Speaker 1: For the past year, we've been told by the pundits
Speaker 1: and the politicians that we need to follow the science
Speaker 1: when dealing with COVID. I agree with that statement, But
Speaker 1: what happens when the same elites, the ones and positions
Speaker 1: of power do precisely the opposite. You know, I'm talking
Speaker 1: about Gavin news From and Glew Como. Today I exposed
Speaker 1: the hypocrisy and the hollowness of the so called experts
Speaker 1: separating COVID facts from fiction. This is out allowed. With
Speaker 1: you want the COVID, we'll come back to allow with
Speaker 1: Giano calls well, I'm really excited for today's show. My
Speaker 1: guess is Phil Kirpen, the president of the Committee to
Speaker 1: Unleashed Prosperity, which promotes limited government, free market economics, and
Speaker 1: the commitment to the principles of the Declaration of Independence
Speaker 1: in the Constitution. Phil is also a syndicated columnist, policy analyst,
Speaker 1: and the chairman of the Internet Freedom Coalition. Phil has
Speaker 1: written extensively on COVID nineteen and that's what he and
Speaker 1: I are going to discuss today, COVID facts and COVID nonsense.
Speaker 1: Let's go phiil Urp and welcome to outline with Giano Caldo.
Speaker 1: Where pleased to have you today. We know that you're
Speaker 1: an expert in the COVID space and you've been following
Speaker 1: this very closely. How are you doing, I'm doing all right.
Speaker 1: How are you? I'm doing well currently uh in Panama
Speaker 1: doing some research, but glad to be on with you.
Speaker 1: So I want to I want to really begin by
Speaker 1: digging into how much the government's response to COVID, especially
Speaker 1: in blue states, has been uh politicized. So many pundits
Speaker 1: politicians keep telling us to follow the science when it
Speaker 1: comes to COVID and listen to the so called experts.
Speaker 1: But sometimes I wonder if some of these people know
Speaker 1: any more than the average person. And as an example
Speaker 1: of that, I want to place some tape from one
Speaker 1: of Joe Biden's key experts, and one of his advisor's
Speaker 1: name is Andy Slavitt, and he's a senior advisor on
Speaker 1: COVID response. He was on MSNBC with hosts Stephanie Rule,
Speaker 1: and this is what she had to say. States like
Speaker 1: Florida and California. California basically in lockdown and their numbers
Speaker 1: aren't that different from Florida. Look, there's so much of
Speaker 1: this virus that we think we understand that we think
Speaker 1: we can predict that just beyond a little bit beyond
Speaker 1: our explanation. What we do know is that the more
Speaker 1: careful people are, the more they mask and social distance,
Speaker 1: and the quicker we vaccinate, the quicker it goes away
Speaker 1: and the less it spreads. But we have got to
Speaker 1: get better visibility into variants. We don't know what role
Speaker 1: they play, UM, large events, etcetera. But you know, this
Speaker 1: is as we all have learned by this time, this
Speaker 1: is a virus that continues to surprise us. Um it's
Speaker 1: very hard to predict and you know all around the country.
Speaker 1: We've got to continue to do a better job. And
Speaker 1: I think I think we are, but we're not done yet.
Speaker 1: That was interesting, in bizarre all at the same time.
Speaker 1: Why because this is supposed to be an expert, someone
Speaker 1: who is advising the President of the United States too.
Speaker 1: By way of the last election, criticized the Trump administration
Speaker 1: and said that they didn't know what they were gonna do.
Speaker 1: They didn't know what they were doing. Rather, and they
Speaker 1: were going to if Biden one uh, provide a strategy
Speaker 1: and a plan that would change the trajectory of the
Speaker 1: virus immediately, and he basically said he doesn't know what's
Speaker 1: going on in the host. I'll add was wrong on
Speaker 1: the number. She said that Florida in California were partly
Speaker 1: the same, and recent numbers show that in Florida there's
Speaker 1: one point eight four million cases. In California that's three
Speaker 1: point five one million cases, So it's not the same
Speaker 1: by any measure. What do you have to say to
Speaker 1: something like that, Well, I think that you know, he
Speaker 1: couldn't answer that question because there is no answer that's
Speaker 1: consistent with the things that the you know, lockdown artists
Speaker 1: and the Biden administration, the Democrats in general have been saying, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a big problem for them that a
Speaker 1: state California that's been in some form of lockdown pretty
Speaker 1: much continuously for nine months has worse COVID measures than
Speaker 1: the state of Florida, where all restrictions ended I think
Speaker 1: five months ago now. And you know, you can't, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, you can't explain that away the way he
Speaker 1: did by saying, oh, there's still a lot we don't understand,
Speaker 1: but what we do know are these various restrictions work.
Speaker 1: And they say, well, no, no, the whole point of
Speaker 1: the question is we don't know they work, because the
Speaker 1: place that isn't doing any of those things is doing
Speaker 1: better than the place that's doing all of them, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the most strenuously of any of the states.
Speaker 1: And I think the real lesson, contrary to what you
Speaker 1: know the so called experts continue to want to tell us,
Speaker 1: is uh that the masks and the distance saying, and
Speaker 1: the closes, school closures and the business closures actually have
Speaker 1: about no effect. You still get the virus. You just
Speaker 1: get all of the educational and economic and social harms
Speaker 1: of those interventions on top of still having the harms
Speaker 1: of the virus. And you know, early on it looked like,
Speaker 1: you know, they must be doing everything right. In California,
Speaker 1: they've got lower numbers. But I think it was just
Speaker 1: sort of luck that they hadn't had their turn yet.
