CLAY: Buck Sexton was trending all weekend long after he took a shot at the city of Asheville! I couldn’t believe it. I was sitting on the beach. I looked down at the trending topics, and Buck is at war with the good people of Asheville, North Carolina.

BUCK: Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on. I’m throwing a flag here, Mr. Clay.

CLAY: (laughing)

BUCK: I’m throwing a flag. Asheville is a place with great food, beautiful, very nice people. I arrived and I just was a little bit taken aback — and I don’t know. I want to get back to the bigger news stories, although we should talk about this a little bit. Clay, in downtown Asheville, there are not only masks on most of the employees in stores and businesses you come across —

CLAY: Still. Which is shocking to you, and given it’s North Carolina, even worse than New York City.

BUCK: It was worse than New York City! N95 masks. There were “masks required” signs on some stores. Most of the stores that I saw, ’cause I wanted to go see… It’s Asheville; they’re selling wind chimes and patchouli and whatever. I was going to check out things. I’m like, “What’s that smell? Oh, I found out,” and you walk in these stores, and they’ve got N95 masks on, and all these people walking around, and I just said, “There’s a lot of masks.”

.@BuckSexton is right. pic.twitter.com/ovHWhiSL7K

— Karol Markowicz (@karol) July 3, 2022

I didn’t make fun of anybody. I just said, “There’s a lot of masks here.” Could I just come back to this later ’cause I need to dunk on some libs? There are some libs, some blue checks need to get dunked on. This is now insane. They have a mental health issue, wearing an N95 as some kind of virtue signaling lunacy and making employees do it. We’ll come back to that, though. What do you say?

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: ‘Cause I want to tee off on some individuals in particular who really deserve it. But, yeah, no, I had a lovely time in Asheville. Carrie and I had a great time. Fun town, good food, lots of drink.

CLAY: Trending the whole weekend long after you got there.

BUCK: Nationally trending Asheville. I don’t know. When was the last time Asheville nationally trended on Twitter? I don’t know. It’s probably been a while.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

BUCK: I didn’t realize local newspapers in North Carolina were picking this one up. So, let me just set the scene for everybody, right? Let me just tell the folks what’s going on and why all of a sudden this was trending nationally. I know a lot of you aren’t on Twitter, but when something trends nationally on Twitter, it gets a lot of media attention. There were writers for the New York Times weighing in on this one, there were random influencers, craft beer places. By the way, I’ve been told by a longtime listener, Clay, it’s called a “gauge” in your ear. I just learned this. I did not know what that was.

CLAY: You’re right. They are very common now with the blue hair community.

BUCK: But —

CLAY: Not old people, by the way, blue hair young people.

BUCK: No. People to dye their hair electric blue, not people that are older. WWNC AM is our Asheville affiliate, by the way, so if you’re listening and you want to know why there was all this attention over the weekend, let me just tell you, “This is what happened,” so you’ll all know. Clay sent me — this has been picked up by different newspapers there. First of all —

CLAY: You’re in every newspaper in North Carolina right now.

BUCK: Yeah, apparently every newspaper in North Carolina. “National Radio Host Sneers at People in Asheville and it Set off a War on Twitter,” was the Charlotte Observer here. I didn’t sneer at the people of Asheville. That’s just a lie. That’s not even true.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: I obviously chose to go there on vacation. I’m looking forward to enjoying my time there. All I wrote that started this huge war, okay, on Twitter, online, was, “Higher percentage of mask wearers in Asheville, North Carolina, than back in Manhattan. What is going on here?” That is it. I didn’t say every here….

CLAY: What time did you send that? Saturday morning?

BUCK: Saturday around lunchtime, maybe 11 a.m., noon. And it just completely took off, all these people freaked out. One fellow who sort of looks like Moby on steroids… I’m trying to find his name. He’s a fitness influencer who actually decided to tell me what his deadlift was.

CLAY: (laughing)

BUCK: I’m gonna find this ’cause if you want a window into the left-wing mind, you’ve got to hear it. Wait. I’m gonna track this one because ’cause it’s really important. Where did it go, darn it?

CLAY: You track that down. I’ll explain from my perspective.

