The Ben Shapiro Show - F*** The CDC | Ep. 1306

00:00:00.000 The Centers for Disease Control unleashes a new round of evidence-free masking recommendations for the vaccinated, the January 6th commission hearings begin, and Simone Biles pulls out of the Olympics and is treated as a hero.

00:00:10.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:00:11.000 This is the Ben Shapiro Show.

00:00:18.000 Today's show is sponsored by ExpressVPN.

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00:01:44.000 Okay, so screw the CDC.

00:01:46.000 I mean, that is the short answer from me to the CDC today.

00:01:49.000 It is amazing.

00:01:50.000 We are now being told that the pandemic is a pandemic of the unvaccinated.

00:01:55.000 Meanwhile, the federal government is telling the vaccinated that they need to mask up again.

00:02:00.000 And not only do they need to mask up, they need to mask up anytime they're around somebody, or they should at least consider masking up anytime they're around somebody who is unvaccinated, which presumably means children, like my kids, under the age of 12, are not allowed to get the vaccine.

00:02:12.000 Remember, the vaccine has still not been cleared by the FDA for full authorized use.

00:02:17.000 It is still operating under emergency use authorization.

00:02:20.000 Meanwhile, you have cities and states and now the federal government mandating that people take a vaccine that does not actually have full FDA authorization.

00:02:27.000 Which means, like, so what is the purpose of the FDA authorization?

00:02:30.000 The federal government is just crappy at everything.

00:02:33.000 Seriously, what is the purpose of the authorization?

00:02:34.000 If I already have the vaccine, which I do, and then the FDA...

00:02:38.000 It's still operating under emergency use.

00:02:40.000 And so a year from now, they're like, okay, you can use it now, right?

00:02:44.000 It's fully authorized. 0.97

00:02:45.000 What are you gonna do, suck it out of my arm? 1.00

00:02:47.000 What the hell are you talking about? 1.00

00:02:49.000 Here is the thing.

00:02:50.000 The reason that so many people are unvaccinated right now, I think the chief reason is not because of misinformation or disinformation from particular hosts on Fox News.

00:02:58.000 I don't think it's because of the Tuskegee experiments of the 1930s.

00:03:01.000 I think the reason that so many people are unvaccinated in the United States right now is because our authorities cannot be trusted.

00:03:08.000 They've said everything it is possible to say on every single position throughout this pandemic.

00:03:12.000 Yesterday, somebody on Twitter put together a compendium of all the various things that Anthony Fauci had said on various topics, and it's astonishing.

00:03:18.000 When you watch it back to back, it really is mind-blowing.

00:03:22.000 You do not need to wear a mask indoors if, in fact, you've been vaccinated.

00:03:26.000 Good that you're vaccinated, but in a situation where you have people indoors, particularly crowded, you should wear a mask.

00:03:33.000 So even if you are vaccinated, you should wear a mask.

00:03:36.000 If, in fact, you are vaccinated, fully vaccinated, you are protected, and you do not need to wear a mask outdoors or indoors.

00:03:43.000 When the children go out into the community, you want them to continue to wear masks.

00:03:48.000 You know, if you look at children outside, particularly when they're with the family, walking down the street, playing a game or what have you, don't have to wear a mask.

00:03:57.000 OK, that is Anthony Fauci on like two issues with 87 different positions.

00:04:02.000 And the science didn't change anywhere in there, neither did our level of scientific knowledge.

00:04:06.000 The science has been exactly the same since we knew what this pandemic was last summer.

00:04:10.000 And Anthony Fauci has been shifting his position on this stuff for political purposes.

00:04:14.000 So yesterday, the CDC put out new guidance.

00:04:16.000 And the reason they put out the new guidance, of course, is because we are seeing an uptick in the Delta variant and its transmissibility.

00:04:23.000 We are seeing a huge number of people get it.

00:04:24.000 But as I have been mentioning over and over and over on the program, the stats, the death stats from COVID in the United States right now, Are not that high, okay?

00:04:33.000 I'm looking at the stats.

00:04:35.000 Again, the seven-day rolling average of death in the United States, according to the New York Times, is 290.

00:04:39.000 330 people a day die from Alzheimer's in the United States.

00:04:45.000 I know that people don't want to look at the stats, but the stats are relevant here. 0.98

00:04:48.000 Why is it that none of the people who are recommending all of these stupid, ridiculous, nonsensical guidelines ever cite the stats? 0.87

00:04:55.000 Because the stats don't support what they're doing. 0.98

00:04:57.000 According to the CDC's own website, they're not talking about how you need to mask up again if you're vaccinated.

00:05:01.000 According to the CDC itself, there are 161 million people in the United States who are vaccinated.

00:05:06.000 161 million.

00:05:08.000 Of those 161 million people, about 6,000 have had breakthrough infections resulting in hospitalization and way fewer than that resulting in death.

00:05:18.000 Which means that your chances of being hospitalized with COVID after being double vaxxed are approximately 1 in 27,223.

00:05:25.000 1 in 27,223.

00:05:28.000 And because of that, we are going to ask you to mask up.

00:05:32.000 Because of that?

00:05:33.000 Seriously?

00:05:34.000 And by the way, the idea here is that the vaccinated have to protect the unvaccinated by masking up because maybe the vaccinated can still transmit it.

00:05:40.000 Every unvaccinated person in the United States has had the opportunity to get the vaccine if they are over the age of 12 already.

00:05:47.000 And by the way, I'm not hearing from anybody who's unvaccinated saying to me, you know, Ben, you're vaccinated.

00:05:52.000 I need you to mask up around me.

00:05:54.000 The people who are unvaccinated don't care.

00:05:55.000 They're the people who don't care the most.

00:05:57.000 If they cared, they would go get the vaccine, like right now.

00:05:59.000 I was talking to somebody yesterday.

00:06:01.000 He's in his 60s.

00:06:02.000 He did not have the vaccine.

00:06:03.000 I told him, you should go get the vaccine.

00:06:05.000 You are in the age group that is most likely at this point to die from COVID.

00:06:08.000 If you're unvaccinated, you should go get vaccinated.

00:06:11.000 He wasn't asking me to mask up in his presence.

00:06:14.000 He wasn't afraid of me because I'm vaccinated.

00:06:18.000 And frankly, if you were afraid, you would have gone and gotten the vaccine anyway.

00:06:21.000 So what the hell are we talking about?

00:06:22.000 The data do not back this stuff.

00:06:24.000 But this is the distinction.

00:06:26.000 I talk about it in my new book, The Authoritarian Moment.

00:06:27.000 The distinction between the science, trademark, and actual science.

00:06:32.000 Actual science is a process where you follow the data and then you draw conclusions based on the data.

