00:06:27.040And the entire thing is driven by, I don't get the left that wants to control you and force you to take the vaccine.
00:06:38.100If you want to take the vaccine, make a decision and take it.
00:06:42.380If you don't want to take it, don't take it.
00:06:44.220And with your kids, if you decide you want your kids to get the vaccine, that's your right.
00:06:48.640You ought to be able to make that decision.
00:06:50.300But you also ought to be able to make the decision with your five-year-old that, gosh, maybe this isn't the right decision for a five-year-old.
00:06:58.280That the cost-benefit analysis, the risk for a child of getting seriously ill from COVID is very, very low.
00:07:06.720The risks of unknown side effects from a new and experimental vaccine.
00:07:12.740I think parents can make that determination, and it is bizarre to see the democratic complex saying you don't have a right to make your choices.
00:07:24.500You don't have a right to make choices for your kids.
00:07:27.140Well, it's that last part that I think is what's so pernicious about this Muppet assault, you know, propaganda assault for the COVID vaccine.
00:07:36.660Because 99 percent plus of the viewers of Sesame Street are children.
00:07:41.620Children, and maybe you've got a parent watching, too, or walking into the room or something.
00:07:45.860But this was not a message going out saying, hey, parents, you really should vaccinate your kids, and here are the reasons why.
00:07:53.300This was going over the heads of parents, going directly to the kids.
00:08:00.720And I know that beyond the cartoons and the puppets, you're actually bringing this fight to Capitol Hill to try to put some teeth in it to stop these mandates for five- and six-year-olds to get the Fauci ouchie.
00:08:22.840I filed legislation just this past week.
00:08:25.940I filed legislation focused on kids to prevent any level of government, federal government, state government, local government, school boards, from requiring kids to get the COVID vaccine.
00:08:38.960Look, we're seeing places like California where they're forcing school kids, whether you want it or not, you've got to give this vaccine to your kids.
00:08:48.220I think we ought to empower parents, and I'll tell you, the arrogance of the left, look, when it comes to parents, we saw that play out in Virginia, where the same people who were saying, we, the government, are going to force your kids to obey whatever you think.
00:09:05.740You know, it's what Terry McAuliffe said.
00:09:07.340Parents have no business telling schools what to teach their kids.
00:09:10.760These same people think parents have no business making health care decisions for their kids.
00:09:17.500I believe in parents and trust parents.
00:09:21.780You know, I will say one of the people who got mad at me about this was Seth McFarlane, you know, the comedian who's a family guy, and he's funny as all get out, and he sent a tweet saying that Big Bird is smarter than Cruz, and so is Elmo, and the Cookie Monster, and Oscar the Grouch, and Animal, and he listed a whole bunch of others.
00:09:43.100And, you know, I had to respond, and I said, look, last I checked, every one of those you listed are puppets, usually with someone's hand stuck up their rear end.
00:09:53.520And so, and I said, listen, you're a really funny guy, and I'm sad to see you shilling for authoritarian tyrants who want to force kids to obey and take away health care choices from parents.
00:10:11.880And, you know, comedians used to speak truth to power.
00:10:14.020Now they just push the regular narrative.
00:10:16.720But, you know, the Virginia of it all is what's interesting to me because the Democrats just got a shellacking.
00:10:23.180You would imagine they got the message that this issue of education, parents having a right in how their kids are raised, that's really going to resonate even in a blue state like Virginia.
00:10:33.080So do you think there's any chance that you could get some Democrats in the Senate or in the House to come along, come over and say, you know, no mandates for kids?
00:10:42.460Or is the party line so strictly enforced that doesn't matter what happens in Virginia, they can't back down from it?
00:10:49.320Look, I think the party line is so strict they're terrified.
00:10:52.240You know, we had a vote on vaccine mandates on the Senate floor where we voted to stop government funding for vaccine mandates for your job, that you shouldn't be fired if you decline to get a vaccine.
00:11:09.180They believe in government power and they don't think you have individual rights.
00:11:13.660They don't think you have individual liberty.
00:11:15.740And I got to say, Michael, it's striking as I travel the country.
00:11:19.200I'm hearing from people in all sorts of walks of life.
00:11:23.140I'm hearing from doctors and nurses because they're firing thousands upon thousands of doctors and nurses because they're declining to get the COVID vaccine for various reasons.
00:11:33.440I'm hearing from airline pilots and air traffic control controllers.
00:12:15.160I'm talking to the air traffic controllers unions.
00:12:17.080I can tell you there are a whole bunch of them who are really upset about these mandates.
00:12:22.720And what I'm hearing is that we're seeing sick outs and walk outs.
