BUCK: Our friend Karol Markowicz, columnist from the New York Post and a new Florida resident, by the way, after leaving New York after decades. Karol, great to have you again.

MARKOWICZ: Hi, guys, thanks for having me.

BUCK: Let’s just lay it out for everybody. I know FoxNews.com had the story up, they had the exclusive on this one, but there’s now what we would call smoking gun email proof that Fauci, the CDC, et cetera, just took like line-by-line edit does on opening schools or not from teachers unions.

MARKOWICZ: Yeah. So the thing is we’ve known all along that this was the case. It’s just ever more evidence is coming up to further prove that that was the truth. And again, you know, you and I, the three of us have discussed this all along that we knew that Randi Weingarten sat down with the CDC and said that their move to move from six feet of distance to three feet of distance in classrooms was not gonna work for her and they’re gonna need to change the science to fit what her members want.

So we’ve known this for a year. I recall writing about this a year ago that this was going on. It’s just that now we have more proof. I don’t know who this proof is going to change their mind. I think that the left really doesn’t want to hear that “the science” is not the science, and that Randi Weingarten gets to dictate scientific policy. But if it moves anybody over to the side of sanity, I’m glad to see it.

CLAY: Yesterday, Karol, on our show, Ron DeSantis was a guest, and he said he hasn’t met anyone who has relocated to Florida and regretted the decision.

MARKOWICZ: No, me either.

CLAY: I’m curious. I’m sure you, as a mom, have met at this point lots of other moms who have made it decision, lots of other people who have relocated.

MARKOWICZ: Yeah.

CLAY: What has your interactions with people who’ve relocated to Florida partly to ensure your kids have a normal school going experience, what have those interactions been like?

MARKOWICZ: I’m telling you that the main complaint that I hear from people who have relocated is why didn’t we do this sooner? Like, we did we wait until covid forced us out? Why didn’t we see that freedom and liberty was available in Florida all along, that the weather is amazing, that the people are normal. There’s so much going for this state and has been for so long. But I didn’t see it until covid.

I didn’t understand how much more I could have, how much more my family could have until covid really forced me to see things that I couldn’t unsee. I couldn’t unsee them, my New York neighbors didn’t care that people who couldn’t send their kids to private schools didn’t have options, and that while their kids had pods and tutors, their neighbors who didn’t have as much as them couldn’t have those things.

And in Florida the governor made sure that all schools were open. He forced that issue. And he did it at a political peril. It wasn’t an obvious answer at the time. It wasn’t like everybody was, “Oh, yeah, schools should open.” It was like, “Oh, maybe schools shouldn’t open,” and he put his political capital on the line, and he was right every step of the way, and I wish we had done this sooner.

BUCK: We’re speaking to Karol Markowicz, columnist at the New York Post and a stalwart in support of children being able to be in school, in person, without masks all across the country, which I know for many people listening, Karol, they’re like, “Yeah, of course,” like that’s the way it’s been for a long time.

MARKOWICZ: Yeah. (laughing) Yeah.

BUCK: Not in New York State, not in California. There are a bunch of places where there’s still a lot of lingering madness. But I actually wanted to get your sense of how the Parental Rights in Education bill is creating so much tumult on the left. I mean, they’re going all-in, the Oscars obviously, which we all know what got the most attention there.

But people were making comments about the “don’t say gay” bill. And I’m sure you’ve seen this stuff that Chris Rufo has found and put out on the internet of the Disney senior executive talking about the need to essentially push these — like openly, push these agendas to children in cartoons.

MARKOWICZ: Yeah.

BUCK: I think the left is gonna find out in this midterm — I’m hoping they’ll find out in this midterm — that when you tell parents they’re not allowed to be involved in their kids’ education and that left-wing indoctrination is a necessary thing, they’re gonna find there’s a backlash to this.
MARKOWICZ: Yes. Yeah, absolutely. I have spoken to parents in Florida all across the political spectrum, and none of them think that kindergarteners, first graders, second graders, or third graders should be learning about sexual orientation or gender anything in school. And the thing is this absolutely happens. Parents know that kids are being indoctrinated with this kind of stuff very early.

And it doesn’t have to be, you know, anything to do… It actually has nothing to do with gay at all. There’s absolutely nothing in the bill that says you can’t say gay, so the fact that they’re repeating “gay” constantly makes no sense. It’s really about introducing the concept of transgenderism to very small kids who are very susceptible to, you know, information from authority leaders around them. I’ve seen this with my own eyes.

I’ve seen kids be told that they can be anything they want to be, and they end up believing that they are the opposite gender just because somebody in an authority position gave them that option. Kids are… You know, they don’t know a lot yet, and they absolutely pick up cues from their teachers and their parents and people around them.

The funny thing about this whole thing is that Disney has taken a ridiculous stand that has nothing to do with their business model. And it’s just every corporation that embraces wokeness in this way ends up hurting themselves. It’s absurd that Disney would get involved in this. And those videos yesterday should give parents, I mean, a real scare about what their kids are watching on Disney programs.