00:06:36.000 The science is we will radically shift our standards based on whatever is in the air at a given moment.

00:06:42.000 The Delta variant is creeping up.

00:06:43.000 Well, I guess we all have to mask up again.

00:06:46.000 Or alternatively, you could declare that your job here is done.

00:06:49.000 Because guess what?

00:06:49.000 Your job here is done.

00:06:50.000 On a public health level, you have no more things to do.

00:06:53.000 You've made the vaccine available to everyone in the United States.

00:06:55.000 There are corporations that are already mandating that their people get vaccines, which probably is legal.

00:07:01.000 You have states and localities that are mandating their employees get the vaccine.

00:07:04.000 That probably is legal.

00:07:05.000 I don't think it's a good idea, but that is legal, presumably.

00:07:09.000 What else are you supposed to do?

00:07:10.000 The answer is nothing.

00:07:11.000 But the CDC is going to continue promulgating messages that make no sense and, by the way, dramatically undermine the willingness of people to get the vaccine.

00:07:19.000 Why would I get the vaccine if I'm being told by the CDC it's not that effective?

00:07:23.000 I mean, that's really what they're saying.

00:07:24.000 It's not that effective because you could theoretically get a breakthrough infection.

00:07:27.000 Not only that, you don't get to unmask.

00:07:30.000 You have to keep the mask on forever.

00:07:33.000 So I'm going to read you the new CDC guidelines, okay?

00:07:34.000 Because these make no sense at all.

00:07:36.000 They are not based on new data.

00:07:37.000 They're not based on new knowledge.

00:07:39.000 You know, Anthony Fauci says, well, you know, all of my conflicting statements over the past year and a half, all that's been because, you know, is because, well, with this new data.

00:07:47.000 No, there is not.

00:07:49.000 The data has been the same four months.

00:07:52.000 And if the data changed, why don't you give me the data?

00:07:54.000 But you're not.

00:07:55.000 You'll never see Rochelle Walensky get on TV and then say, you know what the data said three months ago?

00:07:58.000 It said A. Now it is saying not A and therefore we have changed our guidance.

00:08:02.000 They never cite the underlying data because you're supposed to listen to them because they have a doctor before their name.

00:08:07.000 It is that simple.

00:08:08.000 So here's what the CDC is now saying.

00:08:11.000 The following recommendations apply to non-healthcare settings.

00:08:15.000 Fully vaccinated people can participate in many of the activities they did before the pandemic.

00:08:19.000 For some of these activities, they may choose to wear a mask.

00:08:21.000 They can resume domestic travel, refrain from testing before, after travel, and from self-quarantine.

00:08:26.000 After travel, they can refrain from testing before leaving the United States for international travel, etc., etc.

00:08:31.000 And here's where things begin to change.

00:08:33.000 Infections happen in only a small proportion of people who are fully vaccinated, even with the Delta variant.

00:08:38.000 However, preliminary evidence suggests that fully vaccinated people who do become infected with the Delta variant can spread the virus to others.

00:08:46.000 Which is not a shock, right?

00:08:47.000 If you have a breakthrough infection, then presumably you're infected and you are now transmissible.

00:08:52.000 To reduce their risk of becoming infected with the Delta variant and potentially spreading it to others, CDC recommends that fully vaccinated people wear a mask in public indoor settings if they are in an area of substantial or high transmission.

00:09:05.000 Okay, so even though, again, your chances of being hospitalized or dying from the virus, if you are fully vaccinated at this point, are somewhere around 1 in 27,000.

00:09:13.000 They're recommending that if you go into a public area in a substantial or high transmission region of the country, that you should mask up even if you're vaccinated.

00:09:22.000 Now, I want to show you a map.

00:09:24.000 This is a map of what the CDC considers to be a substantial or high transmission area.

00:09:29.000 The map I'm about to show you, you'll notice every area that is red or orange is substantial or high.

00:09:35.000 Substantial counts as 50 to 100 cases per 100,000 people over the course of seven days.

00:09:40.000 High is more than 100 cases.

00:09:42.000 As you can see on this map, This is like the whole country, right?

00:09:46.000 There are areas of the Northeast where there's low transmissibility.

00:09:49.000 There are certain kind of rural areas of Montana and Wyoming and New Mexico where you have less transmission.

00:09:57.000 Pretty much everywhere else is a substantial or high transmissibility area, which means that the CDC is effectively recommending mask mandates in public areas for two-thirds of the country.

00:10:10.000 No! 0.98

00:10:11.000 Are you insane? 1.00

00:10:12.000 The hell are you talking about? 1.00

00:10:16.000 Fully vaccinated people might choose to mask regardless of the level of transmission.

00:10:22.000 Particularly if they or someone in their household is immunocompromised or at increased risk for a severe disease.

00:10:26.000 Or if someone in their household is unvaccinated.

00:10:30.000 So there are a couple ways to read that.

00:10:31.000 And one is, they're saying, you know, you might, that's like a good idea.

00:10:35.000 You might choose to mask because you wouldn't want to transmit this to somebody who's vulnerable or unvaccinated.

00:10:39.000 Hey, you know what's a subgroup in the United States that's unvaccinated?

00:10:42.000 Every human being under the age of 12 in the United States is unvaccinated because this has not been cleared for FDA authorized use, even under emergency use authorization for kids.

00:10:52.000 So what they're actually recommending at this point is that you might consider, if you are vaccinated, putting on a mask when you are in the presence of your child.

00:11:00.000 That's what they seem to be suggesting here.

00:11:01.000 Again, fully vaccinated people might choose to mask regardless of the level of transmission if someone in their household is unvaccinated.

00:11:08.000 Now, you could say, well, maybe the CDC is saying that you should mask up in public so you don't come home and transmit it to your 12-year-old.

00:11:13.000 But again, if you're really afraid that you've got it and that you're transmitting it, then you should be masking up around your 12-year-old. 0.96

00:11:19.000 Yeah, I'm not doing any of that crap. 0.98

00:11:21.000 What are you talking about? 0.84

00:11:23.000 By the way, the number of kids, according to the CDC, I'm quoting their own statistics at them.

00:11:27.000 According to the CDC, the number of children under the age of 18 who have died in the United States as of yesterday was 337.

00:11:32.000 A vast number of those children had serious underlying conditions.

00:11:36.000 That means that of a subpopulation in the United States of 75 million people, 337 have died.

00:11:43.000 And you're talking about people masking in the presence of their children, apparently, according to the CDC.

00:11:48.000 They also say you're supposed to get tested if you're experiencing COVID-19 symptoms.

00:11:52.000 Okay, well, even that is kind of wild, considering that COVID-19 symptoms are everything.

