Episode 23 - The Future will Cancel Us. Antifa's Capital. WHO Flip Flops.
Episode Stats
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Summary
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-GA) joins me to talk about the latest in cancel culture, including the removal of the Christopher Columbus statue in Minnesota, and why we should all be "caught up to the standards of our time."
Transcript
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Welcome to Hot Takes. This is Congressman Matt Gaetz.
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platform, just make sure to hit your subscribe button. We want to keep you in the conversation.
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Let's talk about the news. You are canceled. That is the news of the day today. Cancel culture
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is in its ultimate zenith. We are living in the renaissance of cancel culture. Gone with
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the wind, canceled. ABC News had video footage of Christopher Columbus, canceled. The statue
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of Christopher Columbus being taken down in St. Paul, Minnesota. Live PD has been canceled.
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A story out by Deadline.com. Also, the New York Times surmising that even Paw Patrol could
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be the next victim of cancel culture. Paw Patrol is a cartoon of a fiction dog. What is going
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on in the world today where we would have to cancel something that doesn't even exist, a
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cartoon because it paints cops in a favorable light? You know what? Maybe if more young
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people had positive interactions with real cops or cartoon cops or cartoon dogs pretending
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to be cops, that you would have a more inviting and cooperative relationship. You know, maybe
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if you didn't have school districts like they now have done in California, in addition to
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Oregon, getting rid of the school resource officers, maybe if those school resource officers
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were working with students, building trust, building positive relationships, we would have
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more effective policing and more active cooperation among everyone who has to interact in society.
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But no, we've canceled Paw Patrol, Live PD, Christopher Columbus, Gone with the Wind. I wonder,
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like, are we going to have to cancel the greatest generation altogether? Are we going to be able
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to even call the greatest generation the generation that had, like, Gone with the Wind and the song
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Baby It's Cold Outside? And it really begs the question, like, what will be the new standard
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in the next generation? Because I have a suspicion. I think we're all going to be canceled one day.
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I think that is ultimately all of our fate. Because if we no longer are able to acknowledge
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the contribution that Christopher Columbus made to humanity, then I don't think any of the
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contributions that any of us are making are so special that in the lens of history, there will
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be there will not be like some standard of conduct that is developed down the road like that we didn't
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meet. And, you know, we always hope that as human beings, our standards evolve, that we treat people
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better, that we grow, that we liberate ourselves from the dogmas and sins of the past. But if we keep
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living in the past, then we are unable to do that. We are unable to live in a world where race is less
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important when all we are fed by the media and all we see sort of living out in our lives before us are
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the so-called experts telling us that race is the only thing that should matter, that our identity
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defines us, that it is the characteristic that we must cling to above all else. And, you know,
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I just wish that we had more circumstances, like we saw in the House Judiciary Committee yesterday,
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where you saw victims of violence, whether that was violence from police or violence from these riots,
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joining together, showing empathy for one another, demonstrating that, you know, if Dr. King were
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alive today, if any number of people who've fought for equal treatment under the law could see the
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circumstances that we find ourselves in, they certainly wouldn't be glorifying the surrender of
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our communities, the burning of our churches, the harm to our fellow citizens, even people who've gone
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out to protest peacefully, being harmed by some of the violent acts of the permanent criminal element
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that has appeared in this time of some crisis. But I suspect that at the end of the day, if we adopt
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this theory that if someone in their time didn't live to the standards of our time, that not only do
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we have to critique that conduct, which I always think is fair, but we have to like fully cancel them,
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rip down their statues, not teach them in the history books. It just begs the question how folks will
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judge us. And it seems exhausting to me because the whole deal with cancel culture is you just have
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to keep doing it, right? I mean, you can't stop canceling because then you've lost your reason to
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exist, this great outrage where you've got to find the next thing to strip from our national consciousness
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so that, so that, you know, you can feel validated in your current existence. I think it's outrageous.
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And, you know, I had a tweet, uh, Miguel tweeted at me, erase racism and tyranny from our history.
