Alex Berenson with the Latest Unreported Covid News

CLAY: One of the most popular guests we have — because everybody else has managed to cancel him or run from him — is Alex Berenson. You can read his Substack for the latest news, details, all of his analysis. He also has a book coming out soon called Pandemonia, something like that. I’ll ask him exactly what it’s called. But you should go sign up for that as well.

Many different angles to hit him with, but I want to start — we teased this as we finished off hour 2 — with Rochelle Walensky, the CDC director. I don’t know if you’ve heard this clip yet, Alex. I just tweeted this out in the last hour. I want you to listen, and then I’ll let you begin your hit with us reacting to CDC director Rochelle Walensky. Here she is talking about the importance of masks.

WALENSKY: (bouncy music) The evidence is clear. Masks can help prevent the spread of covid-19 by reducing your chance of infection by more than 80%. Whether it’s an infection from the flu, the coronavirus or even just the common cold. In combination with other steps like getting your vaccinations, hand washing, and keeping physical distance, wearing your mask is an important step you can take to keep us all healthy.

CLAY: This is just a lie, but I imagine your blood is boiling when you hear this. This is not something that was said in April of last year. This is something that the CDC director, Rochelle Walensky, just put out on social media in the last hour. Your reaction, Alex Berenson.

BERENSON: My blood is not even boiling, Clay, ’cause it’s not a lie. It’s a joke, okay? It’s a joke. Eighty percent? Where on earth did she get that number? She just made it up. There’s not a bit of evidence that masks reduce… We’re talking about normal masks, even N95s, by the way. There’s not a bit of evidence that the cloth or surgical masks reduce your rate of getting covid at all, basically.

The idea for a while was, “Well, maybe they’ll keep you from giving it to other people.” The evidence for that is quite weak too. But that’s just nonsense, okay? It’s an absolute lie, and here’s the thing: We’ve all been alive the last 18 months, right? We’ve all seen it. We’ve all worn masks. Everybody, even in the red states, basically wore masks.

We all did our part. We wore our masks last fall. It made no difference. Covid doesn’t care whether you’re wearing a mask, and there’s a good biological reason for that, which is that it’s too small for the mask to have any impact on. This is not magic, okay? If we were all walking around in hazmat suits with our own purifiers and oxygen supplies, we wouldn’t pass covid to each other.

But we’re not. There still might be a tiny bit of contamination here and there. Even in super-secure labs it happens sometimes, but we probably wouldn’t. But we’re not. We’re wearing basically bandanas on our faces, okay, and even the better surgical masks are not really much more than that. Does she think that anybody believes this?

The conclusion that I’ve come to over the last year and especially the last few months about masks is that masks are purely a symbol for these people. They think it keeps people scared. It is a lot — and I saw this. I was on the train yesterday in New York City. When people are wearing masks, it signals danger in general. When people are not wearing masks, it signals normality. And, for whatever reason, these people want us to stay frightened, and they will do almost anything for that.

BUCK: Alex, I want to ask… I’m seeing this as — ’cause Clay sent this to me; my head explodes. I’ve hated masks from the beginning. I never have accepted or believed the Fauci explanation that he lied to us for our own good because of supply. No, I’m sorry. One, it’s unethical to do that even if you think that’s what you’re doing.

I also think that was the after-the-fact justification of it, but it seems to me you have two things happening right now. You have, “Oh, masks are great,” right before we’re about to go into wintertime when blue states… Clay just gave me the stats in the break here: Vermont has the highest caseload ever right now.

BERENSON: Yep.

BUCK: You got blue states that are starting to see this. New York has a higher caseload, where I am right now, than at exactly this time last year. So they’re saying, “Oh, masks are so great,” ’cause they know people aren’t masking as enthusiastically as they had been. And also, the boosters rolling out. It seems to me that if we hit a big surge, they’re just gonna say, “We didn’t mask up hard enough, and you didn’t get your boosters fast enough,” and they’re gonna pretend they were right about everything else. What am I missing?

BERENSON: No, I think you’re right. And, by the way, I think that they are aware that a lot of people are not listening to them anymore. This is an excuse, okay, because the vaccines now, it has been six months for a lot of people who got them. That peak time was March, April. Now we’re in November. That’s six months plus.

So booster efficacy is falling towards zero for infection and transmission. We’re heading into the winter, and it looks like — I’m sorry, sort of primary vaccines, first and second does. It looks like a lot of people don’t want boosters. The LA Times actually had a story today about how in California, of 40 million people, there are very few boosting.

There’s a couple hundred thousand boosters a day going out. People under 65 certainly feel — aside from the few Karens and Neils out there who are terrified of this thing still, unreasonably after eight months. Most people feel, “I got my shot. I did my part if this. I’m not a getting booster.” That’s pretty clearly out there.

