CLAY: If you followed me on social media, you know that last week we had a major blowup surrounding school boards and whether or not masks were gonna be required in the state of Tennessee in Williamson County in particular where Buck and Ali here came out and had dinner with us on Tuesday.
BUCK: Very civilized.
CLAY: You came to the very civilized Williamson County. Well, Joe Biden can’t stop talking about that school board meeting. We played you my one-minute argument about why masks don’t make sense for kids. Biden talked about it last week. He had a… I don’t even think you can call it a press conference ’cause he didn’t answer any questions.
But he came out and talked about covid yesterday, avoided all questions from the media, and he continued to go after Williamson County — this area just south of Nashville — for the way the parents behaved, and argue in favor of requiring all kids to wear masks. Here is what Biden said yesterday.
BIDEN: Unfortunately, as we’ve seen throughout this pandemic, some politicians are trying to turn public safety measures — as children wearing masks in school — into political disputes for their own political gain! Some are even trying to take power away from local educators by banning masks in school.
They’re setting a dangerous tone. For example, last week at a school board meeting in Tennessee protesters threatened doctors and nurses who are testifying making the case for masking children in schools. Intimidation or threats we’ve seen across the country are wrong. They’re unacceptable.
BUCK: And so much dishonest here, Clay.
CLAY: So much, Buck.
BUCK: Let’s start with… I know you were there. So there were, what, two guys that were on video saying something stupid?
CLAY: Out of about a thousand parents.
BUCK: But even bigger on the dishonesty scale because the implication — but that’s a classic Democrat technique, right? They’ll go to a rally with a thousand conservatives; they’ll find one person on the edge of the fringe and they’ll say, “Oh, well, this guy who said something crazy represents all of them.”
CLAY: Represents everybody, yes.
BUCK: Whereas, BLM can burn down a whole neighborhood and it’s a mostly peaceful protest.
CLAY: Oh yeah. Mostly peaceful protest. That’s exactly right.
BUCK: So here’s the other parts of this though. What he says is not even factually true. It’s not even accurate. It’s not that they’re banning masks in a lot of these school districts.
CLAY: That’s exactly right.
BUCK: They are saying that parents have the right to choose for kids. They are decidedly authoritarian and anti-choice, and this goes, really, to the heart of Democrat philosophy in contemporary America, which is, they want to control everybody. It’s not enough for them to be able to control their own decisions.
So what he’s saying about banning masks, is there a place — I don’t even know of one — where a parent who wants to mask up kids can’t do it? There just are now some states that is because of the overanxious, CNN-watching crybabies who think that their kids (who have a one-in-a-million chance of dying) need to get masked up, they don’t get to determine for you, Clay Travis, that your kids in Tennessee have to wear masks. That’s what’s going on.
CLAY: That’s well said, and I think this is important because we have so many parents out there who are listening to us. The data on masks working doesn’t exist at all and kids aren’t under risk in any way. They’re more likely to die in traffic accidents. They’re more likely to die of the seasonal flu. They’re more likely, your kids are, to be murdered or to commit suicide by orders of magnitude than they are to die with covid.
Look, I care about my kids like any other parent out there more than anything else in my life. If I thought that they were under danger from not wearing masks, my kids would be masked! But if you have that opinion, your kids can wear masks. This idea that we need mandates, which make no sense, and that Joe Biden’s gonna continue to take shots… This is at thousands of parents, Buck.
These were reasonable, intelligent, educated parents who’ve looked at the data making the case that every single parent should be able to make their own choice. They’re saying, “Let us choose.” The other side is saying, “No, we are telling you what you have to do.”
BUCK: And the notion that the only side that is politicizing this is the conservatives!
CLAY: Oh!
BUCK: This is completely insane. We’ve got one group of people who are saying, “Putting a mask over your face…” It’s like libs are so brainwashed over this that they can’t all think. You know, I had to wear one when I came out to Williamson.
CLAY: When you got on in Nashville.
BUCK: I had to wear one on the car ride out there when I got in an Uber in Nashville, and it’s uncomfortable, it’s annoying, and it makes you agitated all day long, right? This isn’t like a cost-free thing. They act like the only reason, Clay, people don’t want to mask themselves or their kids is because, like, “Donald Trump!” or some stupidity. No. I don’t want to wear a mask because I don’t want to wear a gosh-darn mask!
