BUCK: I actually used to go to public pools in D.C. with some regularity.

CLAY: Yeah?

BUCK: When I was in my twenties and a CIA officer.

CLAY: Really? Public pools in your twenties?

BUCK: Show off whatever abs I had at the time.

CLAY: When I was a kid, I would go to all the public pools in the Nashville area. I was in day care. Both my parents worked and we’d have a daily trip to Pleasant Greens swimming pool, which is in the Nashville area, and then we’d occasionally get to go to the wave pool back in the day, the one that was owned by the city of Nashville that made the waves. So I was just scrolling through and I cannot believe that…

First of all, I’m coming to New York City tomorrow. It’s the first time I’ve been in New York City since… I was trying to remember. I know we did last summer when I was in New York. Have I been up in a year? I don’t think so, and last year was supposed to be a Hot Vax Summer where everybody was super excited, the covid shot was gonna save everyone, and now everybody’s kind of getting used to the fact that that’s not happening. I just saw that your city, Buck, they’re going to require people at New York City public pools to wear masks everywhere but in the water this summer.

BUCK: I’m just gonna tell you… So you asked about public pools — I lived in Georgetown when I was a young CIA officer and there was a public pool in Georgetown —

CLAY: That’s probably a pretty nice pool.

BUCK: — sort of like Baywatch. I’m not gonna lie, it was pretty fantastic. It was a good time at the public pool. Anyhow, in New York City, they’re going to make people mask up for entry to the public pool, for sunbathing on the deck of the pool —

CLAY: You have to wear a mask while you’re sunbathing!

BUCK: — everywhere except in the water because I guess they realized that maybe it poses like a drowning hazard or something.

CLAY: I would think it’s probably pretty easy to drown in a mask.

BUCK: Absurd. But this is why you can see this turned into — as we’ve said so many times — an anxiety disorder, this turned into a political mobilization tool. There is no scientific basis for this whatsoever. To say, “scientific basis,” this is idiotic. I mean, the people that think this is a good idea are not smart. The people making people do this are not intelligent human beings.

CLAY: I’m just laughing. It’s sad that this could ever occur. If you go to a pool and you lay out or you go to the beach and you lay out or whatever else, you’re gonna have a mask tan, ’cause you’re gonna have your big mask that you have to wear, and then otherwise you’re laying out in your bathing suit. And so if you’re not careful, when you’re done at the end of the day you will have like a tanned forehead, and then you’ll have a huge mask tan line. How…? How ridiculous! I cannot even imagine being at a pool and having to wear a mask outdoors laying out in the sun. There were people are crazy.

BUCK: So I got stuck at the airport. I was supposed to go visit our fantastic affiliate in St. Louis.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: We had mentioned that. I spent six hours at the airport yesterday. We did the whole… We hit the limit. When you wait on the tarmac, you wait, it’s hours, and then we had delays before that. So, I was basically at the airport all night last night.

CLAY: Did you have something to read? Did you have enough to read on the airplane?

BUCK: A little book called Undaunted Courage, my man.

CLAY: There you go. That helped a little bit.

BUCK: I’m at 250, baby. I’m flying through Undaunted Courage.

CLAY: I’m always terrified of getting stuck on an airplane, your phone dies, and you have nothing to read. I would lose my mind. It’s never happened to me, but I would lose my mind, I think.

BUCK: But I’m just gonna tell you, it’s about 10 to 20% of people in LaGuardia New York City airport walking around masked up. What I think is so interesting is the holdout maskers. A lot of N95s, a lot of, like, medical masks. They’re the true believers. You know, it’s like the person that was on my flight — try story, hand of God — triple masker, double masker with the face shield.

CLAY: For the whole three hours that you were sitting there on the tarmac they had the mask on? Face shield, everything?

BUCK: That’s what’s so interesting. No one on the plane to St. Louis, not a single person that I saw had a mask on ’cause we’re going to St. Louis. But a lot of people on the LGA terminal were masked up because it’s a mental illness, folks. It really is.

CLAY: It really is a mental illness at this point in time. Imagine being at the swimming pool and you have to wear a mask to lay out while you’re sunbathing. This just gets crazier and crazier.