Draymond Green Pushes Back on Covid Totalitarianism

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BUCK: Another thing about being down here is I get to walk around the hotel. I’m gonna go downtown. Not a lot of masks and certainly not a lot of paranoia about it. I have not seen a single person here walking outside with a mask on. I haven’t seen a single person acting like at any point in time covid is going to jump out from behind a dumpster and attack them or something, right?

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: There’s just more of an acceptance of, “We are moving forward with life.” Back in NYC — which, for all of its challenges, I do miss — or I do still like, I should say. I don’t miss it. I’m happy to be here. Our Mayor de Blasio is talking about the vaccine mandate lawsuits that he faces, and here’s what he’s saying about them. Play 14.

DE BLASIO: Here’s the bottom line. Had we not done the mandate, a lot of people would have held back, and our schools would have been less safe, and our city would have been less safe. And — and there’s so much noise when you put a mandate forward. Whether it’s the one we did for schools or the one we did for indoor dining, the bottom line is when the dust settled (snickering), a huge number of people went out and got vaccinated.

And then those environments became safe, and what I hear from New Yorkers is, “Thank you that we know what we’re dealing with now. We know we have environments where we’re not going to have the same problem with covid because it’s an all-vaccinated reality.”

BUCK: You know, Clay, today is the deadline for New York City teachers to get vaccinated or get their walking papers. Fired — and, remember, no unemployment benefits for you if you get fired.

CLAY: Despite the fact that everybody else has gotten unemployment benefits for over a year now without even trying to find a job.

BUCK: Yeah. So don’t find a job or don’t even look for a job, you could have been getting unemployment benefits for a year plus. But here we have de Blasio I think taking away a lesson here that you’re gonna see play out in other places across the country: Authoritarians enjoy it when they get away with it and will keep doing it.

That’s the problem. This is a little bit of a continuation of the mandate worked. Yeah, no duh. When you tell people, ‘Get the shot or you lose your job. Get the shot or you can’t go into a restaurant, a bar or whatever, people who don’t want to,” and who don’t need to medically, by the way, for those of you with the natural immunity, “they’re going to comply.”

But that doesn’t justify the tyrannical impulse. Unfortunately to people like Bill de Blasio, they feel like mission accomplished, and the people who’ve lost their jobs including health care workers that were on the front lines the front of fighting the pandemic? They just feel like too bad.

CLAY: And I want to, when we come back, Buck, because what I’m seeing is a response to the covid vaccine mandate that’s starting to really encourage me. And let me explain what I mean, and we’ll play some of this for you when we come back. People from all across the political spectrum are starting to stand up and say that covid vaccine mandates are anti-American.

Whether it is — and interestingly, some of the people that are leading this charge are NBA players. We with talked about Jonathan Isaac. We talked about Bradley Beal earlier in the week. Draymond Green players for the Golden State Warriors and he’s got a teammate who is refusing to get the covid vaccine.

That would mean, based on San Francisco rules, that he is not able to play in any home game. He’s not able to do his job. He is saying that he does not want to get the covid vaccine for health-related reasons that are personal to him. Draymond Green, who is an NBA superstar, was asked about that. It’s already been shared by Ted Cruz and LeBron James, which is kind of a big deal ’cause those guys don’t agree on a lot.

I think a lot of our listeners are gonna hear this and they’re gonna say, “Thankfully, maybe people with some functional brains are starting to make reasonable statements.” I want you guys to hear this and think about it because, Buck, I think it’s gonna be intriguing to see some of these political allies who otherwise would not be connected.

BUCK: It’s a lot harder for the media to do what they’ve been doing.

CLAY: Yes. To demonize.

BUCK: To misrepresent and demonize anybody with “vaccine hesitancy,” not anti-vaxxers, but vaccine hesitancy or just vaccine opposition when it comes to covid when you’re talking about a prominent African-American multimillionaire.

CLAY: As opposed to a redneck Trump voter in Alabama, which is what they want to try to make it look like everybody who is not a hundred behind the covid vaccine is.

BUCK: It’s complicated when your narrative is built on lies, but that’s a reality of what the left has to deal with.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

CLAY: There’s some breaking news out there, Buck, continuing, unfortunately, the covid totalitarianism in the state of California. Governor Gavin Newsom has just announced that all children will be required to get the covid vaccine who are eligible for the covid vaccine. Right now, kids 12 and up can get it. But that is the first state to mandate the covid vaccine for kids, to my knowledge.

