David Zweig

Thanks for having me.

Thanks for having me.

yeah i think you were quite prescient obviously this was not the right thing to do i wrote a 450 page book about why this was not the right thing to do and in my view this was possibly the worst, other than people who died from COVID, this was the worst result of the interventions that the public health professionals had implemented during the pandemic.

yeah i think you were quite prescient obviously this was not the right thing to do i wrote a 450 page book about why this was not the right thing to do and in my view this was possibly the worst, other than people who died from COVID, this was the worst result of the interventions that the public health professionals had implemented during the pandemic.

This was a catastrophe that could have and should have been avoided. And that's what I discuss in the book at length.

This was a catastrophe that could have and should have been avoided. And that's what I discuss in the book at length.

It's quite an extraordinary circumstance that the degree of tribalism that occurred during the pandemic and still does now in certain respects. And as you described it, I mean, I occupied a pretty rare lane where I was writing a lot of pieces in Wired, The Atlantic, New York Magazine, pieces that really challenged the establishment view.

It's quite an extraordinary circumstance that the degree of tribalism that occurred during the pandemic and still does now in certain respects. And as you described it, I mean, I occupied a pretty rare lane where I was writing a lot of pieces in Wired, The Atlantic, New York Magazine, pieces that really challenged the establishment view.

But I was doing it from the establishment and I was maligned. You know, I mean, very early on, I was called a murderer, you know, a trumper, et cetera, et cetera, all for just pointing out the evidence. That was it. I approached this topic apolitically. as a journalist with my features, and then certainly with the book, that I have no agenda, not trying to win points.

But I was doing it from the establishment and I was maligned. You know, I mean, very early on, I was called a murderer, you know, a trumper, et cetera, et cetera, all for just pointing out the evidence. That was it. I approached this topic apolitically. as a journalist with my features, and then certainly with the book, that I have no agenda, not trying to win points.

I'm trying to make things clear to the American public. This book is almost like a case study of the failure of the expert class.

I'm trying to make things clear to the American public. This book is almost like a case study of the failure of the expert class.

Yeah, don't hold your breath on that, unfortunately. I mean, look, people are generally not inclined to admit when they were wrong. You know, what I- David, I'm gonna stop you.

Yeah, don't hold your breath on that, unfortunately. I mean, look, people are generally not inclined to admit when they were wrong. You know, what I- David, I'm gonna stop you.

Well, you're obviously the exception, not the rule. Most people, and perhaps particularly so in media, corrections on things are not always forthcoming. One of the things that I think you'll find interesting is that, and that hopefully your audience will, is that

Well, you're obviously the exception, not the rule. Most people, and perhaps particularly so in media, corrections on things are not always forthcoming. One of the things that I think you'll find interesting is that, and that hopefully your audience will, is that

In the book, one of the things I try to show is that a lot of the way the media covered the pandemic, and in particular children in schools in America, it's not necessarily that there were factual errors, although there were plenty of those, but rather what I try to show is how it's really through framing. It's the information that's left out And it's the particular kind of the same pundits.

In the book, one of the things I try to show is that a lot of the way the media covered the pandemic, and in particular children in schools in America, it's not necessarily that there were factual errors, although there were plenty of those, but rather what I try to show is how it's really through framing. It's the information that's left out And it's the particular kind of the same pundits.

There is this one emergency medicine physician who now got rewarded by being put in charge of one of the public health schools at Yale for her punditry.

There is this one emergency medicine physician who now got rewarded by being put in charge of one of the public health schools at Yale for her punditry.

Even though she had no expertise in infectious disease mitigation or anything else, but she was on speed dial at the New York Times and many, many other sort of legacy media outlets that the way you craft a narrative isn't necessarily through lying. or giving false information, it's through a very, very careful catering or tailoring of what you put in an article and what you leave out.

Even though she had no expertise in infectious disease mitigation or anything else, but she was on speed dial at the New York Times and many, many other sort of legacy media outlets that the way you craft a narrative isn't necessarily through lying. or giving false information, it's through a very, very careful catering or tailoring of what you put in an article and what you leave out.

And I show through these series of case studies about how I'm sure you're familiar with the phrase of an argument from authority, which is in philosophy, this is what's known as a logical fallacy, which means it's when people say that something is true simply because of the credentials of the person who says it.