00:12:26.460Now, the unions don't want to acknowledge that publicly because there there are negative legal repercussions that come from doing that.
00:12:33.720But I think that's what's happening. And the media is desperate to have nobody acknowledge it.
00:12:39.360And, you know, I got I got to say this weekend I was up in Chicago and I was speaking at an event that was called Freedom Fest.
00:12:47.440It's about seven, eight hundred people there and was talking to them.
00:12:50.160So I flew up there. Now, as I flew up there, this happens almost every time I fly now where people stop me, airline pilots, flight attendants, mechanics on airplanes.
00:12:59.800They come up to me that they grab me by the shoulder. They say, Ted, thank you.
00:13:04.500Keep fighting. It has gotten to the point now I almost can't get on an airplane without somebody coming up and saying that because they're facing.
00:13:13.300I'm hearing every time I fly, someone saying I've been with airlines such and such for 10, 20, 25 years.
00:13:19.340I'm losing my job. When I arrived in Chicago, I was greeted by Chicago cops.
00:13:25.620And look, normally there's a police officer to that that is there to escort you.
00:13:30.580In this case, it was, you know, seven or eight cops who were there.
00:13:34.380And the Chicago cops, I love the Chicago cops.
00:13:38.040They gave me two of their patches, Chicago Police Department.
00:13:41.320And I've been speaking out loudly for the Chicago cops because the Chicago Police Union is fighting their idiot mayor.
00:14:02.220Joe Biden was asked in a national town hall, what should Chicago do?
00:14:07.660Should we should they fire a third of their cops?
00:14:11.200And Biden said, yeah, fire them, fire cops.
00:14:13.860I got to tell you, the speech I gave in Chicago, I told that story and I pulled out the patch of the Chicago Police Department.
00:14:21.460I held it up and said, I am proud to stand with the men and women of the Chicago Police Department.
00:14:28.360Every person in the room stood to their feet.
00:14:31.460A long, rousing, standing ovation for those Chicago cops.
00:14:35.400I told the press who were there, I said, why don't you guys cover this, that every person at the Chicago gathering stands with the Chicago cops.
00:14:47.840There is a story out now that more than a third, something closer, I think, to 37 percent of truck drivers in the United States could resign or be fired.
00:14:57.840But would would end up off the job amid a supply chain crisis as we're approaching the holiday season could could be a massive disruption to the economy.
00:15:06.600Little Johnny won't get won't get his Christmas presents in time and there will be more serious consequences.
00:15:12.120But Big Bird has a special present for Little Johnny.
00:15:34.520It's, as you say, the air traffic controllers.
00:15:36.180So there was a court decision, I believe, from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that that pushed for a stay on the Biden vaccine mandate, saying we're going to figure out if this is constitutional or not.
00:15:49.680In the meantime, you you can't force your your employees to take the vaccine.
00:15:54.740The Biden White House has just come out today and said, never mind.
00:15:59.760Force your your employees to get the vaccine anyway.
00:16:02.480It seems utterly lawless and at the very least extremely confusing.
00:16:05.960So what are the workers supposed to do?
00:16:08.180Yeah, look, lawless is is the right word for it.
00:16:10.620If you look at the Biden vaccine mandates, there's there's four levels to it.
00:16:15.720There's a mandate that applies to federal civilian employees.
00:16:20.440There's a mandate that applies to fellow federal military, active duty military.
00:16:27.080There's a mandate that applies to government contractors, anyone that does business with the federal government.
00:16:31.960And then there's a mandate through OSHA that's supposed to be a health and safety regulation that applies to any employer with 100 or more workers.
00:16:42.360All of those mandates are being challenged in court.
00:16:46.180I think all of them are legally dubious.
00:16:48.620The ones focused on federal employees are the most likely to succeed just because the federal government has a fair amount of leeway there.
00:16:56.240But what's interesting is the litigation is succeeding against all of those different components.
00:17:01.900You know, I got to tell you, I'm I'm also hearing from a lot of active duty military, from soldiers, from sailors, from airmen and Marines.
00:17:44.380Now, there's been different litigation.
00:17:45.880So, for example, the United employees have sued trying to stop the vaccine mandate for the airlines where they're getting hit is the government contractor aspect of it.
00:17:56.240So so, you know, Southwest Airlines, the United States government is their single biggest customer.
00:18:03.120All of the other airlines are customers.
00:18:08.420And so they're really they're between a rock and a hard place because the federal government is threatening to withhold millions of dollars if they don't comply.
00:18:17.300The litigation, the last I checked, the United litigation, there was a stay in place so that the employees had won the initial round.
00:18:25.600The Fifth Circuit case you're talking about is a lawsuit that was brought against the OSHA regulation targeting employees, employers that have 100 or more employees.
