CLAY: They have caught the New York City subway shooter, alleged. He is in custody of the New York Police Department. I know we have as well you do, Buck, ’cause you live there, a ton of New York City police listeners. We thank you for all the work you do. And if nobody else will say it, again, thank you, because we got police officers all over the country who listen.

And I will say one of the consequences of the overwhelming rise in violent crime is a lot of people are looking around and saying, “Hey, maybe we should be praising police instead of arguing that we should defund them and that they’re awful human beings.” You’re saving an inordinate amount of lives by doing the job that you do and you don’t get any credit for it. So we want to make sure that we continue to support you guys when so many are not doing that.

We now have Karol Markowicz. Karol, appreciate you joining us. What are you hearing? We’re talking about the New York City alleged subway shooter being arrested. What have you heard about the investigation that is going on there?

MARKOWICZ: So, I — you know, I had known that they picked him up today in the East Village. And I don’t know what’s gonna happen, you know, going forward, but it’s a very interesting case where they have known about him for a while and he was on their radar. I am looking forward to hearing what happened here. But, yeah, from what I’m told it was not somebody unknown to them, the authorities.

BUCK: Karol, the governor, Hochul, went on some — of New York — went on some long-winded, you know, “this will never happen again” and there’s been too much…

MARKOWICZ: Yeah.

BUCK: It honestly just felt sort of bizarre. If nothing else, she’s making promises that it sure clearly cannot keep.

MARKOWICZ: Impossible, right.

BUCK: Without any ideas or policies or anything behind it. It just feels like this is a woman who, at a moment of real seriousness, real crisis in New York City, which is what is going on here, this place is rough. It’s like you left. It’s why many people are considering leaving. She is not up to the moment, we will find like yesterday, not at all. It felt really tone-deaf.

MARKOWICZ: I completely agree. The thing is look. A lunatic, you know, can shoot up a place. It can happen anywhere. The fact that it happened on the N train in Brooklyn yesterday is obviously very sad and horrible. But what’s really going on is that this crime spree in New York City is really serious.

So last night there was a stabbing on the subway that, you know, is barely getting any coverage. And these stabbings happen all the time now. So we have a situation where, yes, obviously this event is atrocious and horrible and my heart really goes out to all New Yorkers. I still consider myself a New Yorker.

I feel very strongly about that city, but what we’re really missing is that this subway is in disarray and the city is in disarray. And so just targeting or focusing on this one event by the governor, I think that she’s really missing the mark because these stabbings are happening all the time and nobody is stopping them.

CLAY: Karol, you continued to talk about the freedom that you have in Florida compared to what’s going on in New York City.

MARKOWICZ: Yeah.

CLAY: I’m sure you’ve seen Philadelphia has reinstituted an indoor mask mandate. Kids ages 2 to 5 basically in preschool are still required to wear masks in New York City, which is crazy. And as we began the show today, a 15-day extension of masks in airplanes by the Biden administration and the CDC.

How does this ever end? Buck and I were talking about this. I’m curious what you think. Are we basically going to enter into a world where 10 or 15% of people wear masks forever? Because at this point I don’t know how this ever ends.

MARKOWICZ: Yeah, I also don’t know how this end, because who believes this is gonna end in two weeks, like two weeks to flatten this curve again? I think we’re in a crisis because there is this mania that has taken hold, and people have become so afraid of covid and so terrified to live their lives and thinking that, you know, the masks that they wear on an airplane is gonna make an iota of difference is terrifying.

I think we really need to move away from this mass hysteria. But of course all these blue areas are really catering to it. And you know, I don’t want to sound like, you know, when all you have a hammer the whole world’s a nail, but I think a lot of these issues that we’re having across the country are all related. So, when we talk about violence on the subway, I really do think it’s still covid related.

When you have a masked 2-year-old you’re sending the message that the city remains unsafe due to covid. So people are not returning to the offices. When they don’t return to the offices, the subways are emptier. When the subways are emptier, crime is more likely to happen. When crime is more likely to happen, it lends to an atmosphere of chaos. And that’s what we have right now in a lot of major cities. And I think all of this could just be tied back to an insane and intense covid mitigation policy that has not worked.

BUCK: Karol Markowicz, New York Post columnist, friend of the show. Karol, it feels like a huge difference maker — ’cause we talk about accountability a lot here, and Clay talks about a reckoning in the midterms, a tsunami of Republican wins. And this isn’t just “I like my team to win.” It’s “I want America to go back to normalcy.” Like, I want an end to the psychological pandemic.

And the only way we get there is if Democrats get destroyed at the ballot box and therefore their power is contingent upon no longer catering to the double-masked lunatics walking around by themselves outside looking at people breathing air like normal human beings like they’re the problem.

Parents. I just think it’s so essential that parents remember who betrayed them and children during this pandemic. Do you think that enough Republicans making this case? What can we do? I think there needs to be a huge campaign to remind parents all across America and places that locked down, shut down schools, who is responsible for that madness, who bent the knee to the teachers unions, how do we do that? How do make sure that all the parents remember?

MARKOWICZ: Yeah, I hope that Republicans all across the country are running on these issues. I’m not sure that all of them are. I think especially in kind of blue cities it gets tougher and too far for them to say, you know, we should have schools open. A lot of people in the blue cities agree with them.

And as you watch migration to places like Florida, you know, I can’t help but think that, you know, Florida is getting redder, but places like New York, New Jersey where people are coming from are getting bluer as conservatives are leaving. I have not met a single person who has moved to Florida in the last two years who has been on the left. All of them are conservative. All of them have left places with crazy policies and moved to freedom.

So as these places get bluer, I worry that these insane policies are gonna continue. Yeah, in purple places they might be to send a men and women with the next election and say, look. We did crazy things. We’re gonna punish you for it at the ballot box and maybe that will shift some opinions, but in places like New York City, people want this, people like the masking. I don’t see a large groundswell of people saying it’s insane that we mask 2-to-4-year-olds. Nobody else in the world is doing this. Why are we doing this? There’s so few people that protested, it really — it scares me for the future.

CLAY: Karol, you’re a mom, and I’ve got three kids. And back in August as all of this sort of “domestic terrorism” rose up at the school boards, you could feel the budding anger. And I think that definitely fueled what happened in Virginia. And to your point, if people hadn’t bailed on New Jersey, maybe Murphy would have lost there, right? Couple hundred thousand people could have made a big difference. A lot of those people have relocated to other places.

Do you think the mom anger based on the people that you interact with and you talk to, is going to retain its cogency and fire through this November election so that we get what Buck and I want and I think what you want as well, which is a reckoning on covid policies? Or is it going to fade in the next six to seven months? How do you see it playing out?

MARKOWICZ: No, I think through November it actually stays sky-high. There’s so much wrong right now with the country that I think parents will be sending a message and for a lot of parents private schools opened but public schools didn’t. They’re not over this kind of thing.

CLAY: Thank you. You’re breaking up a little bit there at the end, but you’re always fantastic. Karol Markowicz.

BUCK: I think the libs are hacking her phone.

CLAY: I think they’re afraid of the mom revolution and they’re trying to take out one of the moms there. But Karol does fantastic work, New York Post.