De Blasio Imposes Vaccine Passport Mandate in NYC

BUCK: I’m Buck, and with me here in NYC is the one and only Clay Travis in the EIB Studio here. Clay, welcome. You bring the fire and fury with you to New York today. It’s pretty remarkable, really.

CLAY: Chaos everywhere. I know you are fired up. I’m glad that I don’t live here because of basically vaccine passports suddenly becoming a reality, but also, major news coming down in the last hour with the official announcement of the results of the Governor Cuomo sexual harassment investigation. And now the question is going to be, “Is Cuomo going to maintain his governorship?” It will be a hell of a duo if we could get Newsom removed in September and if Cuomo also had to get removed from office. But this is… I would say it’s almost like New York City chaos here going on in terms of what’s happened in the last couple of hours.

BUCK: I still think the biggest thing by far, as a resident here, is that Mayor Bill de Blasio, who, let’s all be clear, is certainly in the running for the worst mayor in America… I’m sorry, Portland; I’m sorry, Los Angeles. I know. Chicago. I know there are a few places that might want to claim the title.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: But I think that Mayor de Blasio has done more to ruin a great city, my hometown, place I grew up in, than anybody could ever imagine. And to add to it today, he decides that starting in a few weeks, they’re going to be checking your vaccine papers, so to speak. You gotta have a vaccine passport to go into restaurants, bars, indoor entertainment facilities, all these different things. This leaves a ton of open territory. What about 12-years-olds who can’t get vaccinated? What about people who’ve already been infected? Of course, they’re being left out in this whole process. Here is the mayor announcing it.

DE BLASIO: The Key to NYC Pass will be a first-in-the-nation approach. It will require vaccinations for workers and customers in indoor dining, in indoor fitness facilities, indoor entertainment facilities. This is gonna be a requirement. The only way to patronize these establishments indoors will be if you’re vaccinated — at least one dose — the same for folks in terms of work, they’ll need at least one dose. This is crucial because we know this will encourage a lot more vaccinations. We’ve seen it already!

BUCK: Clay, this is a vaccine passport mandate in America’s largest city, and people are pretending like this isn’t going against what they said all along, which is, “We’re not gonna do this. Don’t worry. It will be voluntary.”

CLAY: I’m not… So, first of all, I would imagine this is going to be immediately challenged in court, and so if federal vaccine mandates are not permissible, I question why it would be permissible — and again, this is not me as an expert in the law of viruses or in the law of vaccinations or anything else. But I question how — if federal mandates are not allowed — how it would be permissible in the biggest city in the country to require it.

And then for a lot of you out there listening who may say, “Well, that sucks for people in New York.” I think the immediate response that people have, Buck, is how does this apply to the millions of people who would be tourists in New York City? Are you not gonna be able to check into a hotel room? Are you not gonna be able to go to a restaurant or bar or to a play if you come to New York City? So for people that are saying, “Oh, that’s New York but it’s not really going to impact me,” there are millions and millions of people in addition to people who live in New York City who come through this city on a day-to-day, year-to-year basis.

So, to me, this is a really fascinating thing. It almost feels like a law school exam hypothetical. For everybody out there who’s curious about what law school is like, they try to come up with cases that do not have direct precedents and have you argue what the actual legal outcome would be. And I’m fascinated by this. Because, again, if federal mandates — which I think it’s clear are not constitutional — how can an individual city require vaccine passports which would then be required for anyone who visits the city as well, which, again, New York City, millions of people every year are tourists here.

BUCK: The Biden administration has basically hinted that it thinks that vaccine passports at the federal level are permissible. Now, your analysis will probably be correct. But we see this with gun rights issues all the time. Their approach is make the mandate.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: Dare somebody on the right or dare some conservative constitutionalist to put a universal injunction in place and get away with the violation of those rights or get away with the overreach policy as long as possible and then deal with, “Oh, okay.” So we had a vaccine mandate for six months or a year and then it made its way to the courts and got overturned or maybe even longer than that. So that’s a possibility here in New York that could even the theoretically be at the federal level, although here’s the problem.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: I think they know that at the federal level there would be enough political pushback that this could be a problem, right? The Biden administration knows that. Challenge with where we are right now, Clay, in New York City, we have little vaccine passport enablers all over the place. Most of this city is gonna be fine with this. Most of the people in power in this city are gonna go along with it.

