CLAY: Here is Virginia lieutenant governor, Winsome Sears, who is clearly on her way to becoming, I think, a GOP superstar and household name in politics. Here she is saying, “We told Virginians we were gonna do something and then, guess what? Glenn Youngkin and this team is coming in and they’re doing it.” Play 5.

SEARS: Listen. Our former president, Barack Obama, said, “Elections have consequences.” We told the parents, we told Virginians what we wanted to, what we were going to do, and they voted for us. These are the good consequences that they’re seeing that — imagine — politicians are going to fulfill those promises. We’re gonna do that.

BUCK: So, Clay, can we just note: That is absolutely correct. Everything that Youngkin came into office… Remember, Biden ran as the great uniter, as the guy that would pull the country together. Although really, he ran as whatever the media said he was going to be because he was busy in the basement hiding and staying out of public eye for obvious reasons as we see now. But you come into office, you do exactly what you told the voters you were gonna do and let me just say this: The left-wing media is flipping out about Youngkin already. I think this is, in a sense, great press for him.

CLAY: I agree completely, and it’s also further dishonesty. I was on last night with Dr. Marty Makary — who we’ve had on this show a ton — who is the new adviser for Glenn Youngkin in the state of Virginia. Marty Makary has been on our show, and I’m so happy that the Youngkin administration has decided to bring him in. But what Marty Makary’s done such a great job of — he’s in Johns Hopkins, so he’s just up the road there in Baltimore — is he has said kids need to be in school and the data reflects that kids are not in danger from covid.

And we talked about this yesterday. The Washington Post immediately, what did they say? Oh, he’s downplayed the risks of covid to children! No, he hasn’t downplayed it. He’s just shared the actual factual data as opposed to trying to terrify parents everywhere that their kids are gonna die of covid. And that is classified as downplaying the threat when in reality you don’t downplay anything, right?

This is where real public health officials, if they had been doing their job, would have stood up just in front of the data, Buck… Imagine how much different things would be if the Dr. Faucis of the world and the Rochelle Walenskys, instead of constantly trying to tell us what to do, had just gotten the old school PowerPoint presentation; put up on a screen, “Hey, I can’t tell you every single person that’s gonna happen when you get covid, but here’s what the data is.

“You know what your age is, you know what your health conditions are far better than I do. Here’s what the data reflects your risk is.” That would have been so much better. That’s what I want from my doctor. Give me the odds, let me know the data, and I will internally assess it as best I can. That’s what Dr. Marty Makary’s done. And I think that’s what Glenn Youngkin is doing. He’s a business guy. Ultimately, business guys look at data and make decisions based on that data. And I think that’s what Virginia’s got, and that’s why we need more of these guys and girls who are willing to do that.

BUCK: Well, Clay, I just want to tell you, Joy Reid is very upset about all of this.

CLAY: No surprise.

BUCK: So she clearly disagrees with you. In fact, she refers to — and this is what I meant, in part, by the left-wing freakout over Glenn Youngkin coming into office and doing things that… I gotta say, I mean, getting rid of CRT in schools, getting rid of the mask mandate, getting rid of a state vaccine mandate for employees. I don’t think that’s gotten enough attention. He’s finally saying, enough is enough.

To the points we’ve been making about Youngkin, say what you will about this guy, but you don’t get the CEO of the Carlyle Group when, you know, it’s not like daddy made you the CEO because he started the company. You don’t get to be the CEO of it Carlyle Group unless you’re a pretty savvy guy. Clearly Youngkin is a smart dude. Joy Reid does not like him and, in fact, thinks that he will turn Virginia into a covid cesspool. Play 4.

REID: He was just Trump with better diction and a (sputters) slightly paler shade of orange. But once you open it up it’s all the same stuff: Anti-truth, anti-education, and 100% pro-covid. Now that Youngkin is officially in the governor’s mansion, Virginia (sputters) is really in trouble, girl. But Youngkin’s biggest and most lethal project appears to be turning Virginia into a covid-y cesspool like Florida. Even as Omicron is smashing records in his state, Youngkin is ending the statewide school mask mandate! He’s also rescinding the vaccine mandate for state workers. The rich businessman with no political experience — sound familiar? — is working to reverse all of the progress that turned Virginia into one of the highest vaccinated states in the country.

CLAY: Do you…? I mean this honestly about Joy Reid. Do you think that she actually is as dumb as she sounds, or is she playing a role? In other words, has she seen any of the data on masking? Has she bothered in two years to read anything about masking? Has she bothered in any way to understand that vaccination status doesn’t impact the spread of Omicron hardly at all and that Pfizer’s own CEO has said that?