CLAY: You gotta be careful not to curse. I’m the same way, Buck. I don’t want to wear a mask for the same reason that I don’t want to wear a motorcycle helmet into the grocery store, because it’s stupid and doesn’t make me safer. It also is really a great encumbrance. People say, “Well, you’re fine wearing a seat belt in a car.” Yeah, but you’re not also telling me that I need to wear a helmet.
BUCK: It’s about what’s reasonable, and they’re completely unreasonable.
CLAY: Analyzing risk and being rational.
BUCK: Yeah, they won’t give up on this stuff.
CLAY: You and I are gonna be fired up on this.
BUCK: Well, of course!
CLAY: We’re going to the airport today.
BUCK: And we’re gonna have to put on masks.
CLAY: I get so mad when I get out of a car and have to put a mask on to walk into a freaking airport.
BUCK: Yeah. They arrested two people in Nashville yesterday!
CLAY: I saw that. (laughing) I saw that. It wasn’t us.
BUCK: So, Clay, let’s not get too crazy, okay? We don’t need another photo this week, Clay, the two of us, that’s for sure, after Photogate here in Nashville.
CLAY: People love the comments! I gotta give credit to everybody out there, the Clay and Buck listeners.
BUCK: (laughing)
CLAY: I tweeted out the photo, the worst photo that’s ever been taken of me, I’m guessing, Buck, one of the worst photos of you.
BUCK: It’s not a great one of me.
CLAY: Yeah.
BUCK: I think we’re both a little more suave than those photos.
CLAY: I will acknowledge that I am fat and ugly, but I’m not as fat and ugly as I looked in the picture with Tomi Lahren. If you want a good laugh, you can go look at my Twitter account. The comments are pretty fantastic. I thought that I was gonna have to fire, Buck, Dub, who is one of our production staff here for allowing this photo to get out. Like, if I were J. Lo, J. Lo would have fired like 50 people if a photo like that got out.
BUCK: Yeah.
CLAY: Of course, she’s a lot better looking than us. You’re gonna love this photo if you haven’t seen it.
BUCK: I was never a J.Lo fan, I gotta tell you.
CLAY: Oh, I love J.Lo.
BUCK: Oh, my gosh! Really? Ugh! Good heavens.
CLAY: She’s 54 years old or whatever, incredibly good-looking.
BUCK: Good heavens. Overrated. The most overrated pop star/actresses I think of our generation but we don’t have time to get into it.
CLAY: I’m actually fascinated by who is in contention there.
BUCK: We have to save people from the madness here.
CLAY: (laughing)
BUCK: Clay, ’cause the point about politicizing this, I think, matters because this is what they’re doing now. And the classic Obama tactic for eight years was to always accuse the other side of what you’re doing, right?
CLAY: Yeah.
BUCK: This is like, you know, when you’re in line with a bunch of people, “Okay? Well, who stole the last, you know, potato chips out of the cupboard or whatever?” And it’s like, “Well, my buddy did,” ’cause then if you’re the one that actually did it, it looks like the blame is off of you.
They’re saying we are politicizing this. Meanwhile… I think I said this to you. I don’t know if you got a chance to scope it before we came on here together. There’s a New York Times piece now that’s like, “Hey, look, masks are always great for kids and for learning!” They’ve gone from —
CLAY: Oh, they’re arguing that it’s better for you?
BUCK: They’ve gone from admitting that this is an annoying hindrance to human connection and comfort day to day, but necessary because the virus is so scary tolerance trying to say, “Well, you make longer eye contact! Well, it teaches you discipline!” Yeah, it also taught you discipline in East Germany when the Stasi had informants in every house and you couldn’t say anything bad about regime. I don’t think that we want here in America.
CLAY: I will just tell you this: Parents in my neighborhood all asked their kids, “Hey, do you want to wear masks?” No kids were like, “Yeah, we love it,” and for younger kids who learn verbally by seeing their teachers’ mouths move and things like that, it is a massive hindrance for learning in general.
BUCK: We actually have a little backup, too, here because speaking of the New York Times — and Clay and I, we go deep diving into the lib lunacy so that we can mine it and you don’t have to deal with that nonsense.
CLAY: We read so you don’t have to.