FAUCI: One thing that vaccinated people can feel comfortable, for example, let’s take the holiday setting. Y’know, with your family. You have grandparents and parents and children. When you get vaccinated and you have a vaccinated group and you are in an indoor setting, you can enjoy — as we have traditionally over the years — dinners and gatherings within the home with people who are vaccinated. And that’s the reason why people should, if they invite people over their home, essentially ask and maybe require that people show evidence that they are vaccinated.

BUCK: (impression) You know, Clay, Dr. Fauci here is basically telling you you can have a very merry Christmas this year. Just make sure that any of your loved ones maintain a safe distance of approximately six to 50 feet of distance. Make sure there is a rapid test, maybe a PCR test in advance of the rapid test to make sure that you are not around someone who is an incubator of a variant.” At what point is this just too silly for people? At what point? Who is listening to him? I know there are people. That’s the thing.

CLAY: That’s my question.

BUCK: It’s not totally rhetorical but I wonder what do we have to do to get them to stop being so worried? If you’re so worried that you still listen to Fauci, aren’t you vaccinated? And if you’re vaccinated and listen to Fauci, don’t you know that your risk of hospitalization is death and very low even if you get covid?

So even if you’re around somebody with covid, if you’re fully vaccinated, you might still get covid. We know that. That was a big boo-boo from Fauci’s side. That was an oops-oopsy moment. But you’re still protected against hospitalization and death at a pretty good level. You can get boostered. So why the freak-out?

CLAY: What percentage of people do you think are freaking out as Christmas gets closer? That was my question as I listen to Fauci’s absurdity as he worked through all of that irrational nonsense. What percentage of people do you think are legitimately checking vaccination status for people coming over to their house for Christmas?

First of all, the best thing about Christmas is kids, right? No matter who you are, young kids, Santa Claus — under 5 years old, under 10 years old — whatever the age is there where they have that magical wake up in the morning, run downstairs, face just full of joy. I don’t care how old you are, if you think there is something better for Christmas than young kids and their excitement and their experience.

I can’t even imagine if you’re a grandparent and you’re not going to be around your 5-year-old ’cause the 5-year-old is not vaccinated, I can’t even imagine how furious I would be as a parent. Buck, you don’t have kids yet, but you got a nephew. It’s rare that I would get really upset with a grandparent, but if I had a grandparent who was saying, “Hey, we can’t be around you for Christmas. Your 5-year-old’s not vaccinated,” to me, that’s a mental illness on the part of the grandparent.

BUCK: Yeah.

CLAY: I think you have lost your mind.

BUCK: Your parents, my parents, vaccinated and boostered — talking about vaccinated and boostered people —

CLAY: You have the right to do that and should do it.

BUCK: Yeah, right, but you’re gonna segment out one person who’s very — you know, who’s at very limited chance of actually spreading — we know — we’ve actually never gotten very good number on this. We’ve always just known children don’t seem to spread this readily to adults. Early on there was this concern that all the teachers would be getting sick from the kids. That never seemed to pan out.

That data never came out in a way that suggested that was going on. In fact, children — if you just think it through, it’s probably because it’s so mild for them and they clear it so quickly that they have a low viral load — probably — this is a theory, right? I’m not Dr. Buck, but a theory. But I’ve heard other people talk about this, too, and even Fauci says it doesn’t seem…

You know, does this Fauci thing, “We don’t know entirely but maybe a little…” It doesn’t seem like they actually spread this readily to adults. And people are… You know, the thing in my life right now, Clay, is people mask up in my elevator so that they can go sit in a restaurant with a hundred people around them indoors with no masks on.

What are you doing? You only have to get sick once and then you’ve got covid so why are you living your life under this absurdity? But they probably think that transgender swimmers don’t have an advantage, either. So this is where we are.

CLAY: And, Buck, the other angle here is — and I hope to be there one day and be a grandparent. But when you get into your seventies, you don’t know how many more Christmases you’re gonna have. So if you are sitting around not going to your family Christmas because a 5-year-old is not vaccinated — or, God forbid, because a 3- or a 4-year-old is not vaccinated — I question every single decision that you are making in your life, because that foundational one is just so incredibly awful.