CLAY: Right off the top here, I want to have a discussion with Buck about this. The data continues to come in and at this point, I think is virtual unassailable that if you are unvaccinated you have virtually the same risk of spreading covid as someone who is vaccinated. And I was thinking about this a lot as we talked yesterday, Buck, to start all the new insane restrictions that are being put in place in New York City.

How is it that we aren’t having a real discussion — and I start off the show today ’cause I know a lot of people out there listening to this show, as Rush used to say, as show prep for much of their own shows. How is it that we’re not having a discussion about the fact that at this point in time — and, frankly, for the last six months or so — everyone who is unvaccinated is making a calculated decision to be unvaccinated?

And now that we know, a lot of criticism of the unvaccinated has been, “Oh, my goodness. You’re gonna make me sicker! You’re gonna get me sick because the unvaccinated people haven’t trusted their vaccine.” But, Buck, now that we know that when you get vaccinated you have a less severe case of covid, if you get it — from hospitalization or death-related issues — but you’re no more likely necessarily to spread covid than one who has not, why don’t we just allow people to take their own risk and move on and it go to 100% normalcy in this country?

BUCK: This is a mirror image of what we’ve seen in the mask debate actually where it starts out and when people have their questions about it — and remember the early days of masking. Even Fauci said in email — we all know, we remember — masks don’t really do anything to stop pandemic spread. And then, the Democrat Party and the anti-Trump momentum and everything demanding masking as, one, an anxiety napkin for people.

Maybe it does something. All these health professionals come forward who say it’s great and the health professionals who say, “Actually, we know that it doesn’t really do very much, if anything.” Cloth masks we’re talking about, not N95. Properly fitted, worn 100% of the time you’re exposed, that’s a different thing. Fauci said that he lied to protect supplies.

So Fauci is an admitted liar. Put that aside for a second. Beyond that — on a public policy issue, not on a what-he-had-for-breakfast issue. Beyond that, Clay, they told us in the summer of 2020 that masking would probably reduce caseload by 60%. They led us to believe that the places that had mask mandates would see enormous and precipitous declines of caseload and it would be so clear, and all the stupid mask questioners would look so, so dumb.

And then that didn’t happen so what did they do? Then all of a sudden it changed from masking. The CDC chief ,Redfield — you remember this guy, another bureaucrat — said masking… This is what he said. He did have to walk it back, but he said it to Congress. “Masking may even be a more effective tool at stopping viruses than the vaccine,” which was crazy.

Everyone who heard that said, “This guy is out of his mind.” He did walk that back, but how can he say something so dumb? What I’m getting to here is then it was, “Well, maybe it does something, Clay, and something is better than nothing. Why don’t you want to do something? Why don’t you want to protect grandparents? You must want grandparents to die!”

This is what they did with masks, and it’s now what they’re doing with vaccine mandates, too. They dramatically moved the goalposts. They look at us like we’re the crazy ones who say, “Hold on, you were wrong and you’re changing the game. You’re changing the rules once again,” and what their response is, ‘Anything that we can do is valid and necessary.

“Even if it saves…” You know how they say about gun control, Clay, “If it saves just one life”? We have now been reduced by Fauciism to millions of people who think if it stops just one case one time, maybe it’s worth it. They have completely lost all sense of proportion and risk analysis. That’s where we are.

CLAY: It is so well said, and remember Joe Biden when he took office in January — to go back to your masking point — said, “If everybody would just wear masks for a hundred days, covid would be over.” That’s what Joe Biden said in January. It’s almost a year since Joe Biden took office, and that hasn’t been reflected at all in the data. But to me, this is an important talking point that needs to be spread far and wide.

If you are choosing to be unvaccinated, you are almost exclusively a risk to yourself, and I haven’t heard hardly anyone making this argument. And I think it’s a good one for people out there listening to us right now. Look, again, I want to reiterate because inevitably people write articles about what we say on the show. The data reflects that if you are senior citizen, if you are over 65 years old, you should get the vaccine.

