CLAY: On Friday, you may have been listening as the news came down that Aaron Rodgers publicly, essentially, had to acknowledge that he had not been vaccinated. And, as a result, he missed a game over the weekend between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Green Bay Packers, which would have been — and still was — one of the signature games of the NFL weekend.

As a result, his backup had to play. But Aaron Rodgers did an interview where he made a lot of pretty outstanding points, such as this is not a pandemic of the unvaccinated. He believes that individual players should have the right to make decisions about their own health-related conditions. By the way, this is an opinion that was echoed by none other than Dr. Marty Makary, who’s been on with us a bunch of different times, Buck.

He tweeted something that I thought was pretty significant, and I’m gonna read that for you here momentarily. But he was pointing out that there’s not really a lot of danger. He said, “Watching all the drama around Aaron Rodgers, how many pro athletes have ever died of covid in any sport in any country in the last two years? Zero. They’re the lowest risk people on earth.

“Let’s channel this energy to talk about obesity as a leading risk factor.” Well, that actually is a smart and intelligent and rational perspective, and so, not surprisingly, it received relatively minimal attention on Twitter. But I did retweet it and I thought it was well said by Dr. Makary. But also, the guy probably whoever’s as big of a radio show as the one that we have now before he moved to satellite radio.

Howard Stern, Buck — who used to be an iconoclastic rebel that was willing to stand up for free speech, that fought back against censorious government overreach through the FCC. He’s now turned into what he used to hate and become a boring, plodding, old-man sheep who’s convinced that covid is going to kill him. And he went on his show this morning, Buck, and said that Aaron Rodgers should be banned from the NFL. Listen to Stern.

STERN: Aaron Rodgers of the NFL, I don’t even know where to begin with that story. I mean, this (bleep) guy, I know the guy’s a real good football player. That’s why they put up with his bull (bleep). I would throw this guy out of the football league so fast. What he did to his fellow teammates — and, you know, bravo Terry Bradshaw, for what you said and everyone else who’s got half a brain in this country.

But this (bleep) guy, they should throw him out of the league so fast. Aaron Rodgers? Come on, dude. Really? You know, that whole bull (bleep) game, “Yeah, I have the antibodies.” Now, first of all, I don’t know where these guys get their information from. At the press conference he said he got his information from Joe Rogan. With all due respect, Joe Rogan is a guy —

VOICE: Why would he go to Joe Rogan with a medical problem?

STERN: You got doctors who study in medical school. I don’t know what has happened to this country.

BUCK: I don’t know what has happened on Howard Stern.

CLAY: How embarrassing is this?

BUCK: Yeah, it’s a shame, man, because you’d like to see people that have that kind of platform and reach still at least be free thinkers. I also think there is a real degree of jealousy within the media, particularly with regard to Joe Rogan and the reach that he has and what he’s built. So that may factor into this a little bit, too. But notion that antibodies from previous infection aren’t real is a delusion.

This is a Fauciite insanity that we’ve all now had to suffer through because it didn’t go along with the policy of getting everyone the shot. We can play this game out as much as you want. People who are vaccinated can still get very sick, can actually still die, can get the virus, can spread the virus. Now, the argument is, “They’re less likely to get and spread and less likely to be hospitalized or die.” That is also true of those with natural immunity.

And actually natural immunity, as we’ve seen, is more durable and better. So then for the people who think they’re such heroes because they got the shot and they’re doing all the science and all the stuff, why not get the shot every 90 days? Why not just decide that you’re gonna be super protective of everybody from covid? You say, “Oh, that’s not what the FDA recommends.” Well, why not? It’s so safe. What’s the big deal, right?

We know the antibodies start to wane about three, four, five months in, something like that. So, Clay, these are all judgment calls, and the problem is that people believe… They think that you might be scientific data, you listen to these “experts.” By the way, experts disagree on all kinds of things! Ask two nutritionists, “Is cow milk good for you?” You’ll get 50 different explanations.