Speaker 1: And of course, you know, when they had their turn,
Speaker 1: they had a very very bad wave. And you know,
Speaker 1: the lesson I think is you can't stop a highly
Speaker 1: infectious respiratory virus through uh, you know, government dictates and policies.
Speaker 1: You might be able to by developing vaccines and treatments,
Speaker 1: and we did, but that very quickly, but you're not
Speaker 1: gonna do it through lockdown orders. That just doesn't work.
Speaker 1: But they're never going to admit that, because if they
Speaker 1: admit that, what did they put everyone through all of
Speaker 1: this pain and suffering for on top of you know,
Speaker 1: the virus harms that happened. Anyway, well, I can tell
Speaker 1: you the lockdowns work for a particular purpose, and that
Speaker 1: higher suicide rates and poverty, that's what we get with lockdowns.
Speaker 1: And interestingly enough, I lived in Los Angeles from seventeen
Speaker 1: up into May last year, when I decided to move
Speaker 1: two months into the lockdown to Miami, Florida. So we
Speaker 1: see what these lockdowns are doing. They're making poor people
Speaker 1: we even more poorn is depressing the hell out of
Speaker 1: a whole lot of people. And it's interesting that you
Speaker 1: pointed out something about Slavitte. You recently pointed out on
Speaker 1: Twitter that he's a partisan with an NBA who actually
Speaker 1: worked as an investment banker. He only entered the world
Speaker 1: of healthcare on the business side and has no real
Speaker 1: medical expertise, and yet Biden and the media have declared
Speaker 1: him uh COVID expert. I just don't understand why Joe
Speaker 1: Biden would have been ported appointed him as his point man.
Speaker 1: Do you have any idea why you would have? Well,
Speaker 1: he uh, he was an executive vice president at United
Speaker 1: Health grew and um. He went into the Obama administration,
Speaker 1: he was an acting administrator for Medicare and Medicaid. He
Speaker 1: he was never the full administrator because uh, he had
Speaker 1: to get an ethics waiver so that he could oversee
Speaker 1: his previous employer, and he sent them a bunch of
Speaker 1: bailout money. And the Senate, uh, you know, they didn't
Speaker 1: confirm him, which was good, but they also didn't bother
Speaker 1: to have the vote to vote against him and actually
Speaker 1: knock him out of that office, which is what I
Speaker 1: was trying to get them to do at the time.
Speaker 1: But he is a his background is as a health
Speaker 1: insurance executive and then as an Obama administration bureaucrat. And
Speaker 1: you know, he certainly has no medical expertise to the
Speaker 1: other thing that's kind of amazing about him is um
Speaker 1: uh you know, up until when he went into the
Speaker 1: Biden administration, he was constantly hawking the sponsor of his podcast,
Speaker 1: which was a mask that claimed it could zap the
Speaker 1: virus and disintegrate the virus, which is sort of quackery.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a it's a fantastical claim. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: just sort of taking advantage of people are scared of
Speaker 1: the virus to sell them a product. Uh. And and
Speaker 1: that wasn't a problem for the Biden administration either. Essentially,
Speaker 1: I think he's where he is in the Piden administration
Speaker 1: because he had a big Twitter following, and you know,
Speaker 1: there's okay, let's get this guy. He's a he's you know,
Speaker 1: he's respected on the left on this stuff. But it's
Speaker 1: a it's a very odd choice. It's not clear what
Speaker 1: he brings the table really. Uh. But I'm not sure
Speaker 1: what he's actually doing other than doing these interviews in
Speaker 1: the daily briefing. So I don't know that that that
Speaker 1: his I don't know that he I don't know that
Speaker 1: it matters too much that he doesn't seem to you you,
Speaker 1: you know, have any particular relevant expertise. Wow, this is
Speaker 1: it's not just a guy like him. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it's you know, you hear the same kind of stuff
Speaker 1: from people like Fauci, you know, from our new CDC director.
Speaker 1: You know, they don't you know, the fact that the
Speaker 1: data doesn't match the policies they've been prescribing. Doesn't cause
Speaker 1: them to reconsider the policies they just they just gloss
Speaker 1: over it and keep saying the same things anyway. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then we talk about other experts. In one in
Speaker 1: which you mentioned are on Twitter is Martin Colderoff, who
Speaker 1: was a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School who's
Speaker 1: advocated against lockdowns. He wanted to balance approach um and
Speaker 1: if if I'm quoting you noted that he has advocated
Speaker 1: a balanced approach of COVID to allowing those minimal risk
Speaker 1: of death to of their lives are better protecting those
Speaker 1: at higher risks. But he has been shown by some
Speaker 1: of those elites who usually love Harvard because he um
Speaker 1: is advocating for people to live their lives. Can you
Speaker 1: go more into that please. Yeah. Martin Coldorf is one
Speaker 1: of the top infectious disease epidemiologists in the world, and
Speaker 1: he partnered with two other top infectious disease epidemiologists, one
Speaker 1: from Stanford named j Boicharia and one from Oxford, UH
Speaker 1: named Sunetra Gupta, and they put out something called the
Speaker 1: Great Barrington Declaration where they basically said, look, the principles
Speaker 1: of public health and epidemiology are that you need to
Speaker 1: look at all of public health, not just one issue
Speaker 1: or one aspect or one disease, and the lockdowns cause
Speaker 1: enormous public health harms. What we need to do instead
Speaker 1: is focused, to the extent we can on focus protection
Speaker 1: for the truly vulnerable people who are advanced age or
Speaker 1: medically vulnerable. Used vaccines to protect them, now that we
Speaker 1: have it. Before we have the vaccines, try to you know,
Speaker 1: shelter those people. But otherwise, younger people should be able
Speaker 1: to go about there. You know, younger people who are
Speaker 1: not medically vulnerable should be allowed to go about their
Speaker 1: lives normally. And you know, I've talked to Dr Coldorf
Speaker 1: and he basically said, you know, this is what all
Speaker 1: infectious disease epidemiologists believe when they're not kind of uh,
Speaker 1: you know, being pressured into going along with this new
Speaker 1: public narrative. This has been the normal conventional wisdom in
Speaker 1: the field forever up until last year, and yet now
Speaker 1: somehow it's become sort of a minority viewpoint to be dismissed.
