Narrative Shift: We Lost the War Against Covid

CLAY: They can’t blame Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for all of the issues afflicting our country now since most of the states with the highest level of infection now are in the Midwest and the Northeast. Florida is, I think other than Hawaii right now — according to the New York Times data — the lowest level of covid anywhere in the country. But you’re starting to see, Buck, a pretty significant shift in the way covid is talked about.

In this clip that we’re about to play you, they have moved on now from the idea that we could ever eradicate covid — ’cause, remember, that’s what Dr. Fauci was saying as recently as April and May, that basically the vaccine was going to eliminate covid forever — and they now have shifted to, “Well, covid’s going to be here, and it is an ineradicable part of American life and world life for the future. But they still can’t quite abandon the idea that that’s because of all the people out there who didn’t get vaccinated. Listen to this insane take from a doctor out west. Let’s play it.

NEMERSON: Sadly, today I’m here to tell you that we’ve lost the war; that covid is here to stay. And the reason it’s here to stay is because we cannot vaccinate enough of the public to fully eradicate the disease.

CLAY: That is, by the way, Buck, Alphonsus Health System’s Dr. Steven Nemerson speaking out and trying to argue that you unvaccinated people are the reason covid is not eradicated — which is a one-billion percent, indisputable lie.

BUCK: And then there’s also the problem of the rest of the world, Clay, as we discussed.

CLAY: Yeah. (laughing) Yeah.

BUCK: Even if there was 100% Fauci compliance all over the United States, if we did every single thing “The Fauch” told us — which would be insane because you’d basically be bathing in Purell head to toe, not seeing human beings and triple masking all the time including outside, just to “take the science seriously.”

But even if we did all of that, there would still be — oh, I don’t know — the Delta variant coming from India, which was the first place that we saw it getting at least a lot of widespread transmission. There would still be covid-19 spread all over the rest of the world, and then it’s only a matter of time before you get a variant that would evade the vaccine’s protection level.

And we know the vaccine already wanes in protection over time. But they are preparing a narrative of, “If only you had listened to us more.” This is just a variation of, “If you had masked harder, we wouldn’t be here. All of you people who have been saying that what we tell you to do isn’t good enough; it isn’t gonna work? You are the problem.

“The problem is not that clearly what we made you do — not told you, not asked you, made you do — was not enough, was not rooted in science, was rooted more so in politics than anything else.” So they’re coming up with the narratives in advance. They’re trying to get ahead of the story.

CLAY: Only 35% of people, I think, in the most recent number around the world have been vaccinated. So, we’re still talking about 65%, Buck, to your point on the lie that was just spread and is going to now be spread, I believe, ’cause this will be the blame going into 2022. It’ll be, “Hey, Biden would have fixed things sooner!

“But all these idiot Trump voters — the insurrectionists, the pickup-driving rednecks in red states — are the reason why covid lingered as long as it did. We have to make sure that their preferred candidates all lose so that we don’t have democracy in our country overtaken.” That’s what they’re going to argue.

BUCK: That’s exactly what the narrative is going to be, because otherwise they would have to accept that there has been massive failure. You know how I mentioned the whole world thing. There are some, meaning vaccinate the whole world, there are some out there like Ari Emanuel’s brother, Zeke. I’m sorry. Sorry. What’s his name, the chief of staff? I’m blanking.

CLAY: Ron Klain.

BUCK: Rahm Emanuel. Sorry. Ari Emanuel. Different Emanuel. Rahm Emanuel. His brother Zeke from the Obama administration. He’s out there on TV saying we have to vaccinate the whole world.

EMANUEL: This is a worldwide pandemic. Uhhh, we know that because Delta came into the United States. It didn’t originate here. Uh, and if we want to get the world back, we have to vaccinate, uh, the whole world. Uh, and that is especially true in places that are critical for trade, travel, and other reasons. Um, and the United States’ problem here is not getting third doses to people who’ve already been vaccinated. It’s really getting the 70-plus million people who haven’t been vaccinated, uhhh, to get that shot.

BUCK: What he just said is, “You have to vaccinate the whole world,” and then he went back into the it is just Americans have not gotten vaccinated. It can’t be both of these things.

CLAY: First of all, the vaccine wanes. So let’s just keep reinforcing that. The idea that if you vaccinate people you are eliminating covid we know is not true because there are so many breakthrough cases even for the double vaccinated and now the triple vaccinated. But larger context to your point, Buck, Delta came out of India. Why did it come out of India?

Because there are billions of people in India, most of whom had never been vaccinated. Therefore, the virus has an ability to mutate in large populations of unvaccinated people. That’s not the United States now. Not compared to — I think I shared this stat with you which blew my mind — only 4% of people in Africa have been vaccinated.

That means, in theory, if there is going to be a rise of another variant, it is likely to come from somewhere else in the world, and this is where there’s been a public health policy debate about whether we should use our stock of the vaccine to give boosters here in America or be shipping them around the world and try to get more people an initial vaccine as opposed to triple protection here in the United States.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

CLAY: We want to give credit to Ron DeSantis for speaking out and saying something that we have been saying, both Buck and I, on this show, that Joe Biden is arguing that we shouldn’t be “divided” by his covid mandate, which is just another way of saying, “Shut up and get the shot, you complainers.” When the reality is, if there was no mandate, I feel like there’d be a lot less arguments going on in this country right now. This is what Ron DeSantis just had to say on the issue.

DESANTIS: Just think of Biden. He says, “Don’t make the vaccines divisive.” Don’t make the vaccines divisive? You are trying to take people’s jobs away over this issue! You are trying to plunge people into destitution. You are taking away their livelihoods! Nobody else is doing that. You are the one that’s being divisive about this.

BUCK: This is a classic leftist tactic he’s talking about, that Joe Biden’s doing. Do something incredible divisive, and then accuse the other side of being divisive. This is how Democrats do it all the time. This is a classic Obama thing that he used to do, too, when he was president.

He would say, “Why don’t you just do what I want? Why are you guys being so divisive?” Well, because we’re Republicans, and we don’t agree you.” But it was always, “Oh, do what I say or else you’re just in the way.” It was like, “Yeah, says every authoritarian in history.”