The Drive-By Media on Display with Covid Coverage

CLAY: We have been talking about how to get back to normal. And when we’re gonna start to see some of the restrictions get reined back in. In other words, L.A. now is saying, “Hey, you’re gonna have to have covid vaccine to go to bars and restaurants and gyms and movie theaters and everything else.” Well, I gotta give credit here.

Down in the great state of Louisiana, LSU fans… Uniquely all over the South, they were requiring a covid vaccine or a negative covid test to go watch the LSU Tigers play. They now, Buck, are rescinding the covid vaccine mandate and also a requirement of a negative test. This is big news because this is the first time that I can remember that anybody out there has started to dial back the restrictions that they have put in place.

And, by the way, this is important, too, because you won’t hear this very many places. The South has seen all over covid cases plummet since college football, NFL, and high school seasons started. But Louisiana now, at least as a positive in this context, the number of covid cases has plummeted to such an extent that Louisiana is right now almost the lowest in the entire country, down with Florida. Buck, the numbers keep going down in Florida. We talked about this the other day. Only Hawaii, California, and Connecticut have a lower covid rate than Florida right now.

BUCK: You know what they’re saying, right? Instead of admitting that Ron DeSantis was not engaged in mass human sacrifice and wasn’t somehow also running policy in Oregon and Alaska and other states that have seen very big surges, they’re saying it “burned through.” His policies were so reckless and now, essentially, there’s no one left. It’s like all the casualties from the battle have already been taken. This is the left’s response.

CLAY: Oh, that’s their excuse.

BUCK: Right. That’s their argument. Instead of just saying, “Oh, it’s a seasonal virus and it moves through places, and it goes after people based upon — at some level — what time of year you’re talking about,” which is what we already saw happen last year. It’s amazing, Clay, to watch how… You know, Rush would say “the Drive-Bys.”

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: The Drive-By attitude, the Drive-By action of the media on covid. I don’t know if there’s ever been anything else like it. Just two weeks. Forget about what I said a month ago, just two weeks! Every time with a political agenda behind what they’re reporting on, where they’re reporting on it, it’s crazy.

CLAY: You would think, based on the way the media covered Florida, that everyone in the state of Florida is dead. Remember that DeSantis ad that we played that was so bad?

BUCK: It was amazing. It was amazing.

CLAY: I’m not even kidding. What percentage of the American public knows that Florida right now has the fourth lowest covid infection rate in the entire country? And, by the way, by the end of the weekend, they might be down to the lowest, right, the way that these numbers are trending down. I think there’s hardly anybody that knows that.

And again, this is why I get so angry, ’cause it’s one thing if people have different opinions, right? There are a lot of people who think that you and I are crazy, Buck. They’re crazy themselves, I think, but they hear us, and they disagree with some of our opinions. I can respect that, right? But when there’s factual data that demonstrates what the truth is and that is not shared?

When creates way more tumult and it creates way more stress, when there are parents that are terrified for their kids, and if they just had the real data they would, I think, be so much more comfortable, the anxiety level? What’s the parent thing? Is it Munchausen’s syndrome? Am I right?

BUCK: Munchausen by proxy?

CLAY: Yeah. And femme if I’m wrong about this, Buck, ’cause I didn’t do my research before I just brought it up. But my understanding of Munchausen syndrome (which I’m probably mispronouncing) is you basically become convinced that your kid is always sick, right? That’s a parent that takes… Correct me if I’m wrong on that. Is that roughly it?

BUCK: It’s a psychological disorder where somebody always pretends to be sick or produces illness symptoms, say that there are illness symptoms in themselves, right? So it’s a perpetual illness psychological disorder.

CLAY: And some parents transfer that to their children. That’s what I think we’re seeing on a mass level all over this country right now.

BUCK: I think Fauci has done that to America, essentially.

CLAY: That’s right. That’s why I’m saying I couldn’t get out of bed if I were Fauci right now and I created this.

