White House Perplexed Over Post-Mandate Job Quitters

BUCK: There’s also the reality of an administration that lives in the unreality of economics. They don’t really understand — or care to understand — what’s happening with inflation and also, as a result of these covid mandates they have in place, about things like shots. Here’s Jen Psaki when asked, “Hey, you know, it might not be great considering what we’re facing here when you start enforcing the federal vaccine mandate. That could actually hurt an already struggling economy in some ways.”

REPORTER: Thanks, Jen. I wanted to ask about the numbers that came out this morning about the record number of people quitting their jobs in September. Is there a concern that this number might go even higher when the vaccine mandate goes into place, and what is the administration doing to help companies who are concerned about retaining workers once the mandate kicks in?

PSAKI: You’re talking about because of the vaccine mandate being implemented and specific companies? I just haven’t seen this data so give me a little more information.

BUCK: Yeah, she’s like, “Yeah, what do you mean? I don’t understand.” Yeah, there are a lot of people who have left their jobs. People have lost their jobs, and more could be coming here soon in large numbers because of the vaccine mandate. And this is now for a vaccine that we all understand is temporary. You’re now… It is a temporary vaccine, and you are mandated to get it or be endlessly harassed and fined by the federal government, and Jen Psaki in the White House like, “Wait. What do you mean it could be bad for the economy?”

CLAY: This is just more and more indication, Buck — and I think you probably agree with me on this, and I know a lot of people listening to us do — conservatives know way more what liberals think than liberals know what conservatives think.

BUCK: Oh, the data actually proves that.

CLAY: A hundred percent, right? So it’s amazing to me that you could be the press secretary for the leader of the Free World and feign stupidity on the idea, which is certainly prevalent out there, that millions of people may leave their jobs over the vaccine mandate. Now, you can say you think those numbers are exaggerated. You can use arguments again it.

But to pretend that this is not potentially a major issue that hasn’t been widely discussed across a variety of different jobs for months is a level of inauthenticity and lying that, frankly, should disgust everyone, because what she’s trying to do… That’s a good question. That’s the kind of question that somebody in the White House press corps who is aware of what’s going on in the larger society should ask, and for Jen Psaki to play dumb as if she’s not cognizant of this issue at all is just a further evidence of how the Biden administration doesn’t believe Americans can be spoken to honestly.

BUCK: You also have to think that there will be continued implementation of this mandate going forward as well.

CLAY: No doubt.

BUCK: What is the rationalization here? What would be the argument for this be? You get the shot. They’re making you get the shot if you have a hundred or more employees. They’re also gonna expand this to less than a hundred.

CLAY: Yeah, eventually.

BUCK: Yeah, they’re doing a divide-and-conquer strategy here for people’s individual freedoms. But what makes anyone think that they won’t then say when we’re coming up into the major respiratory virus — next year in the fall, the fall of 2022 — there won’t be another, “Okay. To be in compliance with the new OSHA mandate, you’ve gotta get another round of shots”?

I put this on Twitter. I’m surprised Twitter didn’t block this: How long before you’re not even allowed to talk about myocarditis, which is a real risk of some of these shots that people end up running? How long before you’re not even allowed to talk about it? Because if you’re gonna do the shot once, there’s a certain risk percentage and profile with it. If you’re gonna be forced to do it every year, that changes pretty dramatically.

CLAY: Buck, I’m already sitting here wondering, “How many shots am I gonna be behind on?” Right? ‘Cause I haven’t gotten the vaccine yet. So right now, I’m behind on two. Now I’m gonna be behind on the booster! We’re talking about by the time it gets to five or six shots that everybody has to get, I’m gonna be three years behind on how long it would even take me to the catch with where I would need to be.

BUCK: ‘Cause if they do eventually make you get it, at least theoretically, that would be the shot most useful for that period. Just like the flu, by the way. This is… We already have something that’s very analogous to this. We have something that sets us up to understand what the expectation should be. If they even tried it to guess what the flu strain’s gonna be in advance and create —

CLAY: And they’re often wrong, by the way.

BUCK: Yeah, they’re often wrong. But that’s what they end up having to do. And so that’s where we’ll probably be at some point in the future and I just… I worry that the Democrats are so dug in on this that no matter how crazy and absurd this gets and no matter how much it’s clear to everybody they’re wrong, they’re still going to say, “Better to be wrong and miserable than accept that Clay, Buck, and the rest of them were right,” you know? I think the stubbornness might override everything else.

CLAY: I got a good point. You know, I’ve been on college campuses all fall and I was having a conversation with a college kid who was 20. He was saying, “Hey, me and a bunch of buddies, we have fake IDs to get into the bar, right?” and he was saying that some of the schools now are requiring vaccines, and so their proof of vaccine — which some of the bigger cities are requiring now for some of their friends?

They have to get fake vaccine cards to match their fake IDs to be able to get in and get a beer inside of a bar, which is kind of funny to think about, right? Because more most of us out there who have ever been in college that you know when you’re 19 or 20 years old, it’s not uncommon that you have a fake ID in order to get into a bar.

BUCK: Good heavens.

CLAY: And now you have to match… You might have a real vaccine card, but it says your age, and it doesn’t match your fake ID, and so they’re having to mix and match, which is actually really funny and ridiculous to think about. But these college kids who are under no risk from covid, have got an entire collage of different fake IDs to be able to go get a beer in a bar some places.

BUCK: This White House isn’t gonna make things better anytime soon, but we’re on it, folks. Don’t worry. The truth will still be here for you no matter what they do to us on Twitter and Facebook and other places.