Speaker 1: And you know, from the perspective of somebody who's you know,
Speaker 1: not a doctor, not a scientist. What's been following these
Speaker 1: issues closely from sort of the economic standpoint. You know,
Speaker 1: it's remarkable because whenever we say, you know, it doesn't
Speaker 1: look like these lockdowns are working. Here's the data. People say, well,
Speaker 1: you're not an epidemiologist, you're not credit, you're not qualified
Speaker 1: to make that assessment. You say, well no, but I'm
Speaker 1: listening to people like Martin Coldorf from our verd and
Speaker 1: Ja Bodicharia from Stanford and Senetric Uptor from Oxford. And
Speaker 1: they say, oh, well they don't count. Now that's not science.
Speaker 1: It's anti science. If you listen to people like uh,
Speaker 1: those top epidemiologists who are anti lockdown, it only counts
Speaker 1: as science if you listen to the ones who want lockdown,
Speaker 1: the more political epidemia. Yeah, and then that's the thing
Speaker 1: is this. People are listening to those with the education
Speaker 1: in the background, who have studied the science, or are
Speaker 1: they looking at the folks who have the more uh,
Speaker 1: democratic leaning or liberal leaning political ideologies that align with
Speaker 1: the politicians who are advocating for these lockdowns. That's what's
Speaker 1: so disturbing about this process because you have folks who
Speaker 1: clearly have demonstrated I'm talking about Governor Ron De Santis
Speaker 1: is clearly demonstrating you can send your kids to school,
Speaker 1: you can open up the entire state. You can go
Speaker 1: to restaurants, clubs and bars are open open in the
Speaker 1: state of Florida. There's a lot of different venues. People
Speaker 1: are actually living their lives, and folks are running away
Speaker 1: from Cali. For you in New York because it's a
Speaker 1: three state Now, I want to pick up from there
Speaker 1: in a moment, but first let's have a quick break.
Speaker 1: We saw the dever. GAVINUSA recently has come up with
Speaker 1: a stimulus package, uh to kind of prop up businesses,
Speaker 1: give six checks in terms of stimulus. Why do you
Speaker 1: think he's doing that now and he's still trying to
Speaker 1: keep some of these lockdown measures in place. Well, he
Speaker 1: doesn't want to admit that. He doesn't want tomit he
Speaker 1: was wrong. I mean, I think this is the fundamental
Speaker 1: problem with getting out of these lockdowns and places that
Speaker 1: still have lots of restrictions. As you know, they they
Speaker 1: don't want to come out and say, hey, we did
Speaker 1: all that for nothing. You sacrificed. You were locked up
Speaker 1: in your house, your kids didn't go to school for
Speaker 1: a years. That was my bad, that was a mistake.
Speaker 1: We got the virus anyway, that didn't accomplish anything. We're
Speaker 1: going to reverse all of that. Now, you don't want
Speaker 1: to do that because uh, you know, nobody likes admitting
Speaker 1: they're wrong and obviously the political consequence, so that would
Speaker 1: be tough. So they want to sort of, uh figure
Speaker 1: a way out where they can claim credit, claim they
Speaker 1: were the hero, they were the reason that it wasn't
Speaker 1: much worse. And and that's why I think, uh, the
Speaker 1: media and the liberals and the advocates of these policies,
Speaker 1: they the most their number one most hated person in
Speaker 1: America as Governor on De Santis and Governor Christy nom
Speaker 1: is probably number two. Because when you have states they
Speaker 1: don't go along with what everyone else is doing. And
Speaker 1: Sweden and sort of the European version of this didn't
Speaker 1: go along with this stuff. When you have places that
Speaker 1: didn't do it, and it say, oh wait a second,
Speaker 1: their virus numbers aren't any worse. And Vanian Florida is
Speaker 1: very right in the middle of the pack, very average
Speaker 1: on all the virus numbers. They wait there. Their virus
Speaker 1: numbers aren't any worse than anywhere else. But they didn't
Speaker 1: impose all of this additional hardship. They didn't destroy millions
Speaker 1: of businesses, they didn't lock kids out of school. You know,
Speaker 1: why did we do those things here? That's a problem
Speaker 1: and that's why when when that question gets asked directly
Speaker 1: of a Biden administration official, all they can do is sputter.
