CLAY: We’re just now starting to realize, Buck — in addition to the fact that it created 8.5% inflation, that we ended up with the ridiculous choice between essential and nonessential businesses (as if that should have ever existed), that kids were forced out of school for long periods of time and will be reaping the whirlwind of their lost earnings from education for decades to come. Not to mention all the kids who just won’t ever return to school.

The money is wasted, and we still have idiot advisers in the White House saying that mandates work and we might need to assess whether still mandates on airplanes — vaccines mandates – could makes sense. This isn’t from year and a half ago. This isn’t even from last year. This is from Sunday on Meet the Press, White House covid adviser Dr. Ashish Jha, who seems designated right now to give Dr. Fauci a run for dumbest bureaucrat in the history of the country.

Listen to him discuss whether covid vaccine mandates to fly on airplanes might be necessary.

Biden COVID Adviser Ashish Jha: “The pandemic is not over.” pic.twitter.com/lvF0IBZf6o

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) April 17, 2022

CLAY: That’s 15 days more of masks, which makes no sense. Also, cut 9 on whether mandates work and the fact that we may well need — according to Dr. Achich Jha — to make a decision to assess whether still, still covid shots to get on airplanes makes sense.

Joe Biden’s new covid imbecile advisor says covid vaccine mandates for air travel need to be assessed. These people are never going to allow normalcy, they must be crushed in November. pic.twitter.com/EcwUf42YZp

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) April 17, 2022

CLAY: Let’s talk specifically about whether we needed vaccine mandates for airplanes on Meet the Press.

BUCK: Yeah. “Mandates work,” as he’s laying it out here, is like saying armed robbery works.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: It is true that if you hold a gun to someone’s hide and say, “Your wallet or your life” most people will give you the wallet. That is true. But if you’re going to make a much broader claim that armed robbery is a great way to redistribute wealth for a more equitable society, you’ll probably have more all of debate on your hand. But, yes, the mechanism of force to get people to comply is something that often works.

Now, do mandates work when it comes to stopping the spread of the virus? Which they told us it would. This was about stopping covid from spreading this past winter. It was an abject failure. They made people get the shot by the hundreds of millions. They fired people from jobs by the tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands across the country. It did not stop the spread.

In fact, you can argue that it didn’t really… I mean, at what level did it stop the spread, if at all? And then it just turns into, “Well, those at high risk are less likely to be hospitalized or die,” to which everybody should just say, “Okay, then people at high risk should get the shot but it should be their choice to get the shot ’cause it’s not about risk to other people. That’s the whole point.” So they were wrong about everything, once again.

CLAY: And the fact that they can still say mandates work, as if there is no… I mean, the bank robbery or the robbery on the street analogy is a good one. It doesn’t mean it’s a good decision to implement them, right? Yes, if you tell someone, “If you don’t get this shot, you are going to lose your job,” most people are going to get the shot.

If you tell people, “Hey, if you don’t let me punch you in the face, you’re going to lose your job,” most people would let someone punch them in the face because they have to have their job to pay their mortgage, to pay for food and gas if to help their kids be able to get in school. These are not arguments in favor of mandates making scientific sense. It’s just that, yes, authoritarianism works in terms of requires people to do what the authority figure says. It doesn’t mean it’s the right decision for a healthy Democrat or a healthy country.

BUCK: The Democrat mind is generally obsessed with intentions over results. That’s been true all during covid. So this is why even when you can point to the obvious failures of different policies and decisions around covid that Fauci and Biden and Walensky and you name it — all the blue check MDs — were pushing, when you finally…

I’ve experienced it a few times, Clay, when you finally push someone in a corner and say, “Really? You think that masking up between bites on planes not only protects people on that plane, does anything in the grand scheme of covid? You really believe that?” They’re always fall back to, “Well, we need to do something.” This is what their mentality is.

Even if it’s pointless or even if it’s counterproductive, the doing something is in and of itself a moral good, a moral necessity that the state should force on people. So the result doesn’t actually matter. This has been their attitude about all of covid because otherwise they would turn around and say, “Hold on a second. What has worked and what hasn’t worked?”

Notice how they’ve never admitted… All they say is, well, the data has changed. They’ve never admitted the failure of a decision the entire two years plus they’ve been ramming this stuff down our throats. They never say, “We went too far, we were wrong.” It’s always “the data evolved.”

CLAY: Are you surprised — ’cause I am — that we haven’t seen other cities so far follow Philadelphia’s lead? I hope Philadelphia is gonna stay on an island out there. I know we got people listen in Philadelphia right now. Today is the return of their indoor mask mandate in the city of Philadelphia. There are different universities for an that have made the choice, “Hey, our kids have to be wearing masks again back in school.”

We talked about this last week. Washington, D.C., George Washington University — my alma mater for undergrad, American — I think Georgetown has as well. But the actual city mandates on masks have not yet come back in New York City — and you are afraid they might — in Washington, D.C., in L.A., in Seattle and San Francisco, places that have been super aggressive in terms of requiring their people to wear masks.

BUCK: I’ll tell you, I think it is purely out of anxiety of what this will do to the Democrat apparatus in the midterm elections. That’s it. It’s not a recognition of facts and reality. It’s not that people… It’s not even that Democrats are tired of this. I think there are a lot of Democrats who are like, “Mask me up!”

CLAY: Yeah. Forever.

BUCK: They need it. This is their psychological security blanket. Masking is their face anxiety napkin that they carry around with themselves all the time.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

CLAY: Some breaking news, by the way — just in the last couple of minutes — emerging from the free state of Florida, and I am reading directly from this news report. I have not yet seen the actual opinion that is saying this. “A federal judge today vacated the national mask mandate for planes and other forms of public transportation, arguing that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had overstepped its authority.”

This ruling less than a week after the CDC extended the mandate for 15 days. I would imagine that the Biden administration will appeal this ruling from the Florida district judge almost immediately if they haven’t already. But this would be an opportunity if we could fast track this, Buck, to actually get this thing in front of the Supreme Court and see whether or not the Supreme Court would continue to accede to CDC authority.

Remember at least for part of the vaccine mandate, the Supreme Court memorably struck down the Joe Biden vaccine mandate as it pertained to OSHA, which was being enforced against the vast majority of employees. And now that vaccine mandate is starting to disappear. I saw even over the weekend that Broadway shows in your city of New York are finally stopping to check for whether or not people have gotten the covid vax. So you can go see now — I believe starting May 1st — a play on Broadway without having to prove that you got the covid shot.

BUCK: But they mask you still.

CLAY: Still have to wear masks.