BUCK: Now, we have been talking about the Southwest Airlines situation the last few days, and it was certainly a big news item over the weekend because you had a couple thousand flights canceled which affected a whole lot of, folks, and the belief was, among many, that this was the result of people calling out, calling out sick, essentially taking action in order to push back against the vaccine mandate that Southwest has.

Now, Southwest had its CEO come out and say he doesn’t like vaccine mandates but what’s he gonna do? The federal government has said you have to have this implemented. And it looks like this is going to play out now between the state of Texas and the federal government on who has supremacy on this issue. But Geraldo over at Fox had quite a — Clay pointed this one out to me — had quite a reaction —

CLAY: Conniption fit might even be a way to describe it.

BUCK: Yeah, he seemed a little bit agitated about this one. Let’s hear what he had to say.

RIVERA: These airline pilots are screwing the public, and the worst of all, it’s not the pilots, because they — I say use whatever weapons you have. It’s Chip Roy, the congressman from San Antonio and Austin, this guy is an ideological lunatic. He said when he looked at the crowd of people who could not get on their Southwest flights ’cause they were canceled and so forth, this makes me happier than I can possibly articulate. “Eat it, Southwest Airlines.” This guy getting almost sexual pleasure from —

WATTERS: — sexual pleasure — you’re a sick man.

RIVERA: Congressman Roy, I challenge you, what did you mean when you said “eat it” to Southwest airlines?

BUCK: Whoa. Whoa.

CLAY: What a ridiculous– amazing clip from Geraldo there. First of all, you get sexual pleasure from people standing in line to get on an airplane flight, you got a lot bigger issues on whether or not the pilots have covid vaccine mandate all right? Let’s start there. But this, to me, is a big story. We appreciate the callers we got yesterday from Southwest Airlines kind of putting this into context for us, Buck. But this is a big story because what you are seeing — and I’m gonna talk about this a little bit at the start of the second hour — is a lot of people from a variety of different backgrounds are now standing up against the idea of covid vaccine mandates. And they’re being labeled, of course, because narrative over facts as anti-vax. But, no, no, no.

Most people out there are not opposed to vaccinations. It’s a tiny minority of the population that has that perspective at all. What is going on is people are anti-covid vaccine mandates in order to have to keep your job. And there is a separate attempt to delegitimize those very legitimate perspectives, Buck, in the name of trying to delegitimize the person.

So this is the number one playbook of left-wing arguments now. And I want all of you to recognize what goes on. He didn’t criticize there — look, even Geraldo there. What happened is we don’t attack the idea. We can debate ideas. You attack the person, right? And so immediately what happens is if you raise your hand you say a be, you know what? I’ve looked at all the metrics. I don’t think that 5-year-olds need to get covid vaccine. That’s my perspective. People don’t argue about the data, although interestingly, Buck, did you see the New York Times had a story up finally yesterday where they said, hey, turns out kids aren’t actually in danger from covid statistically. It’s like, oh, yeah, 19 months later you finally come around?

But what happened is, the person themselves is attacked. You are anti-vax. No. I’ve looked at the data and I don’t believe that covid vaccines make sense for 5-year-olds in this country given the current data. That makes you anti-vax, even though it’s not true, that’s the attack. If you say, hey, you know, I’m opposed to idea of critical race theory, what’s the response? It’s not a debate over critical race theory usually. It’s you’re racist.

BUCK: Yeah, ad hominem attack is something the left excels in. It’s actually central in their tool kit of trying to silence people, although these days they have so many levers of power to wield with social media platform censorship and the government. The DOJ perhaps putting out a memo saying, yeah, we’re looking at you parents that a little too noisy about critical race theory in schools. Same thing, by the way, with anybody who’s too noisy about mask mandates in schools, which you certainly know about from what you dealt with in Tennessee. This is the reality that we are all up against right now.

Governor, you spoke about the difference between being opposed to vaccines and being opposed to vaccine mask mandates. I think at some level the left doesn’t really believe that there is such a thing as individual freedom. There’s only the collective will as expressed through endless government authority. And that’s really a central psychological and emotional separation between people who on the left and people on the right. From the left you think whatever the state believes is best, it has the stamp of the people and therefore you don’t really count. No, there are some of us who still think that a government that’s able to put a shot in your arm effectively — and, by the way, why shouldn’t they go to lengths of saying we’re going to arrest you, we’re gonna do what Australia does? If the rhetoric of these people that you’re reckless and you’re putting people in danger is to be believed, they should anybody else own admission be willing to do even more extreme things than they’ve done so far and they’ve been getting more extreme with time.

Here’s Governor Ron DeSantis, though, who is standing athwart these mandates in Florida speaking the truth about it.

DESANTIS: So I think the coercion is just totally wrong. I think it’s destroying trust in public health to the extent that there was still trust left over after all the stuff that’s been done. But I think it’s really, really negative, and I think you’re gonna end up driving people away.

BUCK: Yeah. That’s what’s happening.

CLAY:  He’s right.

BUCK: I mean, the data reflects what he’s saying. Also the data reflects that they still don’t talk about how the — it’s not just red state, you know, rural Trump-voting America that has questions about the vaccine. There’s still a very large percentage, relatively speaking, of African-Americans across the country who have not gotten the shot. And the media just always says, oh, they’re allowed —

CLAY: Trump voters, it’s red state idiots, ignorant rednecks, anti-vax. That’s the narrative. Again, narrative over facts.

BUCK: Yeah, you, but Clay, they’re allowed to be skeptical of government authority and power according to the media, whereas other people are not, which I think is so interesting. They always will say, oh, because of the Tuskegee experiment — you’ll see this in New York Times, you’ll see this other places. How many of the individuals, the young, particularly young black men who have decided not to get the shot really cite the Tuskegee experiment as the basis for it?

CLAY: No, it’s a great point and, by the way, I want to keep hammering this too. Without covid vaccine mask mandates, without any requirement that there be masking, Florida is almost the lowest covid incident state in the entire country right now. You’re not hearing that. Every time the cases would tick up, everywhere CNN, MSNBC, Washington Post, New York Times, they all covered it with great glee as the numbers rose in an attempt to attack Ron DeSantis. Now as the numbers are plummeted to the extent where Florida is nearly the lowest in the entire nation, almost nobody at all, Buck, is talking about it.