Speaker 1: They can't answer it. There is no good answer. But
Speaker 1: you know, if you're if you're Gavin Newsom, you don't
Speaker 1: want to meet you were wrong, but you don't want
Speaker 1: to get recalled. Uh, so what do you do? We're
Speaker 1: just send money out. We're gonna send checks out and
Speaker 1: maybe that'll that'll he thinks that will help him survive. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, it's an interesting thing because California actually is
Speaker 1: in a big budget surplus right now, which is a
Speaker 1: little bit surprising because you might think, you know, they've
Speaker 1: been destroying so many businesses, they're probably gonna destroy their
Speaker 1: own state finances and then they'll have to you know.
Speaker 1: But but actually they're in a big surplus because the
Speaker 1: stock market has been going up so much. They've got
Speaker 1: tons of income tax revenue from the stock market. Uh.
Speaker 1: And also, you know, real estate prices are up for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, they're kind of up everywhere. And so you know,
Speaker 1: California's got like a billion dollar surplus right now, but
Speaker 1: Democrats and billion dollars anyway, in this next Biden stimulus,
Speaker 1: forty one billion goes to California to bail out of
Speaker 1: budget that they don't even need a bail out there
Speaker 1: in surplus. So you know, if you've got that kind
Speaker 1: of money coming that you've is coming and you're worried
Speaker 1: about a recollection, you know you you got the money
Speaker 1: that you've got the money coming from Washington, send out
Speaker 1: checks to people by their favor. I think that's what
Speaker 1: he's trying to do with You know, you you talked
Speaker 1: talked quite a bit about free market policies. You spend
Speaker 1: a lot of your career studying it, how to stimulate
Speaker 1: economic growth. And I'm really interested in terms of what
Speaker 1: you think about the current COVID package. And let me
Speaker 1: be very clip front. I've supported the two thousand dollar
Speaker 1: stimulus for American families. It was their money, it was
Speaker 1: their tax dollars. I think it should have went to them.
Speaker 1: I think it should have really went to them. Mitch McConnell,
Speaker 1: I think he dropped the ball, and um new Gingridge
Speaker 1: is also advocated for this as well. When it came
Speaker 1: to the Georgia Senate, racist Donald Trump recently saying, Hey,
Speaker 1: if it wasn't for Mitch McConnell dropping the ball and
Speaker 1: not sending out the two thousand dollars stimulus to people,
Speaker 1: then Georgia might have looked different. What do you think
Speaker 1: the federal government should do in terms of COVID relief packages?
Speaker 1: Should we be spending another two trillion? Is Biden the
Speaker 1: Democrats want to do? Uh? Should we be given to
Speaker 1: me this check to Americans? What is the best way
Speaker 1: to help those whose jobs and businesses were damaged, destroyed
Speaker 1: at no part of their own while being fiscally responsible? Uh? Is?
Speaker 1: What is it? What do you think we should do here? Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, we've got a really weird economy right now,
Speaker 1: because it's not a six percent unemployment economy nationally. It's
Speaker 1: three percent unemployment economy in places like you know, South
Speaker 1: Dakota and Nebraska and Iowa that never locked down. And
Speaker 1: you know, the virus came and went, but it didn't
Speaker 1: disrupt their economy because they didn't do the lockdowns. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then you've got you know, nine percent unemployment in
Speaker 1: the real lockdown and disaster areas California, New York, Nevada, Hawaii,
Speaker 1: and then you've got kind of the other states that
Speaker 1: are sort of in the middle, and Florida unfortunately is
Speaker 1: more in the round, the six percent in the middle,
Speaker 1: because their tourism has been hit so hard that even
Speaker 1: though they didn't lock down, they've also been hit hard economically.
Speaker 1: Um and so I think to me, the key thing
Speaker 1: to do for the economy is to get to sort
Speaker 1: of the all clear where the lockdown states are no
Speaker 1: longer locked down, where everyone sort of we can have
Speaker 1: this great relief rally. We can people can feel comfortable
Speaker 1: going outside, get rid of the mass, get back into
Speaker 1: normal social circumstances, and you know, the the economic boom
Speaker 1: from that, uh. In my jugument, it's going to be
Speaker 1: pretty dramatic and h long long awaited in the places
Speaker 1: that have been the most locked down, especially and from
Speaker 1: a federal policy standpoint, the number one thing they can
Speaker 1: do to that you can do to make that happen
Speaker 1: is to get the vaccines out, because you know, the
Speaker 1: for the people who've been waiting for the vaccine, which
Speaker 1: is a lot of people who've been hold up in
Speaker 1: their houses. It's also a lot of politicians are going
Speaker 1: to keep restrictions on until there's a high level of
Speaker 1: vaccination for good or for ill. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: we shouldn't need vaccines to end all of this, but
Speaker 1: for good or for ill, you know, that's I think
Speaker 1: what's gonna be the ultimate harbinger for the end of
Speaker 1: all of this. And so, if if I were in
Speaker 1: charge of federal policy, my priorities one, two, and three
Speaker 1: would all be getting vaccines authorized and manufactured and out
Speaker 1: as quickly as possible. I think it's ridiculous that the
Speaker 1: FDA waits like three or four weeks from when one
Speaker 1: of these things is filed before they even meet and
Speaker 1: decide on it. And that's what they're doing right now.
Speaker 1: On the Johnson and Johnson Uh, it was submitted weeks ago.
Speaker 1: They're finally going to meet next week, and we'll hope
Speaker 1: that that passes muster and that supply starts getting out.