And I show through these series of case studies about how I'm sure you're familiar with the phrase of an argument from authority, which is in philosophy, this is what's known as a logical fallacy, which means it's when people say that something is true simply because of the credentials of the person who says it.

So over and over again in the New York Times and a number of other media outlets, they would quote various quotes. experts or professionals, oftentimes, again, people who had no particular expertise in the subject matter, such as emergency medicine physicians.

So over and over again in the New York Times and a number of other media outlets, they would quote various quotes. experts or professionals, oftentimes, again, people who had no particular expertise in the subject matter, such as emergency medicine physicians.

But nevertheless, they would quote them saying, we need to have a mask mandate or there needs to be HEPA filters or such and such before school can open. But then they never provided evidence for that statement. Sometimes it was just

But nevertheless, they would quote them saying, we need to have a mask mandate or there needs to be HEPA filters or such and such before school can open. But then they never provided evidence for that statement. Sometimes it was just

unattributed at all it just said experts say experts have you know the consensus of experts concludes blah blah blah and that's what led me on my path pretty early was was um observing that over and over i kept being told these things But I wasn't seeing evidence. And the way my mind works and the way I work as a writer and a journalist is I'm always drilling down. I try to get to the source.

unattributed at all it just said experts say experts have you know the consensus of experts concludes blah blah blah and that's what led me on my path pretty early was was um observing that over and over i kept being told these things But I wasn't seeing evidence. And the way my mind works and the way I work as a writer and a journalist is I'm always drilling down. I try to get to the source.

I spent years, many, many years ago before it became politicized as a magazine fact checker. And we were taught you always, you have to go like, two, three, four layers deep until you get to the source of information. You can't just trust something because someone says it. But that's exactly what happened within the media.

I spent years, many, many years ago before it became politicized as a magazine fact checker. And we were taught you always, you have to go like, two, three, four layers deep until you get to the source of information. You can't just trust something because someone says it. But that's exactly what happened within the media.

And unfortunately, it left the American public deeply misinformed about a variety of things in the pandemic, but I think most damagingly about, one, the risks that SARS-CoV-2 posed to most Americans, but most importantly to children, or the lack of risk that it posed to children by and large.

And unfortunately, it left the American public deeply misinformed about a variety of things in the pandemic, but I think most damagingly about, one, the risks that SARS-CoV-2 posed to most Americans, but most importantly to children, or the lack of risk that it posed to children by and large.

And two, the public were deeply misinformed about what the effect or benefits would be from these various NPIs, or what are known as non-pharmaceutical interventions. The six feet of distancing, the mask mandates, the school closures, this hybrid schedule where my kids were under for more than a year, where you went to school for like one day a week or two days a week.

And two, the public were deeply misinformed about what the effect or benefits would be from these various NPIs, or what are known as non-pharmaceutical interventions. The six feet of distancing, the mask mandates, the school closures, this hybrid schedule where my kids were under for more than a year, where you went to school for like one day a week or two days a week.

There was no evidence behind any of this stuff. There was quite a bit of literature before the pandemic, which we could get into, that indicated this would not be effective or successful. But nevertheless, this is what we were told by the most esteemed health professionals in our country and what we were told by the media was critical in order for schools to open.

There was no evidence behind any of this stuff. There was quite a bit of literature before the pandemic, which we could get into, that indicated this would not be effective or successful. But nevertheless, this is what we were told by the most esteemed health professionals in our country and what we were told by the media was critical in order for schools to open.

Meanwhile, millions of kids were in school in Europe without, by and large, without any of these interventions. And we could talk about that. That was ignored. So this empirical evidence was ignored and instead we were basing everything on theory.

Meanwhile, millions of kids were in school in Europe without, by and large, without any of these interventions. And we could talk about that. That was ignored. So this empirical evidence was ignored and instead we were basing everything on theory.

What does it say about our country that we behaved so differently from many, many of our peer nations? The duration of school closures in America was extraordinary and unnecessary.

What does it say about our country that we behaved so differently from many, many of our peer nations? The duration of school closures in America was extraordinary and unnecessary.

And what I show repeatedly throughout the book is that the evidence from the very beginning, Drew, we knew that this, like I said, the academic literature had already pointed out that this wasn't going to be successful over a long term.

And what I show repeatedly throughout the book is that the evidence from the very beginning, Drew, we knew that this, like I said, the academic literature had already pointed out that this wasn't going to be successful over a long term.

