeks, and that is what we’ve seen. You could really call it a limited blitzkrieg. It was supposed to be very fast, overrun them using only a portion, though, of the Russian forces that had gathered around Ukraine’s borders, maybe about 20% or so, 10 to 20%.

And the frustration could become such that they decide to be much more severe. Right now, they’re pretty much going — and again I stress, we’re relying… There are some people we’re in contact with and we’re seeing reporting from in Ukraine which is very helpful. We’re relying on very imperfect information here. Ukraine’s a very large country; there’s fighting going on all over the country. So that’s why people that have… Avoid simplistic narratives about what’s going on with this.

That is really what I was trying to tell you, because I’ve seen this play out before in other connections. And it’s what I’m trying to tell everybody listening. And I would say there may be a massive escalation in his willingness to have civilian casualties. There’s already been dozens of them, civilians killed, that we know of. But this could rapidly escalate. He wanted to avoid that because I think the strategy was clearly overwhelm the armed forces, have them capitulate, have the Ukrainian government flee with its tail between its legs, install the puppet.

I believe the Donbas region is considered effectively, by Putin, considered Russian, that is Russian soil, they’ve given out Russian passports. Now, the internet can say no to that, but like at Crimea. We didn’t really do much about that. What about everything between the capital and the Donbas region? I think they’re hoping to seize critical infrastructure and create what they’ll call a “peacekeeping operation,” even after they’ve started the war or some kind of stability operation pending negotiations with the central government.

Where they have a gun to the head of the central government in Ukraine saying, “Agree to all these things while we have this area that’s under our de facto control.” That’s what I think happened. But, Clay, to your point, I’ve seen reports that there have been a few thousand Russian casualties. That seems very high to me. That seems not particularly credible at first glance. Again, I don’t know, I’m not there, and I don’t have access to the high side, the classified side anymore. So I’m just going to news reports like other people are.

But Putin on the caged or rather cornered Putin point — not caged, the opposite of caged. On the cornered Putin point, this is a vicious guy who if you see what he was willing to do in Chechnya and you see the lengths he was willing to go to against his enemies whether it’s dioxin poisoning against a Ukrainian politician about a decade ago, the polonium poisoning of the Russian defector in the U.K., there is a savagery that he will be willing to unleash here. I don’t think he goes nuclear, but he also knows that’s always in the back pocket, in the back of our minds.

I don’t think that will ever happen. I pray to God that will never happen. But a massive escalation of violence against civilians here to achieve his ends of control of Ukraine? That’s what I think we could see in the days and weeks ahead. And I don’t think everyone’s psychological prepared for that is watching this because right now it feels like the Ukrainians are just whooping the Russians. That’s the sense you get from the media.

CLAY: Another discussion I want to have — and I’ll tee us up when we come back on this Ukraine situation. Is it possible that Vladimir Putin is becoming so weakened — and again, based on the fact that certainly Russia has not been able to rapidly take control over Ukraine — that in his homeland, where there is a run going on right now on ATMs, where the ruble has collapsed by 20% overnight, where the stock market was not even able to open.

Is it possible that Vladimir Putin himself could be facing severe potential danger in his own country dealing with his own power? Could this blow up on him in a way that maybe most of us did not anticipate, because of the failures that he’s seeing in Ukraine and the uniform response that we are now seeing from the rest of the world, so to speak, as it pertains to economic restrictions, in particular, Buck, on all of these oligarchs who are billionaires who are suddenly afraid. “Uh-oh. People may be coming after our assets in some of these other countries.” How much pressure might we see there? I think that’s a really intriguing question too.

Fake News! Outright Lies About Trump’s Interview with Us

28 Feb 2022

CLAY: The fog of misinformation — the fog of disinformation, I would say, Buck — outright lies, continues to emanate surrounding Donald Trump based on his interview with us from Tuesday. And it’s been expanded to include many Republicans. And the argument out there — and, Buck, this is crazy. The argument out there that was still being made on Sunday is that many Republicans are praising Vladimir Putin and big fans of Russia when the reality is that’s almost a nonexistent position anywhere, irrespective of political party. But I want to play these two clips for you guys from over the weekend. First, CBS’ John Dickerson says that when Trump said that… Well, just listen to what the genius comments in his analysis and how dishonest it is. Listen to this.

BUCK: Clay —

CLAY: That’s a lie. It’s just such a lie.