00:11:58.000 I've had a cold for the last couple of days.

00:12:00.000 I've not gotten tested for COVID, because even though runny nose is a symptom of COVID, I've been vaccinated, the chances that I have a breakthrough infection from COVID are extremely low, and I have no other symptoms.

00:12:11.000 They're saying, presumably, that I should go get tested right now.

00:12:14.000 No, I don't have COVID.

00:12:17.000 And even if I do have COVID, go get vaccinated yourself.

00:12:20.000 Get tested three to five days following a known exposure to someone with suspected or confirmed COVID and wear a mask in public indoor settings for 14 days after exposure or until a negative test result.

00:12:30.000 So now the suggestion is, somebody in our office was diagnosed with COVID.

00:12:33.000 The suggestion is I was vaccinated.

00:12:35.000 I am now supposed to get tested three to five days following a known exposure and wear a mask for 14 days after exposure. 0.61

00:12:43.000 I'm not doing any of that crap that is unsupportable by data.

00:12:47.000 There is no reason to do that. 0.95

00:12:49.000 What in the world are you talking about?

00:12:52.000 The vaccinated are not the method of transmission.

00:12:55.000 The vaccinated are not passing this along in vast numbers.

00:12:59.000 The government has no business here.

00:13:02.000 There's no limiting principle.

00:13:03.000 If what the government is saying is that you could get a transmissible disease and pass it along to anybody, that is always true forever.

00:13:10.000 It is true for the flu.

00:13:11.000 It is true for the cold.

00:13:12.000 It is true for pneumonia.

00:13:13.000 It is true for literally any transmissible disease at all times.

00:13:15.000 We should all wear masks forever and ever.

00:13:18.000 And then they say we're supposed to isolate if you've tested positive for COVID-19 in the prior 10 days or if you are experiencing COVID-19 symptoms.

00:13:26.000 So if I have a cold, I'm supposed to isolate for 10 days.

00:13:28.000 What the hell was the purpose of getting vaccinated if this is the case?

00:13:31.000 I don't know what the hell the purpose is.

00:13:34.000 Really, like, I was young.

00:13:35.000 You know, I am young.

00:13:36.000 The chances that I'm going to die of COVID are very low.

00:13:36.000 I'm 37.

00:13:40.000 One of the reasons I got vaccinated is to go back to my regular life.

00:13:43.000 I'm not going to deny statistics by following the CDC.

00:13:48.000 These people are so bad at this.

00:13:49.000 They're so bad at this.

00:13:51.000 Even David Leonhardt of the New York Times, who's been a rather large-scale rule follower on a lot of this stuff.

00:13:57.000 Even David Leonhardt is like, what the hell are they talking about?

00:13:59.000 This makes no sense at all. 0.59

00:14:01.000 This is absurd.

00:14:03.000 It's absurd and it's self-defeating.

00:14:05.000 If you want to encourage people to take the vaccine, you are doing precisely the opposite right now.

00:14:08.000 Like exactly the opposite of what you ought to be doing.

00:14:11.000 We'll get to more of this in just one second, because it is maddening.

00:14:15.000 The CDC does not deserve your trust.

00:14:16.000 They have not performed in able fashion anywhere along the line here.

00:14:19.000 They've been highly politicized throughout the pandemic.

00:14:22.000 The data have not changed, but they've changed their opinion multiple times.

00:14:25.000 And again, the new principle seems to be that if you are the rare person with a vaccine who is capable of receiving and being infected by and transmitting the disease, on the basis of that, hundreds of millions of people should mask up In a time, by the way, when, again, we are suffering low hundreds of deaths in the United States from COVID, despite tens of thousands of diagnosed cases.

00:14:50.000 Madness.

00:14:51.000 We'll get to more of this in just one second.

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00:16:05.000 Alrighty, so our trusted public health experts trotted out these asinine new restrictions yesterday.

00:16:11.000 CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, again, utterly untrustworthy.

00:16:14.000 This is a person who drew up guidelines with regard to schools at the behest of the teachers' unions, a highly political figure, Here is CDC Director Walensky announcing new restrictions for the vaccinated.

00:16:26.000 As CDC has recommended for months, unvaccinated individuals should get vaccinated and continue masking until they are fully vaccinated.

00:16:37.000 In areas with substantial and high transmission, CDC recommends fully vaccinated people wear masks in public, indoor settings to help prevent the spread of the Delta variant and protect others.

00:16:52.000 Now, there is no evidence that the vaccinated are the chief method of transmission.

00:16:56.000 And there's no limiting principle here.

00:16:57.000 Because again, any person could theoretically be a transmission vector.

00:17:01.000 This is the same logic that the CDC has been using on masking of children.

00:17:05.000 Children are not the main vector of transmission for this disease.

00:17:08.000 Particularly small children.

00:17:09.000 And yet the CDC has been recommending that kids have to get the vaccine.

00:17:12.000 Why?

00:17:13.000 Because we have to protect the adult teachers who are fully capable of getting the vaccine but have decided not to.

00:17:18.000 40% of school teachers in New York City have not gotten the vaccine at this point.

00:17:21.000 Why should you mask up your three-year-old who's not going to die from COVID?

00:17:24.000 Again, statistically speaking, the chances of a child dying are vanishingly low.

00:17:29.000 The amazing amount of gaslighting that is going on with regard to these stats, it truly is an amazing thing.

00:17:35.000 I don't think I'm ever going to get over that clip yesterday from Allison Camerata and Victor Blackwell browbeating a St.

00:17:42.000 Louis area mayor, saying people are dying in St.

00:17:44.000 Louis County.

00:17:44.000 And then you look up the stats and one person a day is dying in St.

00:17:47.000 Louis County from COVID-19.

00:17:50.000 The stats are shockingly, shockingly low in places like New York State, where again, as of yesterday, the day-on-day average of death from COVID-19 in the entire state of New York, that is a state of 19 million people, the day-on-day average, as of yesterday, was four.

00:18:08.000 Okay, like, I don't know how you can justify masking up hundreds of millions of people on this basis. 0.91

00:18:14.000 But they continue to push this crap forward. 0.80

00:18:15.000 Here's Rochelle Walensky saying that we need vaccinated K-12 students to mask inside and outside as well. 0.95

00:18:22.000 CDC recommends that everyone in K-12 schools wear a mask indoors, including teachers, staff, students, and visitors, regardless of vaccination status.

00:18:34.000 Children should return to full-time in-person learning in the fall with proper prevention strategies in place.

00:18:43.000 Finally, CDC recommends community leaders encourage vaccination and universal masking to prevent further outbreaks in areas of substantial and high transmission.

00:18:54.000 Substantial and high transmission, as I mentioned, amounts to about two-thirds of the land area of the country.