Speaker 1: They've been sitting on astra Zeneca for months. Other countries
Speaker 1: are using it. We basically told astra Zenica don't apply
Speaker 1: in the US. We don't want you to use your
Speaker 1: UK and Brazil trial data. We need to wait until
Speaker 1: you have a U S trial. I think that's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: If I were the Biden administration, I would direct the
Speaker 1: FDA to invite an EU A and author and an
Speaker 1: emergency use authorization from aster Zeneca based on their existing
Speaker 1: trial data. And if we got Johnson Johnson and Astra
Speaker 1: Zeneca authorized, there would basically not be vaccine scarcity we
Speaker 1: would have. We'd be basically, you know, within a month,
Speaker 1: we'd be at anyone who wants it can get it.
Speaker 1: And I think the the whole, uh, the main sort
Speaker 1: of line of advocacy that we should all be saying
Speaker 1: and and try to get liberals to agree on, is
Speaker 1: you know, you can't have any more restrictions once anybody
Speaker 1: who wants the vaccine can get it, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's a choice. If somebody doesn't want it, they don't
Speaker 1: have to get it. But you know, once everybody who
Speaker 1: wants it can get it, you know, really it's each
Speaker 1: individual's decided for themselves. You don't need any more society
Speaker 1: wide restrictions. You really can't justify them. And I think
Speaker 1: you know that that should be the key, more so
Speaker 1: than trying to do more federal spending, are doing a
Speaker 1: new round of checks or especially the spending in this bill,
Speaker 1: I mean bailing out staying local governments with you know,
Speaker 1: the three fifty billion dollars when most of them already
Speaker 1: in surplus. That's just raiding the treasury because they can
Speaker 1: essentially uh. The K twelve education spending in the Biden
Speaker 1: stimulus is completely ridiculous when you consider that the fifty
Speaker 1: four billion dollars for K twelve that was in the
Speaker 1: bill the past in December hasn't been spent yet. Not
Speaker 1: one penny of it has been spent yet. So we
Speaker 1: got fifty four billion that hasn't gone out yet. They're
Speaker 1: asking for another hundred billion for K twelve. The Congressional
Speaker 1: Budget Office says the most that they could see of
Speaker 1: the new hundred eight billion being spent this year is
Speaker 1: six billion. So the rest of it is all being
Speaker 1: spent in future years. Most of it is spent over
Speaker 1: the next eight years. It's you know, the idea that
Speaker 1: the schools are not going to open unless that gets approved.
Speaker 1: When none of the money gets spent for years anyway,
Speaker 1: I think just shows you that they're now you know,
Speaker 1: they know schools can be open and should be open,
Speaker 1: but now it's just a matter of let's keep them
Speaker 1: closed as leverage to raid the U. S. Treasury. And
Speaker 1: I don't think we should reward that by giving them
Speaker 1: what they want. So most of what's in this bill
Speaker 1: I'm against. Um. You know, the direct checks are probably
Speaker 1: the least problematic. You know. The other thing is bill
Speaker 1: that I think is a big problem is the they
Speaker 1: bring back the federal unemployment bonus. Uh, not the six
Speaker 1: hundred dollars a week it was last year, but at
Speaker 1: four nder dollars week. But if you had four hundred
Speaker 1: dollars federal unemployment bonus to you know, four or five
Speaker 1: dollars state benefit depending on the state. You know, it's
Speaker 1: three to five hundred some states, it's only three some
Speaker 1: states more. But I mean you're talking with the four
Speaker 1: undred dollar bonus on top of you know, let's say
Speaker 1: you're in a state where it's you know five or
Speaker 1: let's say it's a four hndred dollar state benefit and
Speaker 1: you're doubling it with the federal bonus. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: eight hundred dollars a week, you're talking about forty dollars
Speaker 1: to not work. Now, how do you how does they
Speaker 1: how does a company that's trying to get back off
Speaker 1: the ground and staff themselves, how do they get people
Speaker 1: to come back to work when they're making that kind
Speaker 1: of money to not work? So I think the unemployment
Speaker 1: bonuses are a big mistake. I uh, you know, as
Speaker 1: I said, if they're gonna spend money, if they can't
Speaker 1: be talked out of it, then just sending equal checks
Speaker 1: to everyone is probably the least objectionable way to do it.
Speaker 1: But in my mind, we don't need to spend more money.
Speaker 1: We need to really focus on getting these vaccines authorized
Speaker 1: and out the door, because that's the one thing that
Speaker 1: no matter what you're no matter where you been on lockdown,
Speaker 1: no lockdown anything. I think once the vaccines are available
Speaker 1: to anyone, it's got all that. Now, picking up on
Speaker 1: something you were were saying about the schools. Currently, about
Speaker 1: of public schools are open, about one third are all
Speaker 1: distance learning, and the rest are some combination of the two.
Speaker 1: I've seen across the country, especially in places like my
Speaker 1: hometown of Chicago, where the teachers Union refused to enter
Speaker 1: into schools without um some funding for vaccines, vaccinations, et cetera.
Speaker 1: What role do you think teachers uniors are are playing
Speaker 1: and preventing schools from reopening across the country. They've given
Speaker 1: Democrats a lot of money over the years. They've given
Speaker 1: Democrats a lot of money this past election cycle, including
Speaker 1: Joe Biden, and it seems as though he's prioritizing the
Speaker 1: teacher's union over the actual children who could really fall behind.