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And I'm just thinking, well, yeah, why stop there? You know, why not erase sexism? Why not? Why not
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erase, uh, genocide that people all throughout human history have been involved in? Why not erase war or
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famine, right? But like these things have happened throughout human history. And there are human
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beings who have been deeply flawed, who have, uh, committed terrible acts, who have also made
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substantial contributions. And maybe if we're able to like come to grips with that in our history,
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that people are flawed and people can be, uh, you know, challenged in one aspect of their life and,
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uh, you know, succeed while at the same time failing in other aspects of their life,
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uh, then maybe we'll be more accepting of each other in the present and going forward. Because
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the deal with the millennial generation and the zoomer generation coming behind us is
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we've lived out our lives on social media. I mean, you know, the, the pictures we have of like of our
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grandmother and grandfather are in their Sunday best at the family portrait. Our grandkids are going
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to be able to see us and the body paint we wore to Coachella. So I think that you, you, perhaps it
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would, in order to our benefit, not to apply, uh, such a, such a standard of absolution, uh, to every
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figure in history. Uh, because I think that, uh, history would, would certainly judge us harshly if
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I do not support the removal and destruction of these historical figures and statues and monuments,
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but that doesn't mean that we have to continue to maintain them in a sense of glory that could be
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more accurately portrayed with the addition of history. I'm not for taking things down. I'm for
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putting more stuff up. If we've learned additional information about folks in history who have had,
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you know, um, a monument built or a statue constructed and we can add to that so that we can enrich the
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perspective that we have. If we can include more voices to that conversation that might've been
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marginalized, uh, I'm all for it. I think that that ultimately gives us better understanding of one
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another and gives us more that we can contribute to the human experience rather than destroying and
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taking away. Folks on the political left have told us that Antifa isn't real. Our own tax dollars on
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NPR suggested that Antifa might just be a misunderstood political organization, but now
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Antifa has a capital. There are seven city blocks in the Seattle, Washington area that have been
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surrendered to Antifa, presumably beyond the jurisdiction of the laws of the community and
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the state in which it lies. It is an area unto itself. And how is life in the woke-topia? Well,
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it appears the only time the radical left is okay with folks having guns are when they're the Antifa
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thugs keeping out the police and the media and those who would want to know what's going on.
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They've called the area Capitol Hill. Subtle, I know. But it suggests that this Antifa movement intends
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to seize territory, intends to keep destroying things. And I just wonder what the folks think who
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were suggesting that this wasn't a terrorist phenomenon. And now that they see the terror
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that it is bringing to those who are in the vicinity and in the areas around that may be the
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next to fall. And where the hell is our government? Why is there not a stronger response from the state
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of Washington? I saw Governor Jay Inslee suggesting he didn't even know what was going on.
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Governor, I'd like to ask you about what's going on in Seattle. There's this thing called the Capitol Hill
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Autonomous Zone. What's your thought on that? The fact that the protesters have taken that over
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and not allowing people to come and go freely? And I don't know what regarding the Capitol Guard.
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Well, that's news to me. So I'll have to reserve any comment about it. I have not heard anything
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about that. Now, if seven city blocks in Florida had been surrendered, I could tell you that our
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governor, Ron DeSantis, would have a stronger stance. And there are some that have suggested,
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even some of my Republican friends. Well, you know, if in Seattle, they want to do it. If in
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Washington, they'll tolerate the failure of their political leadership. You know, why should we care
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in Florida? Why should we care in South Carolina or Texas? And, you know, we are not just a confederacy
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of states. The United States of America is a great nation. And a great nation does not surrender
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any of its communities to mob rule. Because then we are all potentially subject to that type of chaos
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and that type of devolution of society. And while our society certainly can improve, and while we
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must always strive to be a more perfect union, while we always knew that was part of our national call
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to do better over time, to be better as human beings and as great vanguards of the national story,
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this is a great country. And we ought to be proud to be Americans. We ought to be proud to stand for
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the flag. And what we see going on where, like, people out of some sense of woke guilt have to turn
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over the streets of our nation to thugs and criminals is not worthy of a great nation. We do not surrender
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our streets. We do not give up on some semblance of order. And I suspect that the political leaders
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who are allowing this to happen will ultimately be judged very harshly by their voters.
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A wild and unfortunate story reported in the Virginia Pilot by Anna Leigh, Celine Martin, and Matt Jones.
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Portsmouth Confederate statues beheaded, partially pulled down by protesters.
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Here in Portsmouth, as the NAACP was participating in a protest, they were upset that the city council
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had not taken down these Confederate monuments quickly enough. And so they appear to have all
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kind of trouble getting these monuments and statues down. A rope snaps. They're working hard to tow them
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down. At one point, they resort to throwing bricks at them. But the really unfortunate thing is,
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as they pull down one of the statues, it hits a man in his 30s in the head and splits his skull open.
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And gosh, it sounds like he had to go to the hospital with some pretty serious injuries. And we pray and
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hope that he's okay. Obviously, when someone goes out to protest, it's not their expectation that a giant
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statue is likely to fall on top of them and bust open their heads. So we certainly hope he does okay.
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But gosh, it shows that we want everyone to be careful out there as they're exercising their
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First Amendment rights. And while we don't think that anybody should be tearing down or destroying
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anything outside the bounds of the law, we also don't see anybody hurt while they're doing it either.