00:18:59.000 This is insane.

00:18:59.000 I mean, utterly crazy.

00:19:01.000 Disconnected from reality, it's about control.

00:19:04.000 It's the Center for Totalitarian Control, not the Center for Disease Control.

00:19:07.000 This is a Center for Totalitarian Control.

00:19:09.000 They have no rationale.

00:19:10.000 I can't explain it to you.

00:19:12.000 When it comes to parenting, there are a couple of Sort of styles of parenting that people talk about.

00:19:17.000 There's permissive parenting, where you let your kids do whatever they want. 0.94

00:19:19.000 And then there's authoritarian parenting, and that is where you set rules, but you don't explain the rules to the kids.

00:19:24.000 The answer is because I said so.

00:19:25.000 And then there's authoritative parenting, which is where you set the rules for the kids, but you explain the rules to the kids so they know that you're doing what you're doing for a reason.

00:19:31.000 The CDC is authoritarian in this way.

00:19:33.000 They are not authoritative.

00:19:36.000 And because they're not authoritative, just authoritarian, people aren't listening to them.

00:19:39.000 And they shouldn't be listening to them because this is insane.

00:19:41.000 Again, no limiting principles here.

00:19:43.000 None.

00:19:45.000 Is there any end point?

00:19:46.000 At what point do you say, okay, kids can take off the masks?

00:19:49.000 According to this calculus, the answer is never.

00:19:51.000 At what point do you say that the vaccinated can take off their masks?

00:19:54.000 According to this calculus, the answer is never.

00:19:56.000 Because if I tell you that one in 27,000 people are getting hospitalized or dying from COVID after being vaccinated, and you say, then you should probably mask up, what does that stat have to be?

00:20:07.000 One in a million?

00:20:08.000 One in two million?

00:20:08.000 Like, what the hell are you talking about?

00:20:12.000 So what is the real excuse?

00:20:14.000 It's always excuse-making.

00:20:15.000 It's just excuse-making for more control.

00:20:16.000 So the new excuse is, well, you know, sure, these vaccines have demonstrated that they are extremely durable against the Delta variant, thank God.

00:20:25.000 And we demonstrated that we now know how to make mRNA vaccines for a wide variety of variants, presumably.

00:20:32.000 But, Rochelle Walensky says, you know, we might have to mask up forever because, you know, there is the possibility that there could be another variant that crops up here.

00:20:40.000 Okay, so in other words, because of a thing that might happen but has not and that you have no way of preventing, your recommendation is that we actively change every aspect of our lives now based on a possibility that you cannot possibly risk assess.

00:20:55.000 I'm sorry.

00:20:56.000 What?

00:20:57.000 Who died and made you queen? 0.88

00:20:58.000 Who?

00:20:59.000 Here's Rochelle Walensky.

00:21:01.000 The largest concern that I think we in public health and science are worried about is that virus and the potential mutations away we are from a very transmissible virus that has the potential to evade our vaccines in terms of how it protects us from severe disease and death.

00:21:20.000 Right now, fortunately, we are not there.

00:21:22.000 These vaccines operate really well in protecting us from severe disease and death.

00:21:28.000 But the big concern is that the next variant that might emerge, just a few mutations potentially away, could potentially evade our vaccines.

00:21:37.000 Okay, well if that is the case, then I suppose that we're going to be wearing masks forever and we should just resign ourselves to it.

00:21:42.000 Because guess what?

00:21:43.000 This disease is not only out there, it is out there in every major country.

00:21:48.000 It has spread throughout the population extremely fast, and there's no way we're going to stop that.

00:21:52.000 So I guess that we're just going to have to mask up forever, and we should resign ourselves to the total and utter control of the CDC forever, despite the fact that these vaccines have been wildly successful, despite the fact that this should be a triumph of public health.

00:22:03.000 Now our public health experts are, in fact, just totalitarian dictators.

00:22:06.000 That is all they are at this point, because they don't even try to explain what they're doing.

00:22:09.000 Here's Jen Psaki trying to explain yesterday, just completely failing. 1.00

00:22:13.000 I know this is slightly awkward timing, and I know there's a lot of reporting out there about the CDC guidance.

00:22:18.000 It is not only appropriate for them to make the decisions, it's also appropriate for them to officially announce their own guidance.

00:22:25.000 I will say, though, that how we view this, as you asked about, Alex, implementation of their guidelines that they'll outline on a call with all of you later this afternoon, that we are still in the midst of a once-in-a-generation pandemic battling an ever-evolving virus.

00:22:43.000 Okay, so in other words, we don't have any data to back this, but scary, scary, scary, pandemic scary, virus scary.

00:22:50.000 Man, stop treating, stop treating your politicians, stop treating your public health experts as though they're infallible, infallible godly figures, deities bringing you truth from on high.

00:23:01.000 They're not. 1.00

00:23:02.000 They're generally incompetent bureaucrats who suck at their jobs. 0.97

00:23:06.000 In just one second, we'll get to more of this, because it really is an amazing thing. 0.95

00:23:09.000 And the level that people are willing to give up control to these people is truly amazing.

00:23:12.000 We'll get to more of this in a second.

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00:24:19.000 Okay, and guess what?

00:24:20.000 The CDC, our public health experts, they're going to get more and more and more restrictive and dictatorial.

00:24:26.000 This is what they are going to do.

00:24:27.000 They have felt the Yes, that's a very uncomfortable image.

00:24:40.000 But this is what they are doing.

00:24:41.000 They're just going to continue this.

00:24:43.000 It's not going to stop.

00:24:44.000 There's no limiting principle ever.

00:24:47.000 Emergencies are an opportunity for these folks, apparently.

00:24:52.000 At the same time that the White House is saying that the real threat right now is the unvaccinated.

00:24:56.000 They're telling all the vaccinated they need to mask up. 0.88

00:24:57.000 The White House today put up a sign saying that everyone needs to mask up coming into the White House again.

00:25:02.000 Here's the White House saying that nearly all hospitalizations and deaths are among the unvaccinated.

00:25:08.000 They put up a graphic on WhiteHouse.gov Quote, virtually all hospitalizations and deaths are among unvaccinated people.

00:25:15.000 In Florida, officials have said more than 95% of those hospitalized were not vaccinated.

00:25:19.000 In North Carolina, that number is 99%.

00:25:21.000 In Colorado, that number is 96%.

00:25:23.000 In Ohio, that number is 99%.

00:25:27.000 So why are we focusing on masking up the vaccinated?

00:25:29.000 And the answer is they want control.

00:25:31.000 They just want control.

00:25:34.000 Leanna Nguyen has been a real top-down control freak throughout this pandemic. 1.00

00:25:38.000 She's on CNN.