You should get boosted. You worked do everything that you can for your health. Buck and I continue to say this for our own parents who are over 65. Senior citizens are under massively higher risk from covid than younger people are. But if you are deciding — and, by the way, 99% of senior citizens have gotten at least one shot so far, which is an incredible public health success story that almost no one talks about.

But if you are deciding at this point that you will not get the covid vaccine, that is a choice that you are making and it is primarily a risk that you yourself are bearing exclusively, not that you are foisting upon others, because even if you get the covid vaccine data now reflects that you get and spread covid at roughly the same rate as the unvaccinated, your risk that you have the spread are the same.

BUCK: They will not allow that to be a conclusion that is widely shared. They’ll certainly debate that. The apparatus of the Fauciites, whatever you want to call it, they will fight this tooth and nail right now and they’ll think, “Even if the data does reflect what you’re saying,” because the whole mission has now turned into boosterizing, right?

“You gotta get boostered,” which see why Bill de Blasio’s walking around acting like he’s some kind of big hero for the most restrictive measures of anyplace in the entire country in the next two weeks. People are pointing out, there was no… Clay, there was no notice for this. There was no preparation for this.

CLAY: Think about the problem he’s making for the new mayor who’s gotta walk in here and immediately decide, “Do I rescind this or do I enforce this?”

BUCK: I gotta tell you, when I talk to someone who’s in New York politics who is saying, “Don’t expect Eric Adams to be some kind of a guy who’s all about individual choice and freedom on this issue. He may go along with some, not all of it. The private sector mandate’s probably the most…” Yeah, but remember they don’t care, right?

When it comes to covid, the libs have openly embraced a post-constitutional operating procedure. They don’t care that the CDC deciding whether you can rent out your property. Whether you can kick somebody out of your rental property or not is under their purview. They just say they’re gonna do it. This is now what we’re dealing with, and the moment you say, “Hold on. That’s not within your authority.

“We have the Constitution, the separation of powers so that we can be clear — even in moments of duress — what the limitations on state authority may be,” federal, big state, S-state authority. That’s a situation that I think we’re gonna have to fight against. They want to get their way when they get it and they assume the court…

CLAY: Do you agree with me, though, that if we — and I think our show can be powerful in this ’cause a lot of people will follow our lead if we can shift the paradigm in some way. We’re not gonna shift it for the far left wing who don’t care to your point about constitutionality at all. But if we can shift the conversation from, “You are a risk to me,” which is the way most in the media are covering anybody who is unvaccinated (and soon anybody who is unboostered) to “You are a risk to yourself,” that changes everything because what they’ve tried to do is argue that the unvaccinated are a threat to the larger universe. It isn’t reflected that that’s true based on the data.

BUCK: So this is where I can give you… You’re bringing to everyone now a rational view surrounded by people who are also open to rational view. Let me take you into the dark deep, dark underbelly of blue state America for a second, Clay. Their argument, even if they will concede what you’re saying now — which they will not, certainly not in the weeks ahead.

They will say, “Oh, no, the data, it’s not clear. It needs more study.” They’d do the Fauci dance, right? It’s always, “We never know.” It’s the same thing they do with natural immunity. “Oh, we don’t know how long it lasts.” They don’t know how long the vaccine lasts.

CLAY: I know. I know.

BUCK: But, anyway, they’re going to say — and this is why I started talking about this. I went into that preamble about masks also because I love taking shots about how Fauci’s a liar and we all know that, but put that aside they basically now tell you that even if masking reduces 5% of spread, it’s worth it. And what they’re going to say now is even if vaccination…

You know, they still believe, by the way, that it’s breakthrough cases are rare. I mean, this is the official line, and we gotta look at the data and really crunch it to actually come up with some numbers here. But even if it were, Clay, 5% reduction from vaccination, they would say, “Worth it! Get your shot or else.” That’s what blue state America’s turned into, unfortunately.

CLAY: That is unfortunate. I do think there’s some truth to it, but I am intrigued whether we could make that the argument, whether we could start to say whether you’re vaccinated or not is primarily a risk to yourself individually. I think it starts to shift some of the conversation. I really do.