Does she see any of this, Buck, or is she in such an idiot bubble that she isn’t even aware of how dumb she sounds for people who have even the barest scintilla of knowledge of what the data? Honestly, every time I hear her, I think, “Is she this dumb? Is she this willfully ignorant of basic facts like, frankly, Sonia Sotomayor was, like Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court? Is this a a willful blindness, or…?” I don’t understand how you can have this perspective.

BUCK: Just this note: You brought in Sotomayor. I just have to remind everybody that there’s more oral arguments going on before the Supreme Court this week, and Sotomayor will be joining via remote from her office because Justice Gorsuch — who I gotta say, high five for The Gorsuch on this one —

CLAY: I agree here on this.

BUCK: — is refusing to wear a mask during oral arguments. So one Supreme Court justice is refusing to wear a mask. Keep in mind, they’re wearing cloth masks, as far as I understand it, at least they were last time, that’s what I believe was reported. So they’re not all sitting there in N95s. Even if they were in N95s, the moment you pull it down to drink or do anything you’re gonna do, you no longer have any protection.

But let’s just stick with the cloth masks for a second. Sotomayor is so terrified of covid — and so unwilling to look at reality and the recent data that even the Democrats are accepting — that she will not be in the same room as a fellow Supreme Court justice who does not mask during oral arguments. This is a mental illness now of, honestly, pandemic proportions.

CLAY: Not only that, every Supreme Court justice, Buck, is double vaxxed and boostered already. So they have double vaxxed and they have boostered. Sonia Sotomayor is terrified of covid. She’s also implicitly acknowledging two things: One, the vaccine doesn’t work, right? Because if everybody was double vaxxed and also boosted, the fact that they’re wearing masks would not have actually made any impact at all.

So she’s acknowledging the vaccines don’t work. But she’s not willing to acknowledge that the masks don’t work either. So she is buying into cosmetic theater. On the one hand… This goes to my point with Joy Reid. On the one hand she’s at least cognizant enough to know that the vaccines don’t provide protection from infection or the spread, but she still is clinging to the idea that if he just wore a cloth mask, she would be safe. So why is she not able to figure out both of those things?

BUCK: Right. If the three shots that she has had are not enough to make her not worry, the addition of some other person having a cloth mask on after he also has gotten those three shots, as if that’s going to be a significant change.

CLAY: That’s her point. I mean, doesn’t make any logical sense at all.
It’s magical thinking.

BUCK: This would be like she refuses to be in the room unless there is — forget six feet; she needs 12 feet of social distancing. And unless you do this… Folks, so much of this also — it’s about neuroses, but it’s also about power. I mean, I always see this. There are people who often feel powerless in their day-to-day lives and the opportunity to feel like they’re a good person who’s virtuous but also powerful because they get to shout at you for not wearing your mask or for not social distancing. I remember — like a bunch of lemmings — we were all told to line up outside of grocery stores six feet apart in New York City.

CLAY: Oh, yeah.

BUCK: A lot of people have forgotten this. This was lunacy that we were — ’cause, Clay, then we go inside the grocery store shoulder to shoulder, fighting over who got the last box of Cracker Jacks or whatever. But outside in the freezing cold, we had to be six feet apart like morons because people can’t think for themselves. Can I just ask — ’cause I want to make sure I heard this right. Play that Joy Reid clip again. I’m gonna cut it off. I just want to hear the beginning of it. Play it again for a second.

REID: He was just Trump with better diction and a (sputters) slightly paler shade of orange.

BUCK: Okay. Okay. Stop, stop, stop. That’s what…? So now Glenn Youngkin is orange? (laughing) This is bizarre. Trump is fond of tanning. They shouldn’t call him orange, but were saying “Orange Man Bad” all the time. What is that, Clay? It’s just so petty and childish.

CLAY: Also again, the question I think, did you not… I just don’t understand how you can be this dumb and willfully ignorant of the facts based on where we are.

BUCK: Clay?

CLAY: Now, you could make arguments against Glenn Youngkin which are substantive, right? If you want to have a critique of Glenn Youngkin, it’s possible to do that. But to do it as stupidly and as easy to refute as everything she said there, I really legitimately question how you can be that dumb. It’s the same thing with these The View women or something else. You are in media! How is it possible.

BUCK: No, no, no, Clay. I have some expertise here in the level of lib stupidity because while you have the great honor of having been banned from CNN —

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: — I for a short period was a paid contractor at CNN, and the levels of stupid inside that news organization on and off camera would blow the average American’s mind. The lack of intellectual curiosity, the lack of intellectual honesty. Whatever you think it is, I’m just telling everybody out there: It’s worse. (laughing) It’s worse.