00:25:40.000 Getting her expertise all over the place.

00:25:42.000 Here we go.

00:25:43.000 Before, the CDC said that if you're vaccinated and you're exposed but you don't have symptoms, you don't need to be tested.

00:25:50.000 You don't need to be quarantining.

00:25:51.000 Right now, the CDC is essentially admitting, we don't really know.

00:25:55.000 With the Delta variant, if you are exposed to it, we don't know what is the likelihood that you could be asymptomatic, still carrying the virus, and be able to transmit it to others.

00:26:04.000 And so they are recommending, in that case, that people should be testing and quarantining.

00:26:10.000 So if you now are vaccinated, the purpose of the vaccine is that you're not going to get infected or that if you do get infected, you're not going to be hospitalized and you're not going to die.

00:26:18.000 And now they're reshifting.

00:26:20.000 Now, if you're exposed to someone who has COVID, you're supposed to quarantine just as if you're unvaccinated.

00:26:25.000 Absolute madness.

00:26:27.000 Absolute madness.

00:26:28.000 What's the purpose of the vaccine?

00:26:29.000 This is the case, guys.

00:26:30.000 What is the purpose of the vaccine?

00:26:32.000 And yet at the same time, they're saying that the vaccine is essentially purposeless.

00:26:35.000 Joe Biden is pushing a mandate for all federal employees.

00:26:38.000 He did this yesterday.

00:26:40.000 Will you require all federal employees to get vaccinated?

00:26:43.000 That's under consideration right now, but if you're not vaccinated, you're not nearly as smart as I thought you were.

00:26:50.000 And by the way, I love that he's constantly insulting journalists and they just take it.

00:26:54.000 You're not nearly as smart as I- If you don't get the vaccine, you're not as smart as I thought you were.

00:26:59.000 Great, great.

00:27:00.000 What if I'm listening to you guys and what I keep hearing is that the vaccine is less effective than you guys keep saying it is?

00:27:08.000 You're conflicting messages out of the problem here.

00:27:11.000 Our public health... Like, they've literally taken the only institution in American public life, namely scientific institutions, and they've perverted them and destroyed them.

00:27:20.000 I do talk about this in my book, The Authoritarian Moment.

00:27:23.000 Every major institution that has earned the trust of Americans has been perverted by the left and then used as a weapon.

00:27:28.000 To the point where now, med schools, according to Katie Herzog, writing for Barry Weiss's Substack, are now denying biological sex.

00:27:35.000 Not kidding.

00:27:37.000 According to Katie, during a recent endocrinology course at a top medical school in the University of California system, a professor stopped mid-lecture to apologize for something he'd said at the beginning of class.

00:27:46.000 The physician says in a recording, quote, I don't want you to think I'm in any way trying to imply anything.

00:27:51.000 And if you can summon some generosity to forgive me, I would really appreciate it.

00:27:54.000 Again, I'm very sorry for that.

00:27:56.000 It was not my intention to offend anyone.

00:27:58.000 The worst thing I can do as a human being is be offensive.

00:28:00.000 Is that the worst thing you can do as a human being?

00:28:02.000 What did this person do?

00:28:04.000 This doctor used the term pregnant women.

00:28:06.000 Quote, I said, when a woman is pregnant, which implies that only women can get pregnant. 0.99

00:28:09.000 And I most sincerely apologize to all of you.

00:28:13.000 Medical school professors are now apologizing to their students for using the terms of male and female.

00:28:20.000 I'm sorry.

00:28:21.000 No one's going to trust medicine now.

00:28:22.000 No one's going to trust science.

00:28:24.000 This is what you guys have done.

00:28:25.000 You've politicized science, and then you're shocked when people don't listen to you.

00:28:29.000 You can't undermine your own credibility forever without there being consequences to that.

00:28:33.000 The consequences are coming.

00:28:34.000 By the way, I think Democrats think that they're going to get a net win out of shutting down again because there's an almost pagan fervor for shutting down and masking and lockdowns and zero COVID and all of this.

00:28:44.000 I think they're going to get a rather large surprise.

00:28:46.000 In St.

00:28:46.000 Louis County, the board of supervisors over there just voted 5-2 to ban mask mandates.

00:28:52.000 That board is fairly evenly split.

00:28:53.000 A couple Democrats voted with the Republicans on that board.

00:28:56.000 And St.

00:28:56.000 Louis County is one of the quote-unquote hotspots.

00:28:59.000 Americans are not up for this.

00:29:00.000 We've been doing this for well over a year at this point.

00:29:03.000 We are not up for the CDC changing its standards every day to determine what we can and cannot do in our everyday lives, when again, we are now, if you're vaccinated, you are extremely safe from death and hospitalization from this virus.

00:29:20.000 It's maddening.

00:29:20.000 It's just maddening.

00:29:21.000 Okay, in just one second, we'll get to the January 6th commission.

00:29:24.000 A lot of dramatics.

00:29:26.000 Yesterday, a lot of theatrics.

00:29:27.000 Yesterday, we'll get to that in just one second.

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00:30:27.000 That is 866-721-3300.

00:30:31.000 Now, quick reminder, I'm thrilled to announce my book, The Authoritarian Moment, brand new.

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00:30:46.000 For example, our great nation's leader is now entertaining the idea of requiring vaccines for all federal employees, and the CDC is recommending that all vaccinated folks wear masks, and Gavin Newsom is the first to adopt it.

00:30:59.000 Not even creeping.

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00:31:18.000 I thank you for doing that.

00:31:20.000 Also, I hate saying this, the world is not okay.

00:31:22.000 Governments all over the world, including ours, are trying to squeeze their citizens out of every last drop of freedom and unfortunately, they are succeeding.

00:31:30.000 That is why it's time for your favorite voices of reason to get together and discuss how we can stop this anti-freedom communist ideology from spreading into the place we call home.

00:31:37.000 Join me, Matt Walsh, Jeremy Boring, Michael Knowles, and Andrew Klavan with a special appearance from Candace Owens tonight for an extra exciting cigar-packed session of Backstage.

00:31:46.000 It streams tonight, 7 o'clock p.m.

00:31:48.000 Eastern, 6 p.m.

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00:32:11.000 You're listening to the largest, fastest growing conservative podcast and radio show in the nation.

00:32:15.000 ♪♪ Alrighty, well, yesterday also featured the beginning of the January 6th commission, the long-awaited January 6th commission.

00:32:26.000 And everybody on all sides basically acknowledges that this is political.

00:32:30.000 What I mean by that is that we're not uncovering any new information.

00:32:33.000 And yesterday didn't uncover any new information.

00:32:35.000 We had a bunch of Capitol Police officers.

