CLAY: Yesterday, obviously, was Columbus Day — Indigenous Peoples’ Day if you are insane — and you talked about this, Buck. I was out, but you talked about Dr. Fauci. I wanted to make sure people who might have missed this over the weekend heard it again. Dr. Fauci, memorably — we talked about this last week — refused to say that people could get together for Christmas.

And then said, “No, no, no! People took me out of context,” even though you could hear his entire answer. You know the Biden administration polling on covid is getting really bad when suddenly Fauci came out and said, “Hey, I encourage everybody to go trick-or-treat.” Listen to this. It’s amazing how much difference “the science” made in a week as it pertains to Christmas versus Halloween.

REPORTER: Halloween is just around the corner. A lot of parents are wondering how to trick-or-treat, do they hand out candy, do they walk around with their children? What’s your guidance?

FAUCI: I think that — particularly if you’re vaccinated, but — you can get out there, you’re outwards for the most part, at least when my children were out there doing trick-or-treating, and enjoy it. I mean, this is a time that children love. It’s — it’s a very important part of the year for children.

I know my children enjoyed it. So I… Particularly if you’re vaccinated. If you’re not vaccinated, again, think about it that you’ll add an extra degree of protection to yourself and your children and your family and your community. So it’s a good time to reflect on why it’s important to get vaccinated.

BUCK: Covered grandpa Fauci all of a sudden makes an appearance.

CLAY: It’s amazing. It’s like they sat down with him and said, “Hey, Dr. Fauci, your polling, you’re becoming like the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, really.” That’s the way a lot of people responded to it. So suddenly Fauci is the avuncular, likable grandpa talking about his own kids at Halloween. Now, look, I’ve got three kids, and we did Halloween completely normally last year.

God forbid, I’m gonna sit back and make a decision about whether your kids are going trick-or-treating based on what Dr. Fauci says. But, Buck, do you find this staggering that a week after he’s questioning whether people can get together with their families for Christmas that he suddenly is the really friendly grandpa who wants everybody to go out and have a great time for Halloween?

BUCK: Oh, we actually talked about it a little bit yesterday, Clay. This is what you would expect from a politician, and that’s what Fauci actually is. This is what everyone needs to understand. Fauci is a guy pretending to be about public health and the data when really, he is the chief covid mitigation lockdown comms guy for the Democrat Party.

And he even managed to be that during the Trump administration, which brings up a maybe they should have gotten rid of Fauci when they could have. But at the time, it was a harder decision, harder call, and we didn’t have as much data to show just, I think, how partisan Fauci has been willing to be all along. I think we’ve seen this now beyond any doubt.

But, Clay, what is it that Fauci is going to say at this point? When you look at the realities of the data for Florida… You’ve been talking about the caseload in general way, way down. But just Florida schools, mask mandates, there is a piece floating around, I’m trying to r where it was, compiling dozens of peer-reviewed studies where there’s actually a control group.

They’re actually doing a scientific study the way it’s meant to be done, and they show that masks don’t work, and you won’t hear about this because they keep this going, and they’re gonna keep it going until finally they tell us there’s the all clear, which I think will be probably next summer from the Fauciites.

And then there will be returns of mask every so often, but Fauci, what’s he gonna do at this point, Clay? How does he get off the tiger, so to speak? How does he decide that enough is enough? His only thing is gonna be doubling down this winter. That’s the only move he’s got.

CLAY: Yeah, and you know what’s interesting, Buck? We were talking about this off the air (laughing) and I think you made a good point for people out there who don’t… We just basically have a three hour-straight running show. Some of this stuff gets on the air. Some of this stuff does not, obviously, but we’re discussing everything.

The most recent data the New York Times has up ’cause you won’t hear this anywhere else. You have to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the states. Florida right now in the past two weeks, Buck, has seen a 65% decline in covid cases — and right now, the only state in the nation that has a lower covid rate is Connecticut. Every other state, the other 48…

I don’t want to go Barack Obama and mess up how many different states there are. The other 48 states are higher in terms of covid infection. This is why they’re terrified of Ron DeSantis, because without a mask mandate – -anywhere in schools or anywhere in the state — and without a covid vaccine mandate, the virus has come plummeting down.

And Florida may well slide behind Connecticut and be the lowest infected state with covid in the entire country, and overall, the numbers are coming down. I speak for you and me and both. We wish and hope that the numbers are gonna continue to come down during the winter. We were skeptical but we hope that that’s the case.

BUCK: I hope that we have a nothing burger when it comes to covid this winter. I know everyone who listens to this does as well. And I say that knowing, first of all, most importantly as we could all assume it’s about we want people to be health and live long, happy lives. We don’t want anyone losing a family member or being at risk themselves, right?

That’s point one. Point two is that includes even the reality of Joe Biden if in fact we have a… Get ready for it. No one’s gonna like hearing this but everyone knows it’s true: If we have a very quiet winter when it comes to covid — and who knows? I don’t pretend to know one way or the other. I’m 50-50 on it.

There’s a part of me that feels like it could be a mess, a part of me that feels like we’ve had so much natural immunity and vaccines and boosters and everything else that how bad can it really get unless there’s a mutation or a variant that evades all this stuff? But, Clay, it’ll be enormously helpful to the Biden administration and everything that we’ve seen.

The fact that more people have died from covid under Biden that year than died under Trump in his last year, all that data will be pushed aside and they’ll say, “See! It took a little longer, but Biden did it,” and I want to get ready for this psychologically. They’re going to tell you eventually, after the house has burned down entirely, so to speak.

They’re gonna wander around the embers and say, “We put the fire out,” and that’s going to be the approach from the Fauciites and Biden when it comes to covid, when it finally has burned through the population truly and we’ve got to the herd immunity because of natural immunity and vaccines and therapeutics, then they’ll turn around and say, “Just like we told you.” It’ll be the gaslighting to end all gaslighting. Get ready for it.

CLAY: “We told you masks and social distancing would work, and you guys finally listened and double masked and social distanced harder than ever before and it finally worked.”