BUCK: No, wait, here! (laughing) I found it. Mr. Brad Stulberg. Again, like I said, if Moby were taking a lot of HGH he would look somewhat like this guy. Not that I’m saying this gentleman takes anything. I’m just saying he resembles Moby but much more jacked. “Hi, Buck. Welcome to Asheville. Covid rates are pretty high.” Really? “And for many people wearing a mask isn’t all that hard. I deadlift 450 pounds, parent a rowdy young kid, train, write books, and so on. I don’t want to get sick, and wearing a mask is the easiest thing to do.”

He got 4,000 likes from the Twitter community on that one. “N95 masks are pretty effective.” No, actually. Also, not true. “So just pop one on when I go inside stores and the like. I’ve had no issue with the practice. So my guess is that is what you are seeing,” and then he went on to say a bunch of other sort of snarky things about me to his lib audience friend. Let me say, Mr. Stulberg, I would suggest you read more and lift less because even the New York Times, as we have had them on… We’ve had a New York Times writer on the show, David Zweig.

New York Magazine, rather, but the New York Times has written about this, too, so either one works. Mask mandates have done nothing. It’s not that they haven’t done a lot. They’ve actually completely failed to show any of case anywhere in the country. And as for why I care, when I walk into a place in the middle July and it’s 80 degrees outside and there are staff members — and it was all over downtown, and I’m from Manhattan. So I’m used to seeing mask maniacs, Clay.

Sorry. (chuckles) As you know I’m very fired up about this. And they have N95 masks on, there are children that I saw with N95 masks on, but I’m not even talking about that. That’s child abuse, though. There are people that work in these stores who have no choice. No one asked them. And there are “masks required” signs outside. Why is Bernie Sanders-voting, left-wing lunacy tied to N95 mask wearing if it’s about science? That is the question that I pose to these people.

CLAY: This is also funny to me on many different levels. Let me start here. Has anyone ever posted their deadlift ability and it made you trust their opinion on something other than deadlifting more? So I was like, “I’m Clay Travis. I bench press 225 and I believe that mask wearing is important,” would you be like, “Oh, I didn’t trust his opinion on the mask? But when he told me what benched, then suddenly I’m like, ‘This dude knows what he’s talking about.’”

I would just ask you, has your deadlift ever been connected in any way to a position where you would trust someone more? Like, “I deadlift 450, and I think that we should build the wall or not build the wall,” would you be like, “Well, I didn’t trust this guy’s opinion on the wall, but then he told me what he dead lifted, and now I’m all-in.” That, to me, is funny. Regardless of who you are or what your political opinion is, if you put your deadlift in your political opinion, anyone who trusts you more say total imbecile.

BUCK: I’m gonna tell Mr. Stulberg, when he can dead left 550, then I’ll to want hear his science take, then I want to hear his science take. So I dealt with — and this is what drove me so insane — by the way. I was honestly surprised. All these people are like, “Why do you go somewhere to start a fight?” I’m in New York City, man. I see the mask stuff all the time. It was jarring how many and it was all in the stores, people in the streets a little bit too, and it wasn’t just that they were the employees. There were masks — and I took photos, ’cause they always say you’re lying. I actually have photo evidence of this. “Masks required” for stores still. And this is a mental health, okay? That’s —

CLAY: It is.

BUCK: I care because these people need to stop being crazy, and the reason they need to stop being crazy is that this isn’t about safety. This is the same mentality, we all had to mask up on planes. Remember when they got rid of the plane mask mandate? Does anyone care anymore? No. Because it’s for people that are emotionally unwell, okay? They made us do this, and they want — and this is what I’m telling everybody across the country. Biden is still president, folks, even for two years. They want to do this again. They have not given up.

They do not admit that they are wrong. They are abusing children by making them wear masks. They are mandating the vaccine for small kids in New York City. This fight is not over, and so I don’t like this argument of, “Oh, why do you care so much?” ‘Cause they want to make all of us do it just when they can get the political power to do it. And then, beyond that, I actually am a nice guy, Clay. I want to free their faces! I want them to breathe as human beings have breathed for all of human history. I want them to enjoy the nice patchouli-smelling air in downtown Asheville. I don’t want them to have to feel this way anymore. I’m actually on their side. They just don’t know it.