00:32:36.000 The police are good again.

00:32:37.000 That's exciting.

00:32:38.000 I mean, honestly, like, I'm glad about this.

00:32:40.000 The left has decided that the cops are good again, as long as the cops are being assaulted by people who are purportedly right-wing.

00:32:44.000 If the cops are being assaulted by Black Lives Matter protesters, literally by the hundreds, If that is happening across an entire summer, the cops are all systemically racist and bad and kind of have it coming.

00:32:54.000 If, however, the cops are assaulted by a bunch of right-wing droogs, then the cops are good. 0.90

00:32:58.000 Again.

00:32:59.000 Which is really exciting news.

00:33:00.000 Now, the January 6th Commission is not designed to actually elicit new information.

00:33:04.000 All it's designed to do is focus in on how bad January 6th was.

00:33:07.000 And what the left is seeking to accomplish via this, I understand.

00:33:10.000 You know, I understand what Democrats are doing.

00:33:12.000 They are trying to keep January 6th front and center.

00:33:14.000 They are trying to smear everybody who is of conservative bent with January 6th by saying that they're okay with it.

00:33:19.000 Or that it was fine, or that they voted for Trump and therefore they're responsible for it.

00:33:24.000 I think that Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, I think the reason they're doing this is because they believe that Trump needs to be purged from the party.

00:33:31.000 And so if they somehow go along with this commission, this will separate Republicans off from Trump, not understanding that in the reactionary way our politics works is precisely the opposite.

00:33:40.000 That the more time you spend talking about Trump, the more people on the right are going to glom onto Trump, no matter his various heresies.

00:33:47.000 In any case, Commission hearing yesterday was not particularly newsworthy.

00:33:52.000 It just wasn't.

00:33:53.000 I'm sorry, it's not news when people talk about things that we've known for months.

00:33:57.000 It's not news when you explain what you felt while a video that we've already seen was happening.

00:34:04.000 There's nothing new there and yet it was treated with blanket wall-to-wall coverage.

00:34:08.000 Again, at least the Benghazi hearings were an attempt to get Hillary Clinton to testify.

00:34:11.000 She was a major political figure.

00:34:12.000 She was the Secretary of State.

00:34:13.000 She could talk to policy.

00:34:15.000 Those were actually at least somewhat newsworthy.

00:34:17.000 These hearings, I just don't understand what the point is.

00:34:20.000 Are we uncovering anything new?

00:34:22.000 They're talking to police officers about their feelings.

00:34:25.000 Well, I am very sympathetic to the feelings of the police officers.

00:34:28.000 I just don't understand what exactly is new here and what really is a stage for Democrats to grandstand.

00:34:35.000 So Liz Cheney led this thing off. 1.00

00:34:37.000 She said, you know, we should really be taking this seriously because do we really hate our political adversaries more than we love our country?

00:34:43.000 Again, no.

00:34:44.000 But the question is, do Democrats?

00:34:47.000 Meaning, a little perspective here is necessary.

00:34:50.000 January 6th was really ugly.

00:34:52.000 The stuff that Donald Trump said between November 4th and January 6th about the election was almost entirely not true.

00:34:59.000 With that said, I'm not seeing a lot of love coming from the Democratic side of the aisle for Republicans when this entire commission is almost overtly designed to malign the entire Republican Party as complicit in January 6th.

00:35:10.000 Here's Liz Cheney going along with that. 1.00

00:35:12.000 The question for every one of us who serves in Congress For every elected official across this great nation, indeed for every American, is this.

00:35:22.000 Will we adhere to the rule of law?

00:35:26.000 Will we respect the rulings of our courts?

00:35:29.000 Will we preserve the peaceful transition of power?

00:35:33.000 Or will we be so blinded by partisanship that we throw away the miracle of America?

00:35:39.000 I have a question.

00:35:40.000 When was the miracle of America thrown away?

00:35:43.000 Vice President Pence presided over the certification of the election. 1.00

00:35:46.000 The idiots who ran into the Capitol building have all been arrested. 1.00

00:35:48.000 They're going to jail. 1.00

00:35:50.000 By the way, whenever I see the media do this routine about how this is the worst attack on the Capitol since 1812, the Capitol was bombed a few times during the 60s.

00:35:57.000 Like, the Senate building was bombed during the 60s.

00:36:00.000 So, I have some questions.

00:36:02.000 I have some questions.

00:36:03.000 Adam Schiff, who... 0.80

00:36:05.000 If you wanted this commission to be taken seriously, you would not put the clown that is Adam Schiff on stage. 0.99

00:36:11.000 Adam Schiff is a clown. 0.97

00:36:12.000 He's a clown who pitched a pump tent outside of the green room of CNN and left it there for four years proclaiming that just around the corner lurked all of the information about Donald Trump's Russian collusion. 0.98

00:36:26.000 And now he's out there trying to proclaim that January 6th was the worst thing that has ever happened to the country and ginning up some tears for the purpose. 0.88

00:36:33.000 There's a lot of crying yesterday in this commission hearing.

00:36:36.000 And I got to say, I'm pretty consistent on this.

00:36:38.000 I'm not a big fan of politicians crying.

00:36:40.000 I just don't think that it's a thing.

00:36:42.000 I don't think that, but that's because I don't think politics is generally a place for performative empathy.

00:36:46.000 I think politics is a solution driven business or should be.

00:36:49.000 I'm not seeing a lot of solutions.

00:36:50.000 I am seeing a lot of emotion.

00:36:52.000 And if we're so driven by bigotry and hate that we attack our fellow citizens as traitors, if they're born in another country where they don't look like us. 0.75

00:37:00.000 And God help us.

00:37:16.000 But I have faith because of folks like you.

00:37:25.000 I'm sorry, I don't believe politicians generally speaking, right or left, when they do this routine. 0.70

00:37:31.000 And I certainly don't believe Adam Schiff, who I think is a congenital liar.

00:37:34.000 So, no, I don't buy it.

00:37:36.000 I'm sorry, I don't buy the emotion.

00:37:38.000 I don't.

00:37:38.000 There.

00:37:40.000 You've had every opportunity to figure out what you're going to say and what you come up with is that?

00:37:44.000 All right.

00:37:44.000 Okay, so then we had a bunch of Capitol Police officers describing the events in very colorful ways.

00:37:49.000 And listen, I'm not going to doubt the accounts of the police officers.

00:37:53.000 They did say one of the police officers said something that wasn't true, said that Brian Sicknick was killed on site.

00:37:57.000 That, of course, is not true.

00:37:58.000 But I'm not going to doubt the experience of police officers who got beaten up trying to defend the Capitol building.

00:38:06.000 But again, I will note the Democrats are very sympathetic toward a particular type of police officer, depending on who does the beating.