CLAY: No doubt. Karol, you work at the New York Post. We’re gonna dive into in a big way this Hunter Biden story suddenly being validated I think it was last week by the New York Times.

MARKOWICZ: Mmm-hmm. Yeah.

CLAY: A couple of hours ago, the Washington Post suddenly comes out and says: Oh, by the way, all the emails; the laptop story was real. CNN is now covering it 18 months later.

MARKOWICZ: Mmm-hmm.

CLAY: How much validation do you take as an employee of the New York Post that your paper got all of this right 18 months ago? If there were real journalism justice you’d get like the next — your paperwork and the writers who worked on this like the next 10 years’ — worth of Pulitzers, right, because they spoke truth to the face of power, and it took a long time for it to be validated. What is the vibe in the New York Post newsroom as everyone else suddenly acknowledges, “Oh, yes, those guys got it right?”

MARKOWICZ: (chuckles) So it’s funny because the New York Times story did not have any additional information. It was like, “We have now confirmed that information that was available is correct.”

CLAY: No doubt. Yes.

MARKOWICZ: Mmm-hmm. I think the big story — and I fully agree that the people at the New York Post have been validated. I think the fact that Twitter and Facebook had gotten so deeply involved in shutting down the story that you couldn’t DM it to anybody. It was really absurd, to make people afraid of what is happening online and how much control these companies have over us.

I think the real question — and I’m sure that you both will be diving into this — is, why now? Why are all these news organizations going into this now? And, to me, I mean, it’s a pretty easy answer that they don’t want Biden to be the 2024 nominee, and this is a way to injure him without making it seem like they’re really throwing anything at him. But, you know, I’m looking forward to hearing what you guys have to say about it.

CLAY: I think that’s a hundred percent right.

BUCK: We were actually talking about this, Karol. It’s like you’re the third on the conversation we just had before the show.

MARKOWICZ: (chuckles)

BUCK: We were talking of this on air because, just so you know, Clay and I make a lot of jokes about we have an on-air bet about whether or not there will be charges against Hunter Biden. My contention is not that Hunter Biden… Hunter Biden clearly broke the law, but up until this point I think it has been clear that the apparatus whether it’s Biden’s DOJ, the libs that run prosecutors’ offices, et cetera, was willing to look the other way and/or protect him, the same way they did Hillary.

Remember, what Hillary did was recklessness under the statute of handling classified information. I had a TS clearance; I know what this is like. She broke the law — full stop — and Comey just said, no prosecutor would bring charges. That’s just not true they protected her. I’m wondering now — and we’ll be talking about this as to whether, to the point you make about Biden, whether Hunter is no longer a made guy, so to speak.

MARKOWICZ: (laughing) Right.

BUCK: Remember in The Departed, there are guys you can’t hit? Hunter had kind of been, for the lib corporate media, a guy you can’t hit. It starts to feel like they decide all of a sudden, no, he is a guy you can hit.

MARKOWICZ: Right. I think he’s more like Joe Pesci in Goodfellas. (laughing) He’s gonna be invited into a room to get made and get whacked instead.

CLAY: Very well. Very good analogy.

MARKOWICZ: He doesn’t have that protection anymore. I think they will go after him.

BUCK: And then there’s also our mutual… We’re speaking to Karol Markowicz of the New York Post, New York Post columnist. There’s Fauci. we’re also gonna be talking about him in a little bit. he’s still out there. I mean, this guy is talking about going back to restrictions.

MARKOWICZ: Yeah.

BUCK: And I really… I get so mad and just so angry about all of this that it’s almost hard for me to verbalize my feelings about this guy and people that are still supporting him.

MARKOWICZ: Yeah.

BUCK: Do you think we’ve reached the point where a solid majority of the American people across party lines realize he is an evil little tyrant smurf and was wrong about everything or not?

MARKOWICZ: (laughing) No. Across party lines? Absolutely not. I think all the blue areas will listen to everything he says, follow all the directions to the letter, and put in the same failed tactics that have not worked the whole time. I already see New York going back to masks. I see it. It has been mandated yet but I already see it. Like, my kids’ old school in New York, the school bus is back to masking.

BUCK: It’s crazy, Clay. I think she sees it too. I see people walking around New York City where I live and there are outdoor maskers all over the place still, all over the place.

CLAY: It’s never going to go away, unless the message is so crystal clear that there is a reckoning in the midterms. This is what we’ve been arguing, Buck, that we have to end up with a reckoning in this spot. I think we lost Karol. Karol may have dropped off there but she does fantastic work.

MARKOWICZ: Oh, no, I’m here.

CLAY: Oh, we still got you u give you the last word, Karol.

CLAY: Yeah, do you think that kids are gonna have to wear masks again in school if you were betting?

MARKOWICZ: Yes. If I was betting — and I’m a betting woman — I would bet in blue areas masks will be introduced before the next school year.

CLAY: Ugh. Moms and dads out there with kids, I just can’t imagine if you live that blue state or blue city, and your kids have to put masks back on. Karol, fantastic work as always.

MARKOWICZ: Thank you so much, guys.

CLAY: We appreciate you.

BUCK: Thanks, Karol.

MARKOWICZ: Thank you.