Speaker 1: And some have really fallen behind, especially those students who
Speaker 1: may be black or Hispanic. What what do you think
Speaker 1: is the teacher What role is the teachers union really
Speaker 1: really playing here, because it doesn't seem to be the science. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think the school closures are ultimately going to be
Speaker 1: the most destructive part of this whole uh, you know,
Speaker 1: all the events to the last year. I think they're
Speaker 1: gonna be much worse than the virus itself. When you
Speaker 1: consider that the difference in life expectancy between a high
Speaker 1: school graduate in the high school dropouts about five years
Speaker 1: um and you look at the age of the people
Speaker 1: who are dying of COVID, a lot of them are
Speaker 1: losing less than five years of life. And then you
Speaker 1: consider millions and millions of kids have been locked out
Speaker 1: of school for various periods of time, some of them
Speaker 1: still locked out of school. Um, it's it's massive. The harms,
Speaker 1: the educational harms, and them by extension, the economic and
Speaker 1: public health harms are just absolutely enormous, both long term
Speaker 1: and short term. With the increase for seeing uh in
Speaker 1: suicide and drug overdose in the pediatric age group, which
Speaker 1: is you know, I see another one of these tragic stories,
Speaker 1: it seems every other day. So it's been really, really bad.
Speaker 1: And I put a lot of blame on the teachers
Speaker 1: unions because they've really corrupted the science. It's been fairly
Speaker 1: clear from very early on that children are at exceedingly
Speaker 1: low risk with this virus. It is less dangerous for
Speaker 1: children than influenza, and it replaced influenza this here, we
Speaker 1: didn't have it in addition to flu. We had it
Speaker 1: instead of flu. And so you know, in a sense,
Speaker 1: this was actually the mildest respiratory illness season for children
Speaker 1: ever in that you know, the usual virus that kills
Speaker 1: you know, around five hundred kids a year in this
Speaker 1: country was gone, and we had a virus that instead
Speaker 1: only killed you know, a hundred fifty. And I say, oh, obviously,
Speaker 1: you know, every death's a bad thing, but you know,
Speaker 1: it was a. It was a mild respiratory season for children,
Speaker 1: not a severe one, and yet they were locked out
Speaker 1: of school. And you could say, well, you know what
Speaker 1: if teachers were at risk, Well, you know, there's always
Speaker 1: risk in the world, but teaching is not a high
Speaker 1: risk profession because when children do get this virus, they
Speaker 1: tend to be significantly less infectious with it than adults,
Speaker 1: and they rarely infect adults. They sometimes do. It's not impossible,
Speaker 1: but it's rare. And of course you you layer on
Speaker 1: top of that that other than the handful of teachers
Speaker 1: that are very old or medically compromised, there at very
Speaker 1: low risk themselves based on what we know about the
Speaker 1: virus and the number of teachers that had a you know,
Speaker 1: legitimate health concern. Uh, it should have been small, and
Speaker 1: it should have been small enough to accommodate without shutting
Speaker 1: down schools, and we should have been able to do that.
Speaker 1: But the the unions, I think, saw an opportunity to
Speaker 1: gain money and power and leverage and everything like that,
Speaker 1: political influence, and they're now making ever escalating demands. And
Speaker 1: so you know, originally they said, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: they said, well, we don't want to go back uh,
Speaker 1: you know, until the case rates are lower, and then
Speaker 1: case rates are lower, they said, no, we want to
Speaker 1: wait for a vaccine. Now they're saying, even with the vaccine,
Speaker 1: we don't want to go back unless there are you know,
Speaker 1: brand new ventilation systems and new buildings and smaller class
Speaker 1: sizes and sort of the demands just sort of would
Speaker 1: go on and on and on and on. The new
Speaker 1: one that I just saw a few days ago, as
Speaker 1: we were saying, actually the buildings were not safe enough
Speaker 1: to work in even before COVID, and so you know,
Speaker 1: we need these various facilities upgrades or else it's not
Speaker 1: safe enough for safe enough for us to go there.
Speaker 1: And this bottom administration, a lot of people were optimistic.
Speaker 1: I thought I was never optimistic because I'm a cynic,
Speaker 1: but a lot of people were optimistic they were gonna
Speaker 1: have reasonable science based guidelines from CBC. It was gonna
Speaker 1: lead to the rest of the school's opening up. Instead,
Speaker 1: the CDC director basically shaped it, shelved her own scientific conclusions,
Speaker 1: including things she's written in the past, and you know,
Speaker 1: went with a version of the guidelines that was essentially
Speaker 1: dictated by the teachers unions and the unions were out
Speaker 1: ragging that they basically wrote these guidelines and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: he'd written into these guidelines as this idea of a
Speaker 1: six foot distance between students, which there's no scientific basis for.