CLAY: What I also thought was funny in addition to your dead lifter, somebody at a comic bookstore came after me because I just pointed out, I didn’t even know this was trending yet. I was on the beach with my kids, like, I’m having a great time. And I saw your tweet. I’m checking to see what the news was, and I saw your tweet. And I just responded, “Asheville is like a great city,” basically, but they’ve also gotten taken over by the woke. They voted for reparations as well.

And the Asheville comic bookstore came after me (laughing), and the comic bookstore, which was perfect, had the Ukraine flag in it, and, you know, as if you’re, like, going around shopping, you’re like, “I don’t know where I’m gonna get the newest Marvel comic book…” “Have you ever not been awful? Please don’t come here. We don’t want you.” That was from Asheville Comics which had the Ukraine flag in it. But, Buck, I’ve been in this —

BUCK: That you know Kathy Griffin weighed in on this one? I didn’t even see this ’til now. This has gone thermonuclear viral, Clay.

CLAY: Well, what I you is, you’re on vacation. It’s July 4th. You dash off what you think is a relatively innocuous tweet — I was gonna say — sharing your impressions. You’re there with your girlfriend and her family. This reminds me of my situation once before when I was like to my wife, “I only have to do one more interview. It’s Friday, I’m gonna do this CNN hit, and then we’re gonna take the kids out for pizza and we’re just gonna chill for the weekend, it’s been a long week, been working hard,” and I said I believe in the First Amendment and boobs, and it just blew up for multidays.

And my wife is like, “Yeah, I guess we’re not going out for pizza now,” and I’m like, “Yeah.” I’m picturing you just dashing off what you think is an innocuous tweet. We got the biggest radio audience in the country — you’re on Fox News all the time, too — sharing all sorts of opinions, and suddenly, you’re fighting a battle with everybody in the state of North Carolina over masks, and you totally never anticipated it would blow up like it did. No earthly idea.

BUCK: I talk about so much more controversial stuff, and yet this went completely nuts over the weekend, but I see so many of the arguments that are being made, and it’s fascinating. One of my favorites… These people are very — and, by the way, I’m not saying individuals. I’m talking about blue checks, people that are verified, have an audience and platform themselves or have a platform as part of their living. They’re so dumb.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: So many of them are so deeply stupid, and people listen to them. And, I mean, for example, they keep saying I made some anti-freedom comment. I’m not the one that wants people wrestled on planes and arrested in front of their family members for not masking up or whatever. I’m just saying, “Hey, guys, stop being morons. Learn to read. They don’t work, okay?” And for the people that say, “Oh, N95 is really effective,” for the millionth time, if you wear a sealed N95 mask for 100% of the time you could possibly be exposed to people who have covid, yes.

You will probably reduce your risk of covid. The moment that you decide, “Oh, it’s bar night and I’m not gonna wear the mask,” you’re getting covid just like the rest of us, all right? So this… It’s all virtue signaling. I didn’t… New York Times writers weighing in, Kathy Griffin. They’re piling on the Buckster. My girlfriend’s family lives in Asheville, okay? I’m there because I’m trying to make friends with the town of Asheville. I don’t hate Asheville at all. I thought it was lovely.

CLAY: You’re just trending everywhere on vacation. It is a perfect example of you never know when something is going to hit. This reminds me of when you blew up over the Simone Biles comments early in our tenure. You’re wherever because of your opinion about Simone Biles.

BUCK: I made a joke about how milk should just mean cow milk and not be other milks — those should be called, like, juice of the almond or whatever — and I got dragging for four days on this. I’m like, “What is this? Sorry the free market’s given you so many options.” What is wrong with all you idiots? Anyway, Twitter of full of libs and morons so this is what you deal with, folks. But, anyway, Asheville food, very nice, lots of great options. I went to beautiful waterfalls, saw lots of folks having a good time.

CLAY: You go to the Biltmore?

BUCK: Would I what?

CLAY: Did you go to the Biltmore?

BUCK: Oh, yeah, of course, went to the Biltmore Estates, pretty fancy.

CLAY: Pretty cool.

BUCK: Yeah, very nice. Highly recommend. I just want everyone to free their faces. That’s all. I’m just advocating for it.

CLAY: At least have that option.

BUCK: Yeah, at least have the option for a free face.