BUCK: And let’s just remember that the FDA is being pushed to work as fast as possible to expand the vaccines for even younger kids.

CLAY: 5 to 11.

BUCK: 5 to 11.

CLAY: 12 and younger.

BUCK: So that’s where this is heading. We’ve been saying it all along: They’re going to make kids in states that are blue get the shot so. And once they’ve done that, then they’re gonna try to find a way at the federal level, they’ll probably even threaten Department of Education funding to certain states. They’re gonna start to play really rough to put the shot in your kids’ arms.

CLAY: Now, ironically enough, politics can create strange bedfellows. We have been talking about NBA players speaking out against covid vaccine mandates. We played several of those clips earlier this week. Draymond Green is a famous player for the Golden State Warriors in San Francisco.

He has a teammate who is refusing to get the covid vaccine and would therefore be ineligible to play in San Francisco, would not be able to do his job. Draymond Green was asked by the media whether he felt he should be pressuring his teammate to get the covid vaccine. I want you guys to listen to this and think about how much you may well agree with Draymond Green.

Again, Ted Cruz is retweeting this. LeBron James. I got into it with Mark Cuban yesterday, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, on social media. Some of you may have seen that. We’ll talk about that maybe a little bit in the next hour. But listen to Draymond Green here. Let’s play cut 25.

GREEN: I think there is something to be said for people’s concern about something that’s being pressed so hard. Like, why are you pressing this so hard — like, so much, you’re just pressing and pressing and pressing. And I think you have to honor people’s feelings and their own personal beliefs. And I think that’s been lost when it comes to vaccinated and unvaccinated.

And it kind of sucks that that’s been lost, because you’re essentially not given anyone… You know, you say we live in the land of the free. Well, you’re not given anyone freedom because you’re making somebody do something, essentially. Without necessarily making them, you’re making them do something. And that goes against everything that American stands for or supposedly stands for.

And so I don’t think… I know I’m not in any position to go tell him what he should or should not be doing, and as a leader of this team I’m not gonna go to him and say, “Hey, man, we really need yeah.” No to hell… You do what you feel what you need to do. That has nothing… I’m not gonna go ask him did he get a polio vaccine. So why would I go ask him if he got a covid vaccine?

BUCK: This is the now third NBA player we’ve heard from this week, Clay, who is more thoughtful and eloquent on the freedom concern the issues that vaccine mandates raise than I think any Democrat member of Congress that I’ve heard — I mean any of them. They’re all just whatever Fauci says, we’ll do it.

CLAY: Hammer, hammer, hammer.

BUCK: Just go with the coercion. Shut up and get the shot. You know, Fauci just sort of slipped this in I think it was yesterday, now, you’re not really fully vaccinated… I’ve been saying that for a month, six weeks now. You’re not really “fully vaccinated,” that term, unless you’ve gotten the booster. But what’s fascinating about that is once…

Fauci’s already said this. (impression) “Fully vaccinated is with a boostuh,” and until the moment that you cross that rubicon, then you realize you’re never fully… There’s no such thing as fully vaccinated. You are temporarily vaccinated until it is time for your next booster shot.

The moment they agree that a booster is required for you to be vaccinated, ’cause no one thinks that this is permanent… There’s no belief, there’s no reason to think, and especially with variants and all the rest of it. So get ready for the transition to forever boosters ’cause that’s already here.

CLAY: And what I think is fascinating about this, Buck, is, I think a lot of these NBA players are having a moment of realization here as it concerns authoritarianism connected to covid vaccine mandates that maybe they’re actually Republicans — or, at a minimum, maybe they are actual libertarians with a lot of overlap with many of you listening to you right now.

I know a lot of are you saying, “I don’t really understand that,” but think about it in the context of what these guys do. They excel based on their individual talent, based on their ability to get their bodies to do things that most people cannot. They excel, in their minds, because of the work ethic that they put in to their body in order to make them capable of performing.

So when you start telling them, “You have to do this,” there is a difference between, “Hey, we encourage you to do this,” and mandating it from a vaccine perspective. And I think you said it well, Buck. Many of these NBA players have been more eloquent, nuanced, and intelligent analyzing the societal impact of covid vaccine mandates than the vast majority of elected politicians on the Democratic side of the aisle — and, frankly, the vast majority of, I would say, elected Democrat and Republican politicians because a lot of people have not been able to talk about this in any type of nuance or intelligent fashion.