Speaker 1: But if you do that, it basically makes full time
Speaker 1: school impossible unless you build a whole bunch of school
Speaker 1: buildings and hire a whole bunch more teachers. And so
Speaker 1: that's kind of where we are. But it's a it's
Speaker 1: a you know, it's a it's a two America's situation
Speaker 1: because uh, in most places in America, schools are open
Speaker 1: and have been since August. But then in the big cities, um,
Speaker 1: you know, they're they're mostly closed, and many of them
Speaker 1: have been closed continuously now for about a year. And
Speaker 1: you know, those are the places where it seems hard
Speaker 1: to budge to get any movement on getting kids back
Speaker 1: in school. And uh, you know, we're gonna potentially have
Speaker 1: It's gonna be very hard for all these kids to
Speaker 1: catch up. It's gonna be a huge challenge to not
Speaker 1: lose these kids, especially the ones. You know, there are
Speaker 1: a lot of kids who never even logged onto these
Speaker 1: online platforms, and so you know, they're you know, schools
Speaker 1: might not even be able to locate them when they
Speaker 1: finally do. That's really interesting. Let's continue from there in
Speaker 1: a moment after a quick break. I know a lot
Speaker 1: of good teachers, had some in my life, but the
Speaker 1: demands I continue to hear is almost like, hey, why
Speaker 1: don't you just keep paying us so we can just
Speaker 1: stay at home. I mean, you know, I feel bad
Speaker 1: for a lot of the teachers, And I don't really
Speaker 1: blame the individual teachers so much as I do the
Speaker 1: union leadership, because a lot of these like crazy hybrid
Speaker 1: schemes and stuff like that are actually much harder for
Speaker 1: the teacher than just teaching a class. And then they
Speaker 1: got to like worry about the ones who are on
Speaker 1: the zoom at the same time they're talking to the
Speaker 1: ones of the room, and they've got to prepare of
Speaker 1: packets every day and all this kind of stuff. I mean,
Speaker 1: the teachers who are actually like really working it hard
Speaker 1: and doing a good job trying to keep everyone engaged,
Speaker 1: they're probably working a lot more than they've ever worked before.
Speaker 1: But of course, you know, if you don't have one
Speaker 1: of those, if you have a teacher who's sort of,
Speaker 1: you know, phoning it in from the beach in Puerto
Speaker 1: Rico or whatever. Uh, you know, it's almost like not
Speaker 1: having school at all. And so I think that you know,
Speaker 1: the just the experiences that different that families are having
Speaker 1: with this remote stuff is just wildly variable. It's sort
Speaker 1: of luck in the draw and um, you know, but
Speaker 1: the but the bigger problem is, you know, you can't
Speaker 1: have a functioning you know, you I shouldn't say bigger
Speaker 1: because the educational losses are probably the biggest, as I mentioned,
Speaker 1: but sort of the other related problem is, how can
Speaker 1: you have a functioning society if you know, somebody's got
Speaker 1: to be watching the kids all the time because you know,
Speaker 1: they're not allowed to go to school. People design their
Speaker 1: lives around their kids are in school that part of
Speaker 1: the day. Now you've got to either find a daycare
Speaker 1: or hire nanny or you know, you're there are a
Speaker 1: lot of moms have left the workforce because they're watching
Speaker 1: the kids. Just it's been enormously disruptive and uh, it's
Speaker 1: gone on far far longer than I think, you know,
Speaker 1: anyone expected. And I and I don't disagree with you
Speaker 1: on the teacher point. I think it's important for them
Speaker 1: to go back to school. Safely, but the unions are
Speaker 1: making things very complicated and the students are supposed to
Speaker 1: be the real gifts. Here there are the real prizes
Speaker 1: where we got young minds who need to continue to
Speaker 1: get educated so they can be the leaders of tomorrow.
Speaker 1: And if they don't have teachers doing that, then how
Speaker 1: can they be the leaders of tomorrow. So that's that's
Speaker 1: my point. My last question for you, has given a
Speaker 1: data you've studied, how effective have these vaccines been? Because
Speaker 1: we just saw recently some reporting of a former news
Speaker 1: anchor I believe she was, who took the vaccine and
Speaker 1: then the next day she died. How much and I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that it was a correlation, is just what happened.
Speaker 1: How much should the public trust these vaccines, especially in
Speaker 1: the African American community where we've seen things like the
Speaker 1: Tuskegee experiment, and people really don't trust vaccines, and they
Speaker 1: don't trust any kind of medicine generally, just about for
Speaker 1: older African Americans in a lot of cases, they don't
Speaker 1: trust any medicine that they would get from the government.
Speaker 1: So in other words, of vaccine, I look at the
Speaker 1: d c H COVID data a lot because I live here,
Speaker 1: and um, you know, the the COVID deaths are overwhelmingly black.
Speaker 1: I mean it's I think DC population is like forty
Speaker 1: five percent black, but the COVID deaths are like sevent
Speaker 1: And then you look at the vaccination data and it's
Speaker 1: like all white people getting the vaccine, which to me
Speaker 1: indicates that you know, and I know they're trying. They're
Speaker 1: trying to get the vaccine out in the black community
Speaker 1: for sure, because that's where most of the burden of
Speaker 1: the disease has been. But to me, the fact that
Speaker 1: the res are with their I mean, they don't want
Speaker 1: the vaccine, they're they're passing on or they're very hesitant
Speaker 1: to take it. And you know, maybe it is that
Speaker 1: history that's informing that. This is my view. I think.
Speaker 1: You know, we've got we've got pretty good data from
Speaker 1: the clinical trials, and we've got some additional real world
Speaker 1: data as it's rolled out. Uh, you know, it's not
Speaker 1: a full approval. It's not what you would have with
Speaker 1: a normal vaccine that would go through years of development
Speaker 1: and years of study. That's why it's called an emergency
Speaker 1: use authorization because we we don't know the long term
Speaker 1: or even really the medium term. Uh, you know, that's
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to wait and see for all of that. Uh,
Speaker 1: but I think we have enough data that if you're
Speaker 1: in a risk category, uh, you're much better off getting
Speaker 1: the vaccine than you are risking getting the virus. And
Speaker 1: by a risk category, I mean I think anyone above
Speaker 1: the age of seventy, you definitely want to get it,
Speaker 1: because above the age of seventy, if you get the virus,
Speaker 1: it's a better than five percent chance you're gonna die.