00:38:11.000 I'm sympathetic to these police officers because I'm sympathetic to all police officers trying to stop criminality.

00:38:16.000 But these police officers got fairly political yesterday, and I think there's a reason the Democrats were very happy to call them to testify.

00:38:25.000 Here's Capitol Police Officer Michael Fanone yesterday.

00:38:28.000 What makes the struggle harder and more painful is to know so many My fellow citizens, including so many of the people I put my life at risk to defend, are downplaying or outright denying what happened.

00:38:46.000 I feel like I went to hell and back to protect them and the people in this room.

00:38:52.000 But too many are now telling me that hell doesn't exist or that hell actually wasn't that bad.

00:38:59.000 The indifference shown to my colleagues is disgraceful.

00:39:05.000 Okay, so that makes for a good TV.

00:39:07.000 I'm wondering what the indifference is.

00:39:09.000 Like, really, who's totally indifferent about January 6th?

00:39:12.000 Are there lots of people who are indifferent about it?

00:39:14.000 Or are there people who are saying January 6th was horrifying and terrible, and the people who are the criminals should go to jail?

00:39:19.000 And also, that riot, which it was, is no different in content than the riots of BLM over the summer, and treating it as some sort of radical outlier, as opposed to another act of criminal activity, is blowing this thing out of political proportion.

00:39:36.000 For political purposes.

00:39:37.000 I don't blame him for feeling angry about this sort of stuff.

00:39:41.000 But I am going to say that I think the Democrats are putting this thing together for a reason and I think that CNN is getting what they want out of it, obviously.

00:39:48.000 Capitol Police Officer Daniel Hodges then described the events as well.

00:39:51.000 Again, I'm fine with all these people testifying.

00:39:52.000 I'm just wondering when we get the testimony of all the police officers.

00:39:56.000 I mean, I know police officers who were literally hit with bricks during the BLM riots.

00:40:00.000 Not one of them will have their face shown on TV by any of these networks.

00:40:05.000 One counter-protester, a black man, was backpedaling away from a white man in a Trump-labeled face mask, who was closely following him with an outstretched arm.

00:40:13.000 Myself and my colleague first arrived and physically separated the two, but a crowd of Donald Trump's people had gathered. 0.99

00:40:20.000 They attempted to bait the counter-protester into attacking, shouting insults such as, your mother's a whore, and accusing him of hiding behind the cops. 0.98

00:40:27.000 Cut off from our leadership, which was at the front of our formation, we huddled up and assessed the threats surrounding us. 0.99

00:40:33.000 One man tried and failed to build a rapport with me, shouting, are you my brother?

00:40:37.000 Another takes a different tack, shouting, you will die on your knees. 0.85

00:40:42.000 Yeah, I mean, that's ugly and horrifying and worthy of, worthy of remembering.

00:40:46.000 Is it a transformative moment in American politics?

00:40:50.000 I'm not sure why precisely it should be, considering, again, the goals of the protesters, not protesters, the goals of the criminal rioters were not met.

00:40:58.000 In fact, they were completely rejected and those people are going to end up in jail.

00:41:01.000 And then you have police officers who are drawing political conclusions.

00:41:04.000 You have Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, who called Trump a hitman, said that Trump was a hitman.

00:41:08.000 Now, again, testifying outside the area of expertise, I think, would be the best way to put this.

00:41:15.000 What I ask from you all is to get to the bottom of what happened.

00:41:19.000 And that includes like, I echo the sentiments of all the other officers sitting here.

00:41:25.000 I use an analogy to describe what I want is a hit man.

00:41:31.000 If a hit man is hired, and he kills somebody, hit man goes to jail.

00:41:37.000 But not only does the hit man go to jail, but the person who hired them does.

00:41:41.000 There was an attack carried out on January 6.

00:41:45.000 And a hitman sent them.

00:41:47.000 I want you to get to the bottom of that.

00:41:50.000 Okay, so Trump apparently sent these people, right?

00:41:53.000 Now we are beyond the scope of what these officers know, or have an ability to know, of course.

00:41:59.000 But that's not the point.

00:42:00.000 The point is, what can they say on TV?

00:42:02.000 And because they're police officers, you're supposed to just take, at face value, their political analysis.

00:42:07.000 I'm willing to take at face value their experiences that day, obviously.

00:42:09.000 I have no reason to doubt it.

00:42:10.000 It's on tape.

00:42:12.000 Also, I generally trust police officers when they testify about what they have experienced.

00:42:16.000 But I don't see that they have any specific credibility when it comes to how things went down regarding the activities of the White House or whether Trump was somehow organizing with the people who invaded the Capitol building.

00:42:27.000 But again, this was the real point of the January 6th commission in the first place.

00:42:30.000 Capitol Police Officer Aquilino Ganel did the same thing.

00:42:34.000 He said Trump created this monstrosity.

00:42:37.000 You hear former President Trump Say, quote, it was a loving crowd.

00:42:43.000 There was a lot of love in the crowd.

00:42:46.000 How does that make you feel?

00:42:48.000 It's upsetting. 0.97

00:42:50.000 It's a pathetic excuse for his behavior for something that he himself helped to create. 1.00

00:42:58.000 This monstrosity. 0.98

00:43:00.000 I'm still recovering from those hugs and kisses that day that he claimed that so many writers Terrorists were assaulting us that day.

00:43:13.000 If that was Hoxton Kissett, then we should all go to his house and do the same thing to him.

00:43:19.000 Oh, great.

00:43:21.000 Yes.

00:43:22.000 Excellent.

00:43:23.000 All right.

00:43:23.000 Meanwhile, by the way, Harry Dunn, the second-to-last officer that we discussed a moment ago, he actually suggested that because people mistreated him, this is all of America.

00:43:32.000 This is political, guys.

00:43:34.000 If it was supposed to be not political, if it was just supposed to be about uncovering the truth, you wouldn't be asking questions like, how did it make you feel?

00:43:39.000 How did it make you feel is not a question that elicits truth.

00:43:43.000 It's a question that elicits a subjective perception.

00:43:46.000 That's fine.

00:43:47.000 But let's not pretend this is a fact-finding operation, because it isn't.

00:43:51.000 One woman in a pink MAGA shirt yelled, you hear that, guys? 0.80

00:43:55.000 This n----- voted for Joe Biden. 1.00

00:43:59.000 Then the crowd, perhaps around 20 people, Joined in screaming, boom! 0.93

00:44:06.000 The fact that we had our race attacked and just because of the way we look, you know?

00:44:16.000 To answer your question, frankly, I guess it is America.

00:44:19.000 It shouldn't be, but I guess that's the way that things are.

00:44:23.000 It is America.