It's possible that an immediate closure in certain locations where there was a massive outbreak, it's possible that a school closure combined with everything else being shut down may have some limited benefit for a very brief window. But what we know is that over a long period of time and there's some interesting studies on this that I point out. Do you remember the St.

It's possible that an immediate closure in certain locations where there was a massive outbreak, it's possible that a school closure combined with everything else being shut down may have some limited benefit for a very brief window. But what we know is that over a long period of time and there's some interesting studies on this that I point out. Do you remember the St.

Louis versus Philadelphia example? This was something that governors talked about. It was all over the media. They said basically St. Louis did the wrong thing. They had a big spike in cases, but Philly did their, I forget, or maybe it was the reverse, but one of those cities did the wrong thing. They didn't stay home. There was a spike in cases. The other one did the right thing.

Louis versus Philadelphia example? This was something that governors talked about. It was all over the media. They said basically St. Louis did the wrong thing. They had a big spike in cases, but Philly did their, I forget, or maybe it was the reverse, but one of those cities did the wrong thing. They didn't stay home. There was a spike in cases. The other one did the right thing.

And it was a gentle, it was sort of a, it was like the example of the flat and the curve. So that led to a lot of the closures, in particular school closures. This was used as a justification. Here's the problem with that. An analysis was done of the 1918 pandemic, including St. Louis and Philly and many, many other cities. What they found was over time,

And it was a gentle, it was sort of a, it was like the example of the flat and the curve. So that led to a lot of the closures, in particular school closures. This was used as a justification. Here's the problem with that. An analysis was done of the 1918 pandemic, including St. Louis and Philly and many, many other cities. What they found was over time,

All the school closures did nothing at all. There was no benefit from the school closures. There was no correlation. So you have this very arresting graphic of one city with a spike in cases, the other one where it's gentle. You're told, look what happened when you didn't follow directions. And everyone believed it. But they left out the ending. They only did the first chapter.

All the school closures did nothing at all. There was no benefit from the school closures. There was no correlation. So you have this very arresting graphic of one city with a spike in cases, the other one where it's gentle. You're told, look what happened when you didn't follow directions. And everyone believed it. But they left out the ending. They only did the first chapter.

They left out the next five chapters where it wasn't effective. So we had this... circumstance in our country where the schools remained closed for month after month after month. And as you know, in California, there were kids who didn't step foot in the classroom for over a year. Healthy kids were barred from a classroom.

They left out the next five chapters where it wasn't effective. So we had this... circumstance in our country where the schools remained closed for month after month after month. And as you know, in California, there were kids who didn't step foot in the classroom for over a year. Healthy kids were barred from a classroom.

Just tore it up. That's exactly right. So there are a couple pandemic plans from the government. Two of them that I focus on that are most important, I think, were from the CDC. One of them was in 2007, and then they did a revision in 2017. And this was referred to specifically by CDC officials during the COVID pandemic.

Just tore it up. That's exactly right. So there are a couple pandemic plans from the government. Two of them that I focus on that are most important, I think, were from the CDC. One of them was in 2007, and then they did a revision in 2017. And this was referred to specifically by CDC officials during the COVID pandemic.

So we know that this was part of their guide that they ostensibly were following. And those guidebooks were deeply flawed. They were based on all sorts of

So we know that this was part of their guide that they ostensibly were following. And those guidebooks were deeply flawed. They were based on all sorts of

dubious assumptions the idea about how they built their models was based on just a model on top of a model on top of a model i i bring readers through i tried to find out well where did they get the information that went into this model and you know you see like a citation in a study so i click on oh well let me read that citation that's where they must have gone

dubious assumptions the idea about how they built their models was based on just a model on top of a model on top of a model i i bring readers through i tried to find out well where did they get the information that went into this model and you know you see like a citation in a study so i click on oh well let me read that citation that's where they must have gone

But then the citation just takes you to another model. And then that model takes it. It was just models for your audience who don't know. This is just a prediction. It's not an actual study. And so I likened it to like Russian dolls where it's just the layers. It just kept opening, but it never ended. And finally, one of them.

But then the citation just takes you to another model. And then that model takes it. It was just models for your audience who don't know. This is just a prediction. It's not an actual study. And so I likened it to like Russian dolls where it's just the layers. It just kept opening, but it never ended. And finally, one of them.

I hear you. And one cannot help but wonder, you know, when you start to see how models are built, you can't help but wonder how that's going to play out for all sorts of things, including that.