BUCK: I’ve known all along who Fauci is because I’ve experienced that thing where you go to a doctor and there are some doctors out there who are very “soda straw” in their view. They only look at certain things, and if you go in for a checkup or let’s say you have a sports injury, they’re just gonna tell you, “Well, you can’t run ’cause it will destroy your knees.

“You can’t lift weights ’cause it will throw out your back.” They throw out all those things and you say, “Yeah, I’m actually not trying to live in a cocoon my whole life and avoid any injury or sensory experience.” How many times do you go to the doctor, and they say, “Avoid red meat,” and they’ll ask you all kinds of questions?

“Cut down on butter,” all these things. “Okay, Doc, thanks.” Imagine if instead of you getting advice from an overanxious doctor you go to see, that person was able to dictate every minute detail of your life: No drinking, no caffeine, no red meat, better get eight hours of sleep.

How many people you know that work really hard and stuff getting over eight hours of sleep at night every day, right? Very, very few. You go through this whole list. Fauci has done that to America with covid. Clay, did you see that tweet from Jay Cutler, the sports guy?

CLAY: So funny.

BUCK: He talks about how (laughing) you’ll see somebody —

CLAY: I need to read that. You want to read that one to us?

BUCK: Yeah, it was great.

CLAY: It was so well said. It’s interesting, Buck, because from a parenting perspective there’s lots of people — and I’ve even caught myself sometimes saying this phrase. “I’ll never let anything happen to you,” that you’re trying to protect your kid. (laughing) That’s the wrong way to phrase things because if nothing ever happens to your kid, they don’t actually live their life — and so many people are doing that now.

BUCK: And I can’t actually keep that promise, we all know. This is Jay Cutler. This is a great tweet. “Watching someone use a small bleach rag to wipe down their entire sitting area on a plane fascinates me. Could watch for hours. We are about to travel in a small metal tube for two hours and all breathe on each other for three hours. See you at the gate.”

CLAY: (laughing)

BUCK: It’s perfect. Clay, I’ve been out to dinner a few times in New York recently. They always have hand sanitizer at the table.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: And I just want to say, “This is doing nothing except smelling bad next to me when people think that they’re saving themselves by dousing their hands in hand sanitizer. It does nothing.” Even some more things. Why can’t little Fauci and the rest of the authoritarians come out and be like, “The hand sanitizer’s probably a little much, guys. You don’t really need it.” They give it to you on planes, Clay!

CLAY: I will say the one takeaway that’s a positive is, Jay is really funny, first of all, Jay Cutler. We had him on the show, the NFL quarterback. That’s a great tweet. He’s got a great sense of humor. But he and I text all the time. He’s legitimately considering running for the school board.

‘Cause he’s so fired up — he’s got a lot of young kids, too — over this ridiculous masking requirement so I will say the one positive of all this insanity is people are fired up about school board elections in my town and in my neighborhood, I didn’t know who I voted for for a school board in my life, and now I’m poring over their biographies like I’m deciding who’s gonna be the next teacher for my kid.

BUCK: There’s a bigger conversation here, too. We can come back to this another time ’cause we got every line lit and we got Berenson coming up. This is gonna be one of those shows where we got two hours left the show in our heads and about two minutes left to talk. The fact that conservatives and the right thought that it was an okay strategy to essentially cede education to the socialist left? I think everyone’s waking up to, “What have we done?”

CLAY: That’s right.

BUCK: We really thought that there was neutral teaching going on in these schools. People convince themselves, “Oh, no. The academy and universities and colleges were full of crazy commies, but if you’re third grader, they’re just teaching the ABCs to or whatever they teach third graders.” Unh-uh. That’s not how it goes, folks. It’s a failure of the right. It’s a major failure of the right.

CLAY: I have never been more fired up about school board elections in my life. I’m telling you: I’m paying attention to who I’m voting for now.