Yes, no, maybe so. And people think that there is “the science” because this has been the propaganda the Democrats have used to justify Fauciism the whole way. These are all judgment calls. There are some doctors you’ll go to — I’m sure you’ve had this experience — they’ll say, “Oh, your knee is a little bit injured. You should never play that sport again. Only the swimming pool for you from now on.”

Well, Doc, maybe I am gonna tear my ACL, but I want to live my life, right? They give you advice, and then the people are supposed to make the judgment. Individuals are supposed to make the judgment. Instead, you got people like Stern who feel like he still could have gotten sick and still spread it even if he had gotten the shot! So, Clay, what are we even talking about at this point?

CLAY: It’s wild to me, Buck, that there was more criticism of Aaron Rodgers for his opinion on whether or not to be vaccinated than there was of Henry Ruggs for driving 150 miles an hour drunk, allegedly, and killing a woman in Las Vegas. I think this is part and parcel of the larger universe where we allow Twitter to govern the decisions that he makes is a country, and Twitter is a primarily word-based medium such that we over-punish people for thought crimes. In many ways, that’s what cancel culture is, right?

Cancel culture predominantly is about very often somebody says something and they’re not allowed to continue their normal existence. And that was a great point that Chappelle made, Dave Chappelle did in his Netflix special which was so controversial. But he pointed out that Da Baby — and I’m not a modern hip-hop scholar, but my 11-year-old listens to every rap song known of man and he’s a Big fan of Da Baby.

The guy killed a man in Walmart. It didn’t really impact his rap career at all. He says anti-gay comments at a concert, and they pull his music off of all these different distributions and devices, and it’s as if he’s going to be canceled for that opinion on gay people. So regardless, you don’t have to agree with any of his opinions. Most adults understand that if you had to choose between words or actions, you would rather somebody say something inappropriate than do something inappropriate, right?

BUCK: If you were to poll 95% of journalists honestly whether it should be more of a fire-able and expulsion-worthy offense from any professional league to stab somebody in a bar fight to death or to lie about your covid status, a lot of them would say it was the covid status. A huge majority of them would say it’s the covid status ’cause bar fight, words exchanged, who knows, you weren’t there.

But covid status! Vaccination status, not covid status, but the vaccination status. When it comes to covid, that’s just something that’s too far and too much for them. The fact they’re coming after Aaron Rodgers in this way just goes to show you, they’re still pretending this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. Clay, people who don’t get the booster are not going to be protected that much longer. This is what they don’t want you to know. You’re gonna have some minimal level of protection from this. Certainly, less than those are natural immunity in the aggregate, and so then are you a bad person if you don’t get the booster in time?

CLAY: Are you a bad person if you’re unvaccinated? That’s one of the things that nobody’s talking about with these OSHA regulations, Buck. All these people, let’s say, like you. You went and got the J&J vaccine, right? If you were an NBA player, your J&J vaccine would not count anymore. In order to be considered fully vaccinated, you would have to go out and get a new booster shot or you would be treated as unvaccinated even though you got the Spirit Airlines of vaccines and you thought you were done.

BUCK: Man, they’re really throwing some shade here at the J&J vaccine! It’s crazy.

CLAY: That’s what the NBA is doing.

BUCK: Can I say this to you, Clay?

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: Everybody that I have spoken to — ’cause New York has been the craziest place for vaccines in the whole country. Nowhere else has been as aggressive.

CLAY: Maybe San Francisco.

BUCK: Okay. San Fran and L.A. followed, but the New York was the first, and New York has been very aggressive about already enforcing this, and it’s constant harassment. I’ve gone to get coffee to go, and I’ve stood there and looked at my phone for a second, had someone run over to me, “Excuse me, sir. If you’re gonna stay here, I need to see your vaccine card.” It’s just all over the place.

It’s very annoying. A lot of fake vaccine cards here in New York City. A lot more than I had anticipated ’cause people are just like they’re like ride or die, man. They don’t care; they’re gonna go with it. And then the other part of it that I think is interesting is how many people, I’ve already spoken to who say, “I was willing to do this one time because I didn’t want to lose my job, I didn’t want to have…”

Now with their being told you gotta get a booster, even people that were pretty okay with getting the shot. I was opposed. I’ve gotten so many vaccines because when I was in the CIA there’s like crazy countries where you have to get all these weird diseases you can get so I’ve got more vaccinations than 95% of the audience right now already before this.