Speaker 1: That's one in twenty. You know, there's no way the
Speaker 1: vaccine is going to be more dangerous than that. So
Speaker 1: if you're above age seventy, I think it's a no
Speaker 1: brainer you want to get it. And then you know,
Speaker 1: if you're down to age fifty, you probably still want
Speaker 1: to get it because they're they're they're still considerable risk
Speaker 1: with the virus. And then you know, I think below
Speaker 1: age fifty, it's really I think, you know, the virus
Speaker 1: itself is very low risk for you below age fifty,
Speaker 1: unless you're in one of the medical risk categories, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, diabetes, severe obesity, something like that. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: more about I think the choice of you know, do
Speaker 1: you want to say that you had it in case
Speaker 1: ticketmaster's requiring it for a concert or sporting event, or
Speaker 1: is it just easier to have had it than not
Speaker 1: had it and that kind of thing. So I think that,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're in a high risk group, you
Speaker 1: want it in my opinion, because the even with the
Speaker 1: unknowns about the medium and long term, it's going to
Speaker 1: be better for you than risking getting the virus. Uh.
Speaker 1: If you're not in a risk category, I think it's
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's just a choice whether you whether
Speaker 1: you're more worried about kind of the um you know,
Speaker 1: maybe unknown long term effects from the virus versus of
Speaker 1: the vaccine, and they sort of the you know, kind
Speaker 1: of the lifestyle or social benefits of being able to
Speaker 1: say that you have it in case. You know, there
Speaker 1: are things that require proof of vaccination and that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. So that would be my my thinking. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm only forty one, but you know, if they offer
Speaker 1: it to me, I'll probably get it UM because you know,
Speaker 1: from what I've seen in the data, uh, the risks
Speaker 1: are very very low, and I think it will be
Speaker 1: much easier to say I already got the vaccine. If
Speaker 1: somebody is bothering you about you know, a mask or
Speaker 1: a distance or whatever to say no, no no, I got
Speaker 1: it to me. The convenience of being able to say
Speaker 1: that is worth the very low risk. But I mean
Speaker 1: people do need to make their own decisions for this,
Speaker 1: and this is why, as I was saying before the
Speaker 1: the the exit from all of this nonsense and restrictions
Speaker 1: cannot be tied to a certain percentage of people have
Speaker 1: to take the vaccine. That's the wrong way to do
Speaker 1: it and the wrong way to think about it. The
Speaker 1: way to do it is to say, you know, can
Speaker 1: everyone who wants to get it? And once everyone who
Speaker 1: wants it can get it, then you can relax everything
Speaker 1: because people have kind of made their choice whether they
Speaker 1: want to risk the virus or go with the vaccine.
Speaker 1: But but we I don't think we should try to
Speaker 1: force or coerce people. I think you should let people
Speaker 1: make the choice. I just want to thank you so
Speaker 1: much for coming on and educating us on this field.
Speaker 1: We really appreciate the work you do. Can you tell
Speaker 1: people where they can follow you? Yeah, I'll give a
Speaker 1: couple of things. American Commitment dot org is the main
Speaker 1: organization that I run, if people want to look on
Speaker 1: that and not see the issues that we're working on.
Speaker 1: The other thing is I do a daily newsletter with
Speaker 1: Steve Moore and John Fund that's free. It's kind of
Speaker 1: got all of our thoughts and the updates on stuff
Speaker 1: related to the virus and the economy and energy policy
Speaker 1: and other stuff like that. Uh and new to a subscriber.
Speaker 1: He likes it. So if people want to get that,
Speaker 1: it's free. As I said, Committee to Unleash Prosperity dot
Speaker 1: Com is the website for for the newsletter. And then
Speaker 1: the last thing I'm mention is my Twitter. I'm kind
Speaker 1: of an addict. I'm on there a lot, and I
Speaker 1: put a lot of charts and data and stuff like
Speaker 1: that out that way. And that's my last name. Kurpin.
Speaker 1: K rpm Well, thank you so much for coming on here,
Speaker 1: Phil Kirpin. We appreciate your insight and certainly if Nude
Speaker 1: is following your newsletter, we will be sure to check
Speaker 1: it out. So thank you again for joining out loud
Speaker 1: with Gianno Caldwell. All right, thanks for having me. I
Speaker 1: have a good one. Thanks to Phil Kirpin for a
Speaker 1: great interview. If you're enjoying the show, please leave us
Speaker 1: a review and rate us with five stars on Apple Podcast.
Speaker 1: If you have any questions for me, please email me
Speaker 1: at out loud at English sixty dot com and I'll
Speaker 1: try to answer them in our future episodes. You can
Speaker 1: also find me on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and parlor at
Speaker 1: Giano Caldwell. And if you're interested in learning more about
Speaker 1: my story, please pick up a copy of my bestselling
Speaker 1: book title Taken for Granted, How Conservatism Can Win Back
Speaker 1: to Americans in livingers Um Failed Special. Thanks to our
Speaker 1: producer John Cassio, researcher Aaron Kleinman, and executive producers Debbie
Speaker 1: Myers and Eager new Gangridge, part of the Gingriish three
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