CLAY: Buck and I are, I would say, probably, in all of media — you think this is fair, Buck? — the most aggressively fighting against covid restrictions of anyone. I’m not sure that you could point to anyone out there in media, at least not with a decent-sized audience, that has been more aggressive in fighting for normalcy than us.

BUCK: No one has gone more all-out for a greater length of time against Fauciism than the two folks you’re listening to right now. There might be some that are right there with us. Jesse Kelly was very early. He’s very strong on this one too. But we’ve gone all out from pretty much the very beginning of this one. It’s good to be right, but I also wish at some level we weren’t right because everything that I thought they would do that was crazy, they’ve done.

CLAY: Here is what is becoming wild now. For two years, we’ve been out on the covid battlefield arguing, “Hey, we have to find a way to return to normalcy. Hey, what we should be doing is trying to protect people who have the most at risk — the elderly, and the immunocompromised — and then everybody else needs to go back to work.

“Hey, spending $5 trillion to go try to get people to be paid when they’re not working because of covid is likely to have massive deleterious impact on our overall economy. Inflation is coming.” So much that we have argued about has proven to be true and that there are major consequences psychologically to the shutdown, that kids who are not allowed to go to school are going to have tremendous consequences going forward, that the kids that are gonna be impacted the most are overwhelmingly the least socioeconomically advantaged in our country because they don’t have Wi-Fi at home.

They don’t have parents that can be involved in their day-to-day instruction. They may not have laptops or iPads or whatever else is necessary in order to do what is, to me, an oxymoron, “remote learning,” because for young children remote learning does not work. Masks don’t make sense, all of this. What you’re seeing now is there is an element in the creative class, even in the comedy universe, where suddenly people like Bill Maher, who otherwise have been members of the left-wing in this country are looking around at the data and saying, “Wait a minute. This doesn’t make sense.”

And the same thing is suddenly starting to happen with Trevor Noah on The Daily Show. (laughs) I said yesterday, Buck, I don’t remember us ever playing a clip of Trevor Noah, not because we were in disagreement necessarily with what he was arguing but just because it hadn’t ever gone viral. Well, now Trevor Noah on The Daily Show, which airs on Comedy Central, has taken note of what you and I talked about, Buck.

This New York City policy that allows… For people who have missed this, Kyrie Irving is able to go watch basketball games in the arena, Barclays in Brooklyn, in New York City. He is allowed to sit courtside, have popcorn, he can have a beer. He’s allowed to high five his teammates. He’s allowed to practice with them, by the way, allowed to watch them from courtside but not allowed to actually play in the games.

He’s also not allowed to go into the locker room during halftime of these games. Well, he did, and the City of New York has fined the Nets $50,000. And even Trevor Noah — he of the left-wing brigade — has come out and said, “Wait a minute. This is totally nonsensical. ” We played Kevin Durant — who’s one of the most famous athletes in the world — teeing off on this and credit to many athletes who have been willing to come after this policy.

But listen to what Trevor Noah had to say about Eric Adams, New York City, and its broken covid policy.

NOAH: I don’t care, like, how covid compliant you are. (bleep) like this makes zero sense. Can we agree on that? So Kyrie can go inside, not wear a mask, even hug a teammate, but he cannot play! I don’t get it. Why? Does the ball have a weak immune system? What’s going on? I mean, it’s crazy. (laughs) Just think about it. Just think about it. Kyrie can’t play, but he can sit in the stands, right, like a fan. And then, as a fan, what happens if he gets picked to take the half-court shot to win the car. Can he do that?

Even Trevor Noah teed off on the absurdity of Kyrie Irving being able to watch Nets games, but not play in them because of New York City covid restrictions. pic.twitter.com/KWKio9YQsR

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) March 15, 2022

BUCK: Clay, I have the answer, though, to his question. I have the answer to, “Why is this the rule?” It’s because you’re supposed to comply. It’s not supposed to maintenance. It doesn’t matter if it protects anyone or not. The people who are in charge — and let’s be honest. There’s a difference in the brains, I would think, of Democrats and Republicans that was exposed during this whole covid phenomenon whereby people when they get…

Some people when they get a little bit scared, a little bit anxious, they want to run into the collective. They want the herd to protect them. They want to be told what to do, and that was the Democrat mentality from the beginning on this although, you know, in the early days I think everybody was penetrate freaked out about covid but as we learned more some people were basing it on reality, and other people were, “Just tell me what to do.”