I hear you. And one cannot help but wonder, you know, when you start to see how models are built, you can't help but wonder how that's going to play out for all sorts of things, including that.

But finally, after the layer upon layer upon layer, I keep digging down in these citations, trying to find out one of them, because in the model they talked about, it was something like 37% of the transmission was occurring, would occur in school. So they build the model based on these assumptions.

But finally, after the layer upon layer upon layer, I keep digging down in these citations, trying to find out one of them, because in the model they talked about, it was something like 37% of the transmission was occurring, would occur in school. So they build the model based on these assumptions.

So deep in the supplement of one of the, of like, you know, eight layers deep of the citations, deep in the supplement, I see something where they say about the 37% figure, they said, this number was chosen arbitrarily.

So deep in the supplement of one of the, of like, you know, eight layers deep of the citations, deep in the supplement, I see something where they say about the 37% figure, they said, this number was chosen arbitrarily.

like people don't understand this is like one of the many bombshells i have in the book you're saying like people don't as bad six feet six feet six feet was completely completely pulled out of thin air but as bad as people think this may have been and as cynical as we are people do not realize the half of it the fact that the models that the whole response were built upon were in part

like people don't understand this is like one of the many bombshells i have in the book you're saying like people don't as bad six feet six feet six feet was completely completely pulled out of thin air but as bad as people think this may have been and as cynical as we are people do not realize the half of it the fact that the models that the whole response were built upon were in part

based on an arbitrary number. But you have to go deep enough digging into the supplement to find out. So this type of thing just shows the really shaky science. But here's where it gets worse. As bad as those guidebooks were, At least they were made during a sober period of time. They weren't done during an emergency. They had a plan. There was some logic in them.

based on an arbitrary number. But you have to go deep enough digging into the supplement to find out. So this type of thing just shows the really shaky science. But here's where it gets worse. As bad as those guidebooks were, At least they were made during a sober period of time. They weren't done during an emergency. They had a plan. There was some logic in them.

And they even talked about some of the harms that would come from school closures. So they had a lot of problems, but they had a plan. And as bad as they were, we then completely divorced ourselves from the plan. So in some regards, we were two steps deep. First of all, we were following these very dubious plan books to begin with, and then we weren't even following them.

And they even talked about some of the harms that would come from school closures. So they had a lot of problems, but they had a plan. And as bad as they were, we then completely divorced ourselves from the plan. So in some regards, we were two steps deep. First of all, we were following these very dubious plan books to begin with, and then we weren't even following them.

We just went even further off, you know, kind of reaching escape velocity, just where we were never to return. And I observed that very early on. As you noted, the whole plan was, let's just flatten the curve. Let's, you know, let's keep the hospitals from being overwhelmed. It's 15 days to slow the spread. I'm sure you remember the slogan.

We just went even further off, you know, kind of reaching escape velocity, just where we were never to return. And I observed that very early on. As you noted, the whole plan was, let's just flatten the curve. Let's, you know, let's keep the hospitals from being overwhelmed. It's 15 days to slow the spread. I'm sure you remember the slogan.

Well, as you know, what happened after 15 days, they added another 30 days. But do you remember big pushback in the media? I don't. It just sort of happened. It's like the frog in the pot.

Well, as you know, what happened after 15 days, they added another 30 days. But do you remember big pushback in the media? I don't. It just sort of happened. It's like the frog in the pot.

What's that say? I'm sorry. So for me, one of the things that kind of really set me on the path and that alarmed me was just, you know, kind of dovetailing with our point here about you add the 15 days. I live in the New York area. I wasn't knowledgeable about what was happening. So I'm going to go along with what the CDC says.

What's that say? I'm sorry. So for me, one of the things that kind of really set me on the path and that alarmed me was just, you know, kind of dovetailing with our point here about you add the 15 days. I live in the New York area. I wasn't knowledgeable about what was happening. So I'm going to go along with what the CDC says.

I didn't necessarily fully believe them or know, but I didn't have enough knowledge to go against their guidance at the time. But once they added on the 30 days, this sort of spidey sense kind of began for me where I was trying to make sense of what was going on. And toward the end of April, I was walking with a friend of mine on like a high school track at the time.