It is fascinating though to give people a sense of how this will play out in the weeks ahead. Sixty-nine percent of African-American residents of New York City, 58% of Latinos, a majority of residents of the Bronx (one of the five boroughs here) will be ineligible to eat in a restaurant, go to a gym, go to a movie, or perhaps even go to their job because these are mandates that the city is now pushing on them. That’s gonna be interesting optics.

CLAY: Well, no doubt, ’cause it’s racist, according to every Democratic argument if you apply the logic. Also, if it’s racist to require an ID to vote, imagine the logical pretzels that people are gonna have to twist themselves into to justify a vaccine in order to even go about day-to-day life. And to your point, that’s particularly the case when the application of this rule would have a fairly substantial impact based on race.

Now, you can argue that it’s not race based. But to your point, the percentages overwhelmingly of people that are not vaccinated in New York and also in the country are black and Latino individuals. So, again, I think if you are out there, this is the fear that has been in existence for a long time, that the covid madness was going to lead to a form of vaccine passport, which they’re trying to do in France, which they’re trying to do in Italy.

Which I believe they’ve tried to do in many different European countries, and there is have been mass protests arising against them. But I just think about the application of it for purposes of somebody like me. I happen to be in New York City right now. I live in the otherwise free state of Tennessee. When I land in New York City, if I’m not vaccinated, am I not allowed to go to a restaurant? Am I not allowed to go to a go to a gym? Am I allowed to go to a hotel?

BUCK: Starting mid-September, the answer is, “No, you won’t be able to go to a restaurant or gym.” Hotels is an interesting question I haven’t seen that one addressed directly, but I imagine that hotel common space would be closed to you. So anything where people are intermingling — the hotel lobby, bar, all the rest of it — would fall under those mandates.

But, Clay, this is the continuation of what we’ve said all along, which is that the framework, the mind-set of people — of lockdowners — from the beginning was going to take us to this inevitable place, and at every phase what was clear they had to push a little further, a little more, they pretended like it was just this one last time.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: And this is pretty much now, we’re at the end stage of Fauci-ite madness. This is pretty much the final phase of this.

CLAY: So what would you do?

BUCK: This is what I’ve been thinking about.

CLAY: So for people out there who have forgotten or not necessarily picked up on the discussion we’ve had so far, you and I have both have covid. We both have covid antibodies. Which, if you talk to infectious disease experts, the idea is that our covid antibodies are stronger having had a natural infection, by and large, oftentimes, than they would be if you were vaccinated. So what will you do?

BUCK: I think I have no choice. By the way, I want to open it up ’cause I know we have a lot of people listening in New York in the Tri-State area. Remember, you live in New Jersey, you live in Connecticut —

CLAY: You come into the city.

BUCK: — there’s a very good chance you work, you commute in New York or at least you come in — you know now it’s not even, well, eye go in for a show and have dinner with the misses or with the husband or whatever. Now it’s gonna be, “Show me your vaccination papers.”

It doesn’t matter what state you’re from, they’re not gonna wave it for people. And I’m curious. So 800-282-2882. We’ll open up the lines to people who are affected by the mandate here. If you have not gotten vaccinated, are you going to now? And is there any desire for real pushback? I mean, it’s one thing to be non-mask compliant right because then it’s, “Okay. Fine. I’ll put my mask on.”

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: You show up at a restaurant and you don’t have your vaccine passport because you’re not vaccinated it’s not as if, “Oh, okay. I’ll run down the street and get the shot.” Now you’re actually playing with real consequences in your day-to-day for your actions, and so you’re asking me what I’m gonna do? If this mandate stands, what choice does one really have in New York but to submit, bend the knee, and get the shot? Even if you have been, as I have been, proven and previously infected with the covid-19 virus.

CLAY: I just think it is such a Draconian move that is entirely based on the current panic that we are seeing from the Delta variant. So if the Delta variant recedes, as we have seen it occur in England, is the political pressure going to recede here too? I mean, this is a blockbuster move, and the question for a lot of people out there is, is this going to be followed by Los Angeles? Is it gonna be followed by other cities, or is New York gonna stand on an island alone?

BUCK: I think a lot of mayors and maybe even some governors right now —

CLAY: Chicago.

BUCK: — are watching how this plays out in New York, and this becomes the laboratory for the Fauci-ite madness all across the country.