And the people that were telling them what to do got addicted to that power, the apparatus of Fauciism became something that was inescapable. All of a sudden all of us were being told constantly to do things that, Clay, did not make any sense. Whenever someone tells me, “Masks work,” I want to say, really? Show me the control group study for masking between bites, because that’s basically the policy in restaurants, on planes, everywhere.

And they’ll say, “Oh, that doesn’t exist.” I say, “Exactly, because it’s so stupid, you would never even run a study because it would show what a bunch of morons you are.” But people now are being led to believe that Democrats like Trevor Noah here — or leftists like Trevor Noah, are just coming to this as though suddenly it doesn’t make sense.

“What do you mean? We were doing all these things that was also…” This was irrational from the beginning of the policy. The things that we have been made to do have been idiotic in many cases from day one. They’ve certainly been moronic for the last six-to-12 months, as we’ve actually seen more and more data, more and more numbers come in.

So what they’re really doing here, I think, Clay, with these jokes about it is, “Oh, well, now it’s gonna be safe to put your rational hat on again, to start to think about what actually 2+ 2 equals instead of continuing with the 2 + 2 = 5 five because Fauci says so,” and that’s what we’ve been living through now for two years.

CLAY: Buck, I’ll give you an example. The reason why… Some people might be saying, how is the world is this the policy? It’s because New York City — and you can correct me if I’m wrong, Buck, but I think I’m correct in this. If I were right now to travel to New York City, you’re doing the show in New York City. I’m down in Florida right now.

If I were to travel up to New York City, I don’t believe I would be permitted to come into the studio in New York City and do the show because I haven’t gotten my covid shot. And the policy is if you haven’t gotten your covid shot in New York City, you are not able to do your job inside of a building, right? Am I correct in that, that that policy now exists?

They’ve done away in New York City. They’ve done away with vaccine mandates to get into a bar or a restaurant or a hotel — sorry, not a hotel, but a gym. All those things are gone away and there’s now no mask requirement, either. So I’d be able to have a normal existence in New York City in a way that I would not have before. But much like Kyrie Irving, I don’t know, necessarily, that I would be eligible.

Maybe I would ’cause I’m visiting? Because this is the other crazy thing about the Kyrie Irving policy in New York City. If you are a player who is coming to town to play against the Nets or the Knicks, then you aren’t required to be vaccinated. You can play in the game. But if you are a New York City resident, you’re not able to. Do you know how that even works, Buck? Like, would I be able to come into the studio and do a show right now or would I still be ineligible?

BUCK: I don’t even know. The rules are so —

CLAY: Great point. Like, I’m not sure, either.

BUCK: Yeah. The rules are so stupid now —

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: — and this is why… By the way, Pfizer is now I think going for emergency authorization —

CLAY: For people over 65.

BUCK: — for a second round of boosters, which, for everyone’s counting, is shot number four at this stage. So I understand there are people… Occasionally get, “Buck, come on. You know, I love when you talk about the border. Why are you guys still talking about covid?” I want to say, “Because it’s not over.”

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: And until we win the argument, they admit they’re wrong and they apologize, it’s not over. Or the election wipeout that we’re all hoping for —

CLAY: That’s what has to happen.

BUCK: It’s one or the other or it just keeps on going. They are getting you ready for now just a different version, a different variation on Fauciism. Oh. I want to say this right now. Do people think Fauci’s gone forever?

CLAY: Where is Fauci, by the way? We need to start… We need to get a, like, “Where is Fauci?” song to play. When’s the last time you saw Fauci? Like, when’s the last time you’ve seen a quote from Fauci or an interview from Fauci?

BUCK: I’m honestly just waiting for him to start his own TikTok account —

CLAY: (laughing) He may have one.

BUCK: — where be like (impression), “Hello. I want the youth to know to be terrified, to double mask constantly forever,” you know?

CLAY: Maybe they can fly him over to China now that they’re doing lockdowns and shutdowns. He’s a communist. I think that he’d probably be very happy over there, letting the Chinese people know that they’re not allowed to leave their houses. I think if you gave Fauci a hammer and a board he’d be very happy, like, nailing people into their homes so that they can’t leave. I think he would have supported that here if he had needed to. Maybe we can export Fauci to China and put him in charge of their shutdowns.

BUCK: We do have Senator Rand Paul who has introduced a bill to essentially get rid of Fauci’s position —

CLAY: Yes, which is amazing.

BUCK: — to “fix the glitch,” for those of you who are Office Space fans, to remove his position.