I didn't necessarily fully believe them or know, but I didn't have enough knowledge to go against their guidance at the time. But once they added on the 30 days, this sort of spidey sense kind of began for me where I was trying to make sense of what was going on. And toward the end of April, I was walking with a friend of mine on like a high school track at the time.

And at that point in time, I was tracking what was going on with case rates and hospitalizations. The new cases in New York had dropped by 50% by the end of April. So I said to him, my friend, I said, hey, this is great. We did it, man. We did it. We flattened the curve. We were told what to do. We followed the instructions and we achieved the goal. We did it. We flattened the curve. So I said-

And at that point in time, I was tracking what was going on with case rates and hospitalizations. The new cases in New York had dropped by 50% by the end of April. So I said to him, my friend, I said, hey, this is great. We did it, man. We did it. We flattened the curve. We were told what to do. We followed the instructions and we achieved the goal. We did it. We flattened the curve. So I said-

do you think they're going to open the school next week or something? And he was like, they're not opening the schools. I'm like, what do you mean? We did it. We flattened the curve. We did what we were told and it worked. Now we flattened the curve and they didn't open the schools. And that was the first thing

do you think they're going to open the school next week or something? And he was like, they're not opening the schools. I'm like, what do you mean? We did it. We flattened the curve. We did what we were told and it worked. Now we flattened the curve and they didn't open the schools. And that was the first thing

That even now, this many years later, even after spending years writing this book, I still, when I talk about this, it still kind of makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It still is so alarming how things can happen when you're told, you know, the government has some degree, you know, of authority to act tyrannically if they think there's an emergency.

That even now, this many years later, even after spending years writing this book, I still, when I talk about this, it still kind of makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It still is so alarming how things can happen when you're told, you know, the government has some degree, you know, of authority to act tyrannically if they think there's an emergency.

but then they just kept extending it and there wasn't any real evidence or reason given for why we achieved this thing we were told and then they didn't care and kept going and then the second piece to that is Toward the end of April and the beginning of May, millions of kids began going back to school in Europe. And as you know, in Sweden, their lower schools, kids never stopped going.

but then they just kept extending it and there wasn't any real evidence or reason given for why we achieved this thing we were told and then they didn't care and kept going and then the second piece to that is Toward the end of April and the beginning of May, millions of kids began going back to school in Europe. And as you know, in Sweden, their lower schools, kids never stopped going.

It took a little while for Florida before they went back. But in Europe, they began going back in the spring. And the education ministers of the EU met in late May and they said, There were 22 countries, 22 countries reopened schools, and they said, we've observed no negative consequences of this. Now, I watched this video over and over because it seemed like a mirage.

It took a little while for Florida before they went back. But in Europe, they began going back in the spring. And the education ministers of the EU met in late May and they said, There were 22 countries, 22 countries reopened schools, and they said, we've observed no negative consequences of this. Now, I watched this video over and over because it seemed like a mirage.

It was almost like, how could I be seeing this because no one was talking about it? This wasn't on the front pages of our papers, but isn't this the most important piece of evidence they were looking for?

It was almost like, how could I be seeing this because no one was talking about it? This wasn't on the front pages of our papers, but isn't this the most important piece of evidence they were looking for?

that europe were our guinea pigs in effect we should have opened our schools way earlier but even if we didn't once they reopened and they said this wasn't in like this wasn't you know a blog post this wasn't in uh you know a an obscure medical journal this was a meeting at the eu and they said we've observed no negative consequence of 22 countries reopening their schools and they met again in june and had the same determination

that europe were our guinea pigs in effect we should have opened our schools way earlier but even if we didn't once they reopened and they said this wasn't in like this wasn't you know a blog post this wasn't in uh you know a an obscure medical journal this was a meeting at the eu and they said we've observed no negative consequence of 22 countries reopening their schools and they met again in june and had the same determination

And no one, virtually no one covered this. And that, to me, what I talk about in the book, it's almost like the original sin, or one of the original sins, at least, where at that point, no health professional in America could honestly say that, well, we didn't know. There was so much we were learning. We're building the plane as we fly it. All these very exculpatory metaphors.

And no one, virtually no one covered this. And that, to me, what I talk about in the book, it's almost like the original sin, or one of the original sins, at least, where at that point, no health professional in America could honestly say that, well, we didn't know. There was so much we were learning. We're building the plane as we fly it. All these very exculpatory metaphors.

None of them were true because millions of kids were already in school and they kept giving excuses. Well, that's Europe. It's different. It doesn