00:44:24.000 Okay, or maybe it's not.

00:44:26.000 Maybe it's not.

00:44:27.000 You wonder why a lot of Republicans didn't want to go along with this?

00:44:29.000 Because they knew that this is what it was going to be.

00:44:31.000 They knew that this is going to be a bunch of conclusory Non-evidenced-based accusations against America rip more broadly.

00:44:39.000 And again, the high cynicism of Democrats turning into big cop supporters depending on who exactly is being targeted by the police is quite fascinating.

00:44:49.000 Okay, meanwhile, The other major controversy of the day is that Simone Biles withdrew from the Olympics yesterday.

00:44:55.000 So Simone Biles, of course, is probably the greatest gymnast of all time.

00:44:58.000 She's attempted things in competition that have never been attempted before.

00:45:02.000 She withdrew yesterday.

00:45:03.000 The reason that she withdrew, originally they said that she didn't actually have a physical problem.

00:45:07.000 She had some sort of mental, a mental problem.

00:45:10.000 Not meaning she suffered from mental illness or something.

00:45:13.000 It later came out that she was suffering from what people call aerial disorientation, which means that when she goes up in the air, she was kind of losing her place.

00:45:20.000 That's very dangerous.

00:45:21.000 It can happen with pilots.

00:45:22.000 It causes pilots to crash.

00:45:23.000 It can happen with gymnasts.

00:45:24.000 And if it happens with a gymnast, you can come down on your neck.

00:45:26.000 You could theoretically break your neck.

00:45:27.000 Here was Simone Biles describing her withdrawal yesterday from the Olympics. 0.86

00:45:31.000 I want to focus on my well-being and you know there's more to life than just gymnastics and it is very unfortunate that it has to happen at this stage because I definitely wanted this to look and feel a little bit better.

00:45:43.000 Put mental health first because if you don't then you're not going to enjoy your sport and you're not going to succeed as much as you want to so it's okay sometimes to even sit out the big competitions to focus on yourself because it shows how strong of a competitor and person that you really are.

00:45:59.000 Okay, so this is now broken down along political lines because everything does in the United States.

00:46:04.000 There's a group of people who say she's a villain and there's a group of people who say she's a hero.

00:46:07.000 She's neither.

00:46:09.000 She is not a villain because, again, the reality is that she had one vault attempt.

00:46:15.000 She did not perform well on the vault attempt.

00:46:17.000 She said she wasn't in the right headspace and then she was afraid that she was going to damage her teammates and that she would basically prevent her teammates from winning silver if she continued to compete.

00:46:25.000 And so she withdrew.

00:46:27.000 Does that make her some sort of villain?

00:46:29.000 I don't think that really makes her a villain.

00:46:30.000 She is, again, maybe the greatest gymnast of all time.

00:46:33.000 She's tried things in competition nobody else has tried.

00:46:34.000 I don't think it makes her a villain to walk away and say that she is not competing.

00:46:38.000 I also object to the idea that she is a great hero.

00:46:41.000 And this is the part that's kind of amazing, is that the media have now declared that when you walk away from things you're supposed to compete in, this makes you a hero.

00:46:46.000 They did the same thing with Naomi Osaka with regard to the French Open.

00:46:49.000 And she walked away from the Open saying that she didn't want to do media interviews.

00:46:53.000 It's like, well, even if you have sympathy for that, that doesn't make you a hero.

00:46:56.000 The media have decided that now she is a hero, right?

00:46:58.000 That the leader of the team walking away in the middle of the Olympics makes her heroic, right?

00:47:04.000 Lindsey Krauss has a piece in the New York Times titled, Simone Biles doesn't need a gold medal to win.

00:47:09.000 There's another piece in the Washington Post by Alyssa Rosenberg saying, quote, rooting for Simone Biles means recognizing the greatness in her decision to step back.

00:47:16.000 OK, we would never apply the standard to any male athlete of any kind ever.

00:47:20.000 If Tom Brady threw two interceptions in the first half of the Super Bowl and said, listen, I don't have it today, guys.

00:47:24.000 I need my backup to take over.

00:47:26.000 We'd all be like, wow, that's a choke.

00:47:28.000 If LeBron James did that in game seven of the NBA finals, which this is, if he had said, listen, I don't have it today, and I'm just not feeling it, and I think we're better off with my backup, people would be like, no, no.

00:47:41.000 Heroism is when you overcome the obstacle, not when the obstacle overcomes you.

00:47:44.000 That doesn't make her a villain, but to try and valorize walking away from competition because you broke, that's not an act of valor.

00:47:54.000 Again, it's not an act of ability, but it's certainly not an act of valor.

00:47:57.000 But the problem is that in our society, everyone is either a hero or a villain and there is never any in between where people are just people and they do things that are sometimes in their own best interest.

00:48:06.000 Maybe even in the best interest of their team, but only because they feel they can't do what they're supposed to do.

00:48:10.000 Like this is just a person doing a human thing and we're allowed to say it's a person doing a human thing without suggesting.

00:48:17.000 That it's a person who's being a villain or a hero.

00:48:18.000 The people who I do think are doing something that is horrible for the culture are people who are suggesting that it is an act of heroism and valor to somehow walk away from the Olympics as the greatest gymnast of all time.

00:48:31.000 That is a weird thing, culturally, to proclaim.

00:48:35.000 And we have seen a bunch of people who are proclaiming that.

00:48:37.000 I strenuously disagree.

00:48:39.000 Alrighty, we'll be back here later today with an additional hour of content.

00:48:41.000 In the meantime, go check out The Michael Knowles Show.

00:48:43.000 That's available right now.

00:48:44.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:48:44.000 Shapiro, this is the Ben Shapiro Show.

00:48:45.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Elliott Feld.

00:48:53.000 Executive Producer Jeremy Boring.

00:48:55.000 Our Supervising Producer is Mathis Glover.

00:48:57.000 Production Manager Pavel Lydowsky.

00:48:59.000 Associate Producer Bradford Carrington.

00:49:01.000 Host Producer Justin Barber.

00:49:03.000 The show is edited by Adam Sajovic.

00:49:05.000 Audio is mixed by Mike Koromina.

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00:49:09.000 Production Assistant Jessica Kranz.

00:49:11.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire production.

00:49:13.000 Copyright Daily Wire 2021.

00:49:16.000 John Bickley here, editor-in-chief of Daily Wire.

00:49:19.000 Wake up every morning with our new show, Morning Wire.

00:49:22.000 On today's show, the floodgates open on vaccine mandates, the refund the police movement gains momentum, and troops withdraw from the Middle East.

The Ben Shapiro Show - July 28, 2021

F*** The CDC | Ep. 1306

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