Except for military, folks. They would have gotten probably a lot of the same stuff. Whatever. The point being, they’re drawing a line, a hard line at boosters. A lot of people are gonna say, “No,” ’cause then you know you’re in the cycle. Then you know you’re the gerbil on the wheel.

CLAY: That’s right. And, by the way, that’s one of the things that I don’t think anybody’s really thought through about the federal vaccine mandate. In order to be considered fully vaccinated, we’re talking about a perpetually reinforcing federal vaccine mandate that may not end for years into the future. And, by the way, on the Aaron Rodgers front.

Think about this, Buck. Aaron Rodgers would have been far better off to get a DUI — not to kill somebody like Henry Ruggs allegedly did, but to get a DUI, drive drunk, indisputably be drunk driving, get pulled over, get arrested — than he would have to share his public opinion on the covid vaccine when it wasn’t the “right” opinion. That’s crazy.

BUCK: Again, if you ask the journos out there, “What is more dangerous, one person who is unvaccinated going around living their life or somebody with three times the blood alcohol limit to be behind the wheel driving at high speeds?” a lot of them, just based on the data, right? People thought, Clay, there’s a huge portion of Democrats who think your chance of going to the hospital if you get covid is 50%.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: That’s like 30 or 40%. It’s some crazy high number. They’re completely out of their mind and then they turn around, they look at you like, “Oh, my gosh. You’re not double masked,” the whole thing. It drives me nuts. Anyway, the good news is, I got my Aaron Rodgers jersey on the way. Well, actually, I gotta find where I buy one first. But then I’m gonna get one, get it sent to me. We’ll continue this fight. They did allow somebody to go on CNN, Clay, to actually speak some sense. Did you see this over the weekend? About the election?

CLAY: No, I didn’t

BUCK: Ooh. This will be a fun one. It’s really good. Really good. It turns out not everybody buys into the self-licking ice cream cone of left-wing journalism’s view of the election in America. We’ll give you an example of it coming up here in a second, someone who understands what’s really going on. CNN was like, “Oh, my gosh. An actual opinion that makes sense!” They’re allergic to it. It’s like throwing water on the witch in the Wizard of Oz.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

CLAY: I like to consider this a small victory. We’re talking about Aaron Rodgers. State Farm issued a statement about Aaron Rodgers and his opinion on the covid vaccine and his refusal to get the covid vaccine and I actually… Maybe it’s just a measure of how much cancel culture often devours everyone that this feels like a small measure of victory.

Let me read to you what State Farm said. For those of you who don’t know, Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay Packer quarterback, it’s almost impossible to miss all of the commercials that he’s in alongside of Patrick Mahomes for State Farm Insurance. A lot of people out there in the woke sports media were demanding that State Farm cancel their relationship with Aaron Rodgers.

Here is what they said. State Farm said, “We don’t support some of the statements he’s made, but we respect his right to have his own personal point of view. We recognize our customers, employees, agents, and brand ambassadors come from all walks of life with differing viewpoints on many issues. Our mission at State Farm is to support safer, stronger communities.

“To that end, we encourage vaccinations, but we respect everyone’s right to make a choice based on their personal circumstances.” Buck, am I crazy or does that feel like a win given where we are right now in the culture that State Farm is at least trying to basically say, “Hey, we want everybody to buy insurance and we understand that everybody doesn’t agree on every issue who’s going to be buying or selling insurance”?

BUCK: This is the only way that we get out of corporations as constant battlegrounds for every political issue where they just say, “Look, we’re here to provide a service and sell a product and not to do all these other things and have people constantly leveraging whatever it is that they’re corporation has in terms of reach whether on social media or socially in general to push things on people who don’t want them.” It would be nice if we could have that again, Clay.