BUCK: That’s Grade A, 101, epitome of fake news. It would be as though — and people can, please, go back. It’s up at ClayandBuck.com. Go back to the podcast of it. Listen to the actual interview we did that apparently melted the internet for about, well…

CLAY: It’s still going a week later.

BUCK: Yeah. We were down in Mar-a-Lago. Listen to what he’s saying in context. Within a couple of lines of this Trump says, “This never would have happened when I was president,” because he would have stopped it, because obviously he opposes it. That’s the implication of what he’s saying. He went on at CPAC. I was at CPAC this weekend holding up the Clay and Buck flag for us, and Trump was very clearly opposed to what Putin is doing here.

Clay, if you said… A person could make the argument that, “So-and-so has made a brilliant maneuver here, but I disagree with that,” and they kept out the “but I disagree with that,” that’s just effectively a lie, right? This is a lie of omission. This is dishonesty. Taking that line from a long… We spent an hour with him talking and we spent about a solid 10 or 12 minutes on just Ukraine. They’re lying to the country about the former president.

CLAY: And they’re using our audio in the process, and when he says, “Oh, it’s wonderful,” that is sarcasm. I can’t believe I… When he says, “Oh, it’s wonderful,” that is sarcasm, and I’ll just give you an example. If you got a call today and somebody said, “Hey, your kid’s in the principal’s office because he got in a fight and he’s suspended and you need to leave work right now and go pick him up,” you might respond by saying, “Oh, that’s wonderful.”

It wouldn’t mean that you were excited about it. Some of you out there for the holidays, if you’re wife comes in and she says, “Hey,” by the way, love my mother-in-law, “my mom is coming and she’s gonna stay with us the for two weeks,” you might respond, “Oh, wonderful,” not meaning that you’re excited about it, all right? So that’s a lie. And, Buck, it’s a lie. That’s an essay that was written, right?

That’s CBS, dishonest, total fake news written — and that wasn’t the only part. Chuck Schumer came out. I saw where Hillary Clinton just said this morning on MSNBC, continuing the lie about Republicans praising Putin. Here is Chuck Schumer saying Donald Trump is despicable for praising that thug Putin. Listen.

SCHUMER: To hold such an amoral man with such vicious actions is just despicable and shows how little moral compass Donald Trump has. But also, he’s very shortsighted because, as I said, the Ukrainian resistance will be fierce, and I believe that the sanctions that the president has put in will constrict Russian ability to function as a strong economy. So I don’t think these initial claims by Trump or Pompeo are going to be regarded as accurate as we move on in time.

BUCK: Let’s take a moment to understand. Why are they going to such lengths, Clay? There’s a war in Ukraine. Trump is not president. Trump is not the commander-in-chief right now. So what is this all about? They’re creating a narrative that is at a minimum one of distraction, right, because what is the immediate implication? Joe Biden has been pounded on this last week, when we’re looking at, “Would this happen under Trump?” Joe Biden’s been in office a year. Russia has already invaded Ukraine.

Trump is in office four years, no invasion of Ukraine, no invasion of anywhere by Russia in its territory in Europe and Trump fighting back actually pretty aggressively against Russian paramilitaries in Syria, blew up 150 to 200 of them in the desert when they were threatening Kurdish allies in the fight against ISIS. So why are they doing this? Because the alternative is the obvious recognition that anybody would have that this is occurring while Biden is president.

Because Putin realizes Democrats are weak, don’t live in reality, oppose fossil fuels ’cause they worship this weird climate change ideology — and Biden’s national security team is a bunch of consensus-driven, latte drinkers who want to hang out in Brussels and not people that actually want to or know how to play the game across the chessboard from Vladimir Putin effectively. So Trump becomes the bad guy and is a distraction from the obvious recognition of Joe Biden’s a buffoon. Of course, this happens on his watch.

CLAY: I think that’s well said. And, by the way, it’s also not registering with the American public. I thought this was significant over the weekend. I think this came out on Friday or Saturday. I’m not sure which one. A Harvard-Harris poll, 62% of Americans believe that Vladimir Putin wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine if Donald Trump was still president. Sixty-two percent — and, by the way, a high percentage of Democrats (I think it was like 37% of Democrats) even believe that. And, Buck, 59% of Americans believe that one reason Putin invaded Ukraine was because Joe Biden is weak. Those are big percentages, and that’s, to your point, Democrats are trying to hide what the real story is here, which is their leader is failing, and that’s why the Ukraine situation happened. And if Trump were there, it wouldn’t have.

