BUCK: It’s fascinating to watch as the Democrats try to maintain control of the narrative in all that’s happened. Let’s just take a step back. A moment of brief review here, if we could — a moment of brief review. We have gone through a winter now with, in some causes, all-time high covid case rates, okay? We’ve gone through the winter. We’ve had a lot of hospitalizations, a lot of deaths, despite a mass vaccination program that was mandatory — mandatory — in so many states and the fact that we are now on, for some places, a third or even fourth booster or shot.

So, this is called failure, failure to stop the spread. They did not have the vaccination campaign because they wanted everyone to be safe. That’s not what they said. They wanted you to not spread it to other people, so they had to force you to get this shot, right? It turned out that didn’t work, and you also had the Biden administration preside over more deaths in a year — and if you even make it a 10-month versus 10-month comparison, Trump versus Biden — worse under Biden than Trump.

It is a disaster. I think the CDC should be torn down to the studs and something worthwhile should be built in its place because the CDC made everything worse. The CDC was atrocious the whole time. I would note that Bill Maher on his show, Clay, also brought up something that I’ve talked about many times in the past which was how horrible, not just the CDC but specifically Dr. Fauci, was about refusing to focus resources, attention, and messaging to most at-risk communities for HIV.

Instead, they wanted to scare the entire country because they thought that was somehow a better approach, which, as you know — focused protection was something that was talked about with covid — focused protection on disease and virus should always be a strategy. Find those that are most at-risk and do what you can to help and protect them. But here we have two different approaches. Here’s Ron DeSantis.

I was just in Florida for a week. It’s so free down there, Clay. It’s so amazing. It’s so, great. I was down there. This is what you live with. See, it’s funny. You leave Nashville and go to L.A., and you experience the reverse of what I have when I go down to Florida and come back to New York. There’s people double masked outside with N95 masks on all over the place here like lunatics. There’s Ron DeSantis pointing out that kids would have been locked out of school in 2020 in the whole state of Florida if it were not for him.

DESANTIS: If it wasn’t for me, the kids would have been locked out of school in 2020 in the state of Florida. That’s just the reality, because that’s where all this was coming from. So we stood in the breach. We fought back. We stood for our kids. And now people are trying to rewrite history saying, “Oh, no, no, we — we — we supported it! Everyone wanted the schools open.” That is just not true, and so we were right on that, and they were grievously, grievously wrong.

BUCK: I work that’s what I want to get to here, Clay: We were right; they were wrong. It’s not okay to say, “Oh, gosh, we’re finally gonna be able to have our lives back!” No. They were wrong because otherwise they will bring this crap back.

CLAY: There need to be consequences for being wrong. They were wrong on defund the police. They were all wrong on shutting down our schools. And in particular, for Ron DeSantis, Buck, you just came back from Florida. We’ve got a place in Florida, and we went down to Florida in May of 2020 when just about everything was still shut down, and we were contemplating moving our entire family to Florida just for that reason, because Ron DeSantis was the first guy who came out and said (summarized), “All Florida schools are gonna be open.

“And not only are all Florida schools gonna be open; we’re gonna play all sports,” right? “We’re gonna have kids be able to play football. We’re gonna have kids be able to play baseball and soccer and everything else.” Not only did Florida open up, they did it without masks, and they did it in a safe and effective and — actually, yes– scientific way. And that’s why there need to be public policy consequences.

Because it is the essence of democracy that people who make good decisions for the country should be rewarded and people who make poor decisions for the country, Buck, should be penalized. And that is why we need an overwhelming red wave ’cause this isn’t going away. Look at what the Boston mayor is saying, Buck, like she doesn’t ever want masks to go away. I think this is important the distinction between the two.

BUCK: Here she is, the mayor of Boston, Michelle Wu, last Tuesday.

WU: Covid will be around for a while. Even after we were through this surge, we know it is likely that next fall, next winter there likely will be another surge. But, in the meantime, as we’re tracking these numbers, these protections are not permanent. They are to make sure that we are safe in the most urgent moments, and we will continue to take steps to balance that, uh (sputters) guarantee of safety through public health policies that are (pause) responsive and clear.