00:18:35.720And the Fifth Circuit, the Federal Court of Appeals, concluded that they had stated a strong initial case that there was a likelihood of success on the merits and a strong case of statutory and or constitutional violations.
00:18:48.920The Biden administration is litigating this.
00:18:51.140I've said from the beginning, the OSHA rule is going to be struck down.
00:18:55.480It's going to be struck down as contrary to law.
00:18:58.180I believe that is by far the most likely litigation outcome.
00:19:02.060I also think, Michael, Joe Biden's lawyers do, too, that they've told the Biden White House we're going to lose in court.
00:19:09.400But they've also said, look, litigation takes months, sometimes years.
00:19:46.940You know, I had the same gut reaction when President Biden made the announcement.
00:19:51.780I said, I think that they're on shaky legal ground here, but they're just going to hope that everyone takes the jab and then it won't be a big deal.
00:19:58.780Well, today, when when the White House came out and said, well, while this is working its way through the courts, comply anyway, I thought there's the proof.
00:20:06.280There's the proof that, you know, you're not going to win in court.
00:20:08.620So you're going to try to get your desired outcome before that all happens.
00:20:12.000There's a ton of hypocrisy here, by the way.
00:20:14.300And we've seen this from the beginning on the left and Democratic politicians not following their own mandates and their own health requirements.
00:20:22.680And before we get to the mailbag, I can't I can't let us move on without bringing this up.
00:20:27.640There was a ton of hypocrisy from left wing politicians who have just been at their climate change a palooza all week, the United Nations Climate Summit.
00:20:36.540And it seems to me a fair number of them flew private jets on the way to save the world and stop the emissions.
00:20:45.380Well, look, hypocrisy is something Democrats do a lot.
00:20:48.500I got to say, by the way, let me start off by saying, what did the Scots do to piss us off so much that we caused all these people to descend upon them like locusts?
00:22:54.220One of my colleagues, a Republican senator who's female, described being in the Senate gym and accidentally the door opened and seeing Schumer in his tighty-whities.
00:23:06.440And she just said she wanted to wash her eyes with bleach.
00:27:38.920You know, Obama, I don't think, was, you know, in Section B of Southwest or anything.
00:27:44.020No, he flies private, I think, all of the time and has for a very long time.
00:27:49.280And so, beyond the hypocrisy, which we all see, I mean, at this point, it's almost, we don't even want to talk about it because it's so flagrant.
00:27:58.400You know, if the Democrats didn't have double standards, they'd have no standards at all.
00:28:01.940But the substance of what was said at this conference was a little disconcerting, too, especially in Barack Obama's speech.
00:28:10.000It made me long for a Scandinavian teenager.
00:28:14.000And by the way, that's a sentence that can really be cut out of context and used against me.
00:28:18.760So I'm going to insist that there be broader, that there's no clipping of that sentence.
00:28:24.740You think they took the Kennedy-Portland private jet thing out of context?
00:28:28.700That, you are, Senator, you're going down with that one.
00:28:31.380But what Barack Obama said was that he apologized to the world.
00:28:36.680It's too bad that America has been behind on climate for so long because of big, bad Donald Trump.
00:28:42.580Mind you, by the way, that in the first year of the Trump administration, the United States did better than the actual signatories to the Paris Climate Accord on reducing carbon emissions and protecting the environment.
00:28:53.200Never mind completely thrown out the window because big, bad Trump got us out of the Paris climate deal.
00:28:57.860But what Barack Obama said was that it was the fault of rising nationalism that we weren't taking on this problem of climate change and we need to come together.
00:29:07.100If there's one thing that should transcend our politics, it ought to be climate change.
00:29:13.860And it was so spooky to me because what he was saying is that all the ordinary political fights and workings of democracy and our constitutional order and the way we run our government,
00:29:22.640basically all of that's got to be suspended and superseded by the need to fight off the sun monster.
00:29:29.320And it occurs to me that's basically been their strategy from the beginning.
00:29:32.520Well, look, their strategy is always, always, always give them power.
00:29:53.340And when it comes to climate, Joe Biden's policies are terrible for the environment.
00:30:00.260Last year, the number one nation leading the world in reducing carbon emissions and pollutions was the United States of America because of the widespread substitution of natural gas for coal and energy production.
00:30:16.160Joe Biden and the lunatics in his administration are shutting down U.S. production.
00:30:23.960And meanwhile, they're begging OPEC to produce more oil.
00:30:27.080OPEC produces it dirtier and pollutes more.
00:30:29.300They're literally shifting from low pollution energy to high pollution energy.
00:30:35.000They don't believe what they're saying.