BUCK: At some level, the propaganda becomes pathetic.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: We’ve seen pathetic propaganda from Democrat regimes, or Democrat mouthpieces in the past. One of my favorites — remember this, Clay? — was back in the first year of the Trump presidency. Do you remember what they were calling the booming economy? “The Obama economy.” Eighteen months into the Trump presidency, the Obama economy. Two years in, by about year two and a half, Year Three of the Trump administration, “the Obama economy” thing became too silly for anyone to say it out loud.

They were pushing that for the first two years across the board. We’re at the same level here. Biden is the commander-in-chief. He’s been there for a year. This has happened on his watch, and people can look at some of the very clear decision-making. Nord Stream 2. Fossil fuel decisions. They’re even trying to say that Trump weakened NATO! Facts first, folks.

I think, is that a CNN thing I just said? Oh, gosh. Facts. Let’s just say facts! NATO was stronger with greater U.S. troop deployment to NATO after the Trump presidency than before the Trump presidency and NATO allies were spending more in their own defense and taking it more seriously after the Trump presidency than… Those are facts. That’s not even up for dispute.

CLAY: This reminds me, too, of the Paul Krugmans of the world in the New York Times who tried to get the idea of a “Biden Boom.” Remember, like, almost immediately Biden comes into the office, and they tried to say all the time, “Oh, it’s about the Biden Boom, the Biden Boom, the Biden Boom,” and then we hit 7.5% inflation and people are actually making less money in real dollars when you look at that inflation rate relative to what their overall increase in wages are, and guess what, Buck? The Biden Boom, it vanished in a heartbeat. I haven’t seen that, but they tried to get that phrase out there rolling.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

HILLARY: I do think it’s important to support, uh, both the Ukrainian military and then, uh, — depending upon what happens and how quickly events unfold — uh, supporting those who are putting up resistance. But I — I want to make uh — another point, which is uh, that we have to also make sure that within our own country, uh, we are calling out those people who are, uh, giving aid and comfort to Vladimir Putin, who are talking about what a genius he is, what a smart move it is, uh, who are, unfortunately, uh, being broadcast, uh, by Russian, uh, media, uh, not only inside Russia but in Europe to demonstrate, uh, the division within our own country.

BUCK: Welcome back to the Clay and Buck show. Again, Hillary, one of the most practiced, fluent, and shameless liars in the history of I think not just American politics, I think you put her up there against anybody. This is a woman who will lie always and about anything, and she’s taking… He used the line “genius.” We’re just at the same place with this Clay. They simply do not care that it is not true. They are using propaganda against the former president so that no one stops to think, “Wow, the Biden regime is a straight-up dumpster fire of toxic waste that everybody should stay far away from.”

CLAY: It isn’t working, but it is a sign of how desperate they are, and I think it’s important for everybody out there listening, if you didn’t listen to our interview with Donald Trump on Tuesday. It’s up on the podcast. You can go see it for yourself. But, Buck, it is so illustrative of how people don’t even bother to listen to an entire interview. They pull 30 or 45 seconds of a clip — like we just saw CBS do, like we just saw Hillary Clinton try to do — in order to distract everyone from the failures of the Biden administration.

And again, the positive here is I think the vast majority of the American public are seeing through it. When you hear 62% — this the-Harvard-Harris poll — of Americans believe as you and I do and I think most of our listeners do, that if Donald Trump were in office, that Vladimir Putin wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine and that 59% of them on top of that believe one reason he did so is because of Biden’s weakness, that’s how desperate they are to try to attach this to Trump and find another excuse.

BUCK: Here’s a quick foreign policy review of the Trump administration for everybody — and you know this, but I think it’s important to hear it because you won’t hear it anywhere else, really, in the media. Trump was right on China. Trump was right on renegotiating NAFTA, the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement. Trump was right on not starting any new wars. Trump was right on accelerating the campaign to end ISIS and take back Raqqah. You go down the list of foreign policy successes.

Okay, he didn’t solve North Korea single-handedly, which no administration has made any real progress on in over 30 years. But, okay, there was no downside to the talk. We were told, “Oh, it’s gonna end…” Actually, the missiles stopped being fired by North Korea. You know they just saw yesterday, at least there was reporting on it, Clay? It looks like North Korea might have fired off another missile just to sort of show everybody what’s what.

Clay and Buck

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