BUCK: No, no, no, no, no. Not gonna let this go. First of all, the guarantee of safety? Does anyone really think that there’s a guarantee of safety from any of these policies, whether it’s Lysoling your groceries or mask up between bites on the plane or mask your kids in school (but not in the rest of their lives) or mask when you’re in the Knoxville airport, Clay, but not everywhere else than that. It’s all so stupid. And I’m sorry that people…

A lot of them, they went to fancy schools, and they think they’re important, they think they’re smart. They couldn’t think this stuff through on their own. So they were wrong — need to keep repeating that. But you’ll notice the way that she sets this up here, is it’s not forever. It’s just when there’s a critical need for it, and there’s gonna be a critical need for it next fall too when the new variant comes. So this is forever if you think about it in terms of the covid state of emergency will be fluctuating but never gone for good as far as the libs are concerned.

CLAY: Buck, I flew cross-country last night late, and I was watching, by the way, 1883 — a really good television show.

BUCK: Finally!

CLAY: It is very good. I caught up on Curb Your Enthusiasm. And I decided to test something. The Southwest Airlines has announced they’re bringing back alcohol on February 16th which is a sign whether you’re a drinker or not when you can get alcohol on an upper flight, things start to feel a little bit more normal, right?

I know there’s a lot of you out there who may have a little bit of nervousness about flying that alcohol that you can get on an airplane maybe makes the trip a little bit easier, all right? I decided to test something. So I just left my mask down below my nose for the entire flight. Now, I had a drink. You know, they brought a drink, and I had a little bit of a snack so I was eating that, but I was just sitting there watching my shows.

Not one mention the entire flight of how I needed to pull my mask up. I am telling you: I want every single person… I was just thinking, I think that they have sort of done away with the policy of aggressively sort of managing, “Oh, get your mask up!” How many times have you heard over the past two years, Buck, if you’ve been on an airplane, “Sir, mask back up,” you know, because drops down a little bit below your nose, certainly if it’s down below your mouth. Not one word.

And I think they’ve had a change in policy even though they haven’t announced it, they still say, “Hey, you have to have a mask,” everything else. But the idea that flight attendants are gonna be walking around obsessively telling you to pull up your mask? That era is over. Small, little rebellion, just pull it down to your face a little bit until you’re asked to pull it back up. Didn’t happen to me for a four-hour flight. Nobody mentioned a word to me.

BUCK: Are you…? Were we the only one with the mask? Maybe the airline attendants walking past said, like, “Hey, he’s that OutKick sports guy. He’s an anti-mask fundamentalist. Don’t mess with him.”

CLAY: (laughing)

BUCK: You know? Maybe they saw this; they realized that’s not a fight they necessarily want to have.

CLAY: I don’t want to get banned. If somebody asked me to pull up my mask, I’m gonna do it. I have to fly all over the country still. But I just think it’s an interesting way to test, are there still this rigorous implementation? I think people are over it. I really do. There’s 30% of people that are never gonna be over it. I think 70% of Americans have come, finally, to Team Sanity to Team Clay and Buck and I think you just have to push it a little bit, right, and tell people… I’m not saying defy it; get the flight pulled back to port, anything like that. I’m just saying, maybe don’t be that aggressive about making sure your mask is up when you’re at the airport or on an airplane.

BUCK: Everybody who is in a position to enforce this stupidity should take the opportunity to nullify the idiocy of Fauciism right now. Whether you’re a store owner or clerk or you’re in an airplane or whatever, you’re in the office, you’re an H.R., just don’t enforce this crap. Just don’t do it! It’s up to you. Just don’t do it. And guess what?

All of a sudden there will be this cascading effect of people realizing, “What are we doing here? What is this madness?” That’s what I think needs to happen. And Clay and I will continue to body slam the stupidity of the media apparatus and the Biden regime around it that are all acting like, “Oh, yeah, we did a great job. We’re gonna do this again!” Not on our watch.