And even older people, I think, some of them have questions now. “Why do I have to do this? Why do I have to get another shot?” and so they know people are not getting boosters. And if people are not getting boosters, that means that no chance that we will avoided a surge in the blue states.

Everywhere from California and all the places that had a surge last fall into the winter are gonna have a surge. And so, yes, they are trying to look for a reason not to be blamed for this, when the reason is everything they’ve promised has been wrong. It’s either been a lie or wrong or both, and they can’t run away from it anymore.

CLAY: Alex Berenson with us. Alex, the data in Europe is scary for people out there who are gonna say, “Oh, the vaccines are gonna cure the pandemic.” European countries — overwhelmingly — many of them, are very well vaccinated, and cases are surging as guess what happens? It gets to be cold and flu season there. Covid cases are skyrocketing. Is there any reason to believe that Europe is not prologue for America in the winter now as well?

BERENSON: No! Absolutely not. There’s every reason to believe that is going to happen, and you’re absolutely right. Whether it’s Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, all these northern European countries — and, by the way, in Portugal which has been held up by the vaxxers as, “Oh, they got it done they brought this general in and they got 90% of their population vaccinated.”

Cases have just started to rise in the last couple days. Well, Portugal obviously is southern Europe, so they’re a little bit behind northern Europe in terms of this. But, yes, it’s gonna happen there, in Ireland — and, I mean, look. At this point, Clay and Buck, I don’t even think it’s a debate that the vaccines have failed. Okay? They have failed. They have failed.

There is some evidence that they can protect people who are high risk from really serious outcomes. A lot of people those people are still dying, by the way, but just like the money monoclonal antibodies do ’cause that’s all they do they cause a short term spike in antibodies for your body, but is there anybody out there who still believed that these protect people from being infected or getting transmission?

To me, we should be talking about the bigger questions. What I’m really focusing on the stack right now, on Substack… I do hope people at least check out. You can read it for free or you can pay. I actually don’t care. But go to Substack.com and put my name in. But what I’m talking about on the Stack now is, A, side effects from a third dose.

And, B, what is happening long term to hospitals all over the world okay? Hospitals are filling up. They’re filling up in Australia, they’re filling up in the U.K., they’re filling up in parts of the U.S. They are not filling up with covid patients. This is not about covid patients overrunning hospitals. Something is wrong, and we don’t know what it is. It could be that medical care has been delayed in the last year and people are now getting sick.

It can be that suddenly a lot of 30-year-olds who are inside are making up for lost time and driving too fast and drinking too much and some of those people are dying. But it could also be that this mass biological experiment we’ve carried out over the last year with these mRNA vaccines and other vaccines is coming back to haunt us. And we don’t know, and we’d better find out, and we certainly better find out before we start pushing a booster or pushing mandates or pushing vaccines on children. We need to figure out why the hospitals are filling up worldwide.

BUCK: We’re speaking to Alex Berenson author of Pandemia. Also please go subscribe… Full disclosure: I’m a subscriber. Go subscribe to his Substack and you can see the research and work that he’s doing day in and day out. Alex, it seems to me that if we’re really… We’re basically at the paradigm that many of us thought we were going to all along here, which is this is going to be something like the flu.

I had an epidemiologist friend actually reach out to me, text me recently and say, “With animal reservoirs, rapid mutation, and rapidly failing vaccines, the chance of getting this to a situation where it’s in a way close to measles, where we’ve kind of mostly eradicated it — or even something like smallpox, where you’ve effectively entirely eradicated it — is completely impossible.”

So we’re at a point now where we’re gonna have a seasonal shot that only really works to prevent people who are already at high risk from possibly getting hospitalized or dying, that sounds a lot like our posture with regard to the flu and has been my whole life, right? My parents used to get flu shots before the pandemic.

But instead of moving in that direction, they’re now trying to get 5-year-olds to take the shot. Alex, in San Francisco, you’re gonna have to provide a birth certificate, I guess, so your 4-year-old doesn’t have to show the vax papers to go into a McDonald’s.

BERENSON: Yes. It’s insane. It’s insane. Kids are at no risk from this, effectively no risk. Again, there’s always gonna be an exception. There was a story the other day in a newspaper in Syracuse about a guy, an 18-year-old who died. Okay? And in paragraph 10, they acknowledged the truth. He weighed 400 pounds. He was 18 years old and morbidly obese. Okay?

If you are under really 40 and you are dying from covid, you are likely somewhere between morbidly obese or you have other serious health problems. The idea that we are forcing younger people to get this and that we would force children to get it is insane, and the risks… Even if the risks are low, it doesn’t make sense. It makes very little sense to vaccinate children against this.

BUCK: Alex, we want… Can we bring you back in a second, ’cause Aaron Rodgers is trending right now.

