Good News, Everyone! Leaders Wake Up to Mask Madness

CLAY: Good news. We like to share some good news every now and then. You guys remember that I went and talked to my local school board back in August about the mask mandate. Last night here in Williamson County, Tennessee, they overruled the mask mandate that they had put in place. The school board voted to remove it. Now, the positive is: For my kids, they have granted exemptions for both religious and health reasons to anybody who requested them.

So massive numbers of kids… My kids, fortunately, have not had to wear a mask this year in local public schools. But I do think this is a representative sample of a turning tide starting to move in the direction of sanity. Washington, D.C., on November 22nd will be eliminating their indoor mask mandate. We always ask, “How do you land the plane?” and this is important.

I want to play this cut for you from the governor of Colorado, Jared Polis, who was asked why he was not implementing a mask mandate statewide given the fact that neighboring New Mexico had one. Both of those states have been hit by incredibly large increases in covid cases. Listen to what the democratically elected governor of Colorado Jared Polis said.

Finally, people are starting to look at the data. Let’s play cut 25.

POLIS: In terms of where areas that are requiring them or not requiring them, it’s a little harder to see through the static on what the impact of that is. I’ll give you an example. Our neighboring state of New Mexico has had a mask-wearing requirement really for the last couple months statewide, and seems to be at about the same place we are with regard to infection rates. So it’s easy to say, “Wearing a mask will protect you,” because absolutely it delays your chance of getting covid at any given point in time. It’s a little harder to figure out what a mask order does in different areas and what impact that might have.

BUCK: He’s admitting, Clay.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: Can we just be very clear? He’s talking you through the data — and convincing himself as he’s doing it — that mask wearing is effective, that this is not a superstition, which is really what this has turned into now. When you keep doing something even when you’ve run the experiment many times and have data, you’re doing it for reason other than logic, science, and a rational approach. And let’s also remember the fact that you can’t tell…

The way that they set this up from the beginning of mask mandates and mask wearing should create enormous differences. They were saying 60% reduction in cases, 80% reduction in cases. What they keep falling back on is, “Well, we know there’s something there. We can’t really see it, but we know there’s something there, because we say so.” That just goes to show you they are rejecting the results of the experiments that we have run on masks because it’s a religious belief for them at this point.

CLAY: Yeah, it is a religious belief. Remember Joe Biden famously said, “If we would all just wear masks for a hundred days, covid would go away.” That’s how he started his presidency. But I do take this as an incredibly encouraging sign that the governor of Colorado will say that the reason why he’s not implementing a mask mandate in his state — even though he tried to hint at it — is because New Mexico has had one and it hasn’t shown any statistical difference.

BUCK: But why are you encouraged, ’cause he’s just gonna keep saying it’s there even when it’s not there for another year?

CLAY: He’s not mandating the mask.

BUCK: What?

CLAY: He’s not mandating the mask.

BUCK: Okay. That’s encouraging.

CLAY: And he tried to tiptoe around it, but if you listen to the front half of that argument, he’s saying, “Hey, New Mexico has had this mask mandate and their numbers are basically the same as ours.” Now, he didn’t want to come right out and say, “Masks don’t work.” He tried to on the back end say, “Well, you know, for your safety, all those things,” but when you’ve got a Democratic governor who’s willing to go to the data…

This is the first person I’ve ever heard Buck when he’s being questioned, hey, how come you’re not implementing a mask mandate, ’cause the Democratic response, no matter what, every time covid cases go up is they lock down harder, they mask up harder, and they argue, “That’s why the cases come down,” right? That’s what they try to do narratively, even though it’s not true.

It’s why Florida is so important, and the governor of Colorado effectively saying there, “Well, I’m not gonna put in a mask mandate at least so far, because if you look at New Mexico, they’ve had a mask mandate, and their numbers are basically the same as ours.” I think — I think — the tide on masks is starting to turn. People are just afraid of getting attacked, especially Democrats, for being the people who say, “Masks really don’t work,” because the data is transparent, straightforward, and irrefutable: Masks do not work.

In the decades ahead — as the covid history is written — everyone is going to claim they knew masks didn’t work. It’s going to be like how everyone today was against the Vietnam War. Let’s not let politicians like this imbecile slide. https://t.co/go5eomhng5

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) November 15, 2021

BUCK: And yet do you think you could get away with saying…? If you walked in the New York Times editorial board or walked into that newsroom and said, “Hey, guys. We all know, right, that masks don’t work,” they would look at you like you were completely insane, more me, right? Either one of us. They will never change on us because it’s really… I know they say it’s a religious belief. More than anything else, the people that have been the biggest proponents of this think they’re very, very smart.

CLAY: Yes. Everyone else —

BUCK: They think they’re smarter than everybody else who didn’t believe in this. And when I say believe, that’s not even the right — didn’t believe the argument for this from the very beginning. The same way that, you know, I had a very simple argument on this when it came to Fauci. Your doctor would never say to you, ‘Antibiotics don’t really work,” and then turn around and say, “Oh, I lied to you because I was worried there was gonna be a shortage on antibiotics.”

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: And you think that was okay. That is what Dr. Anthony Fascist Fauci said at the beginning of this pandemic about masks. He changed his tune because they needed a compliance tool and an anxiety napkin for people, ’cause that’s what it really is. People feel psychologically safer with them on, and they feel safer when other people have them on. So the most anxious in our society effectively dragged us all into this madness.

CLAY: It’s a hundred percent right.