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At this point, who believes a word that is coming out of the World Health Organization when it comes to
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Coronavirus? First, the World Health Organization covered up for China. They took on the China
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talking points. They criticized President Trump for the travel ban that saved countless numbers of lives
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in our country. And now the World Health Organization has even flip flopped on the basic tenant of
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asymptomatic spread of the virus. A top World Health Organization official making the claim here that
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asymptomatic spread is not something we should be worried about. We have a number of reports from
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countries who are doing very detailed contact tracing. They're following asymptomatic cases, they're
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following contacts, and they're not finding secondary transmission onward. It's very rare. And much of
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that is not published in the literature. From the papers that are published, there is one that came out from
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Singapore looking at a long-term care facility. There are some household transmission studies where you
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follow individuals over time and you look at the proportion of those that transmit onwards. We are
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constantly looking at this data and we're trying to get more information from countries to truly answer
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this question. It still appears to be rare that an asymptomatic individual actually transmits onward.
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But that didn't stay their position for long. Matter of fact, it was just following that that
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they walked it back and said that those claims by their own top officials shouldn't be relied on.
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Here's Tucker Carlson's commentary on the World Health Organization flip flop.
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Self-described health experts helped spark global lockdowns, which destroyed the world's economy and
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caused untold human suffering because they warned that anyone could spread the coronavirus, even people
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with no symptoms. And then yesterday, a top World Health Organization official said something
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very different. Actually, asymptomatic spread happens rarely, if ever. Well, that seemed pretty
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straightforward, but lots of people were not happy to hear it because that would mean that the most
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economically self-destructive act in all of human history may not have been justified.
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But conveniently, today, the World Health Organization walked back that statement. In fact,
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they said, we really don't know how common asymptomatic spread of the Wuhan coronavirus is.
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So what is the truth? To the extent we can know, Fox Medical contributor Dr. Mark Siegel is the one we
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always ask and we're happy to do so again tonight. She's saying asymptomatic spread is very rare. And I thought,
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finally, a shining star coming out of the WHO I can hang my hat on. Well, guess what? Today,
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she walks the whole thing back and she says, hey, I wasn't talking about pre-symptomatic spread,
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meaning people who didn't yet get sick. Well, CDC says right before you have symptoms is one of the
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biggest times of spreading. And then she said, and there's 16% of cases don't have symptoms at all.
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And we don't know how many of them are spreading. Wow. Walks the whole thing back. And now I'm left
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thinking, how can we possibly trust the WHO at all? I'm for an America first policy when it comes
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to the healthcare of Americans. That's why I support the president's decision to pull out of the World
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Health Organization and certainly put the health and safety of our American citizens first.
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I think the president's going to do just that and we'll be all the better for it.
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Daniel Payne with Just the News has a report about the impact of the riots that we see across
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the country on coronavirus testing. Dr. Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the White House Coronavirus Task
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Force, reporting to governors that about 70 coronavirus testing facilities have been burnt,
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destroyed, rendered, unuseful as a consequence of these riots. And I'm just trying to think to
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myself, like if you're a rioter, what is the incentive to destroy the coronavirus testing
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area? What are you like, are you worried that the new tool of patriarchy and domination and racial
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oppression will come through the form of a nasal swab? Like, are you worried that if we get too much
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testing that that's too much government control? I mean, it was just weeks ago that Nancy Pelosi and other
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Democrats were saying that the touchstone of everything that we did to respond to this
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unprecedented pandemic would be testing, testing, testing. And yet when we need people to speak out
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against the riots, to show the wide swath of damage that they're doing, not only to our businesses and
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our families and our security and our sense of community, but literally to the infrastructure that
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our country is built to respond to this pandemic, it's just nutty that people would react this way.
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And so, you know, I'm hopeful that we get better protection around testing facilities as critical
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infrastructure. And I'm hopeful that the clowns and fools who are out there rioting will realize that
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they're only harming themselves and their own communities and their own public health.
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Last night was the 2020 Amateur Major League Baseball draft and a lot of drama right now going
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on with baseball. There has not been an agreement between ownership and the players regarding
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a contract and whether or not the players would take a reduction in pay. I know some Major League
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Baseball players have talked to them and the sense I get is that if they're going to take the risk of
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going to work that they'd like to see their contracts and their salaries honored. They feel like if
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there were all of a sudden a massive increase in revenue, the owners would benefit from that
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disproportionately. And so if there's a decrease that that's a risk that the owners take.
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And the commissioner of baseball had to address this issue and the probability of a season and the
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potential length of that season and the number of games played. Here is the commissioner of baseball,
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Rob Manfred. How will you feel if, and when this time comes, we're playing 48 games,
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boys and let's get ready to go. How will you feel if that's the end result of this?
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I'll be disappointed that we're unable to reach an agreement that allows us to play more games.
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But you know what? I think at the end of the day, the most important thing, and I'm not buying into
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your number of 48. The most important thing is that we play Major League Baseball in 2020. And I can
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tell you unequivocally, we are going to play Major League Baseball this year. And there you can see from
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the commissioner a desire to play baseball. I know I want to see it and a lot of other Americans do.
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Let's hope they can reach a deal. Thanks for listening to Hot Takes with Matt Gaetz.