CLAY: Have you seen the Aaron Rodgers comments yet, Alex?

BERENSON: I haven’t. I know he’s unvaccinated. He did this homeopathic thing. But I haven’t seen his comments.

BUCK: We want to play for you the comments and have you react to them in real time, so can you hold over with us for a second?

BERENSON: Sure, sure.

BUCK: Got Alex Berenson with us, folks.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

BUCK: We got our friend Alex Berenson, author of Pandemia — and go subscribe to his Substack if you want some covid truth rooted in numbers, data, reality. He’s with us now. Alex, thanks for staying through. We just want to play for you, this is some of what Aaron Rodgers has said that’s made him the number one trending topic on Twitter. Go for it.

RODGERS: Had there been a follow-up to my statement that I’ve been immunized, I would have responded with this. I would have said, “Look, I’m not some sort of anti-vax flat earther. I am somebody who’s a critical thinker.” You guys know me. I march to the beat of my own drum. I believe strongly in bodily autonomy and the ability to make the choices for your body, not to have to acquiesce to some woke culture or crazed group of individuals who say you have to do something. Health is not a one-size-fits-all for everybody.

BUCK: Alex, the people that want vax for covid for 5-year-olds are losing their minds over this.

BERENSON: I mean, look, on the one hand, good for Aaron Rodgers for not getting vaccinated. He’s at zero risk from covid, right? He’s a very healthy professional athlete. (chuckles) On the other hand, I think he should have told the truth three months ago. He tried to sort of dance between the rainbows — or the raindrops (laughs) — and he got caught, and now he should own that and he didn’t.

He’s not really owning it, so he’s gonna make the vaccine fanatics mad, and at the same time he’s gonna really not be wanted by people like me. I think Kyrie Irving is much more honest. Kyrie doesn’t want to be vaccinated and — and — he’s willing to sacrifice an enormous amount of money because it’s what he believes. Aaron Rodgers is the MVP of the NFL; so did the NFL know he wasn’t vaccinated?

They certainly did, and did they allow him to pretend he was? They certainly did. So one set of rules for Aaron Rodgers, one set of rules for Kyrie Irving. But I agree with Aaron Rodgers. Why should he be vaccinated? If he wants to be, that’s up to him. It’s his choice, and we are seeing now… We saw another professional athlete at the highest levels, a striker for Barcelona — which, as you know, is one of the top soccer clubs in Europe.

He was taken off the field a couple of days ago, and he’s since had an undisclosed cardiac procedure, and he’s not gonna be back for several months, and he was vaccinated. We know he was because he’s out there telling kids to get vaccinated. So if I were a professional athlete, I wouldn’t go near this thing.

The data appears that sort of the heart and the myocarditis risks of this, of the mRNA vaccines are especially prominent in young men, especially in healthy young men. So why would you get vaccinated? So good for Aaron Rodgers for doing what he thinks is right. Boo to Aaron Rodgers for not telling the truth about it.

CLAY: It’s interesting you mentioned Kyrie Irving, and obviously Kyrie Irving has been much criticized. That’s not an NBA rule. It’s worth mentioning the reason why Kyrie Irving can’t play is because of New York City vaccine mandates. The NBA itself did not mandate the vaccine for players just like the NFL hasn’t.

But they have all these protocols in place. Okay, so Alex, I always like to ask you… I know trying to predict covid has made fools of us all. But as we sit here in early November, where are we headed for the holiday season? We need you to be quick. We have like a minute here.

BERENSON: I think I’ve said this to you guys before: I think we’re going up. Look, there was one… We haven’t talked about this at all. There’s one piece of very, very good news today. Pfizer announced that a drug that they have, a therapeutic, looks really good at helping people with covid if they’re diagnosed within three days of showing symptoms.

As a result, the vaccine-maker stocks — Moderna and BioNTech– are getting crushed today what the stock market, at least, is saying, is, “This is gonna end, and it’s gonna end with therapeutics and not vaccines,” which has historically been how we treat most respiratory diseases. So eventually we’re gonna get there. But the idea that… It’s gonna be a bad couple months, I think, because the vaccines are failing. No question about it.

BUCK: What do we know about — by the way, Alex, real quick — how many of the people in hospital right now nationwide are fully vaccinated? Do we have that data yet? Have they told us?

BERENSON: No, we have no data and in fact, the CDC is hiding data again. They used to disclose how many people who are fully vaccinated have died. They stopped updating that yesterday. They are hiding data.

BUCK: Yeah.

BERENSON: Terrible.

BUCK: Until people get the boosters. Pandemia is the book. The Substack for Alex Berenson is where you should go if you want daily updates. Alex, man, we always appreciate you. It’s gonna be a cold winter. We’re gonna be talking to you more.

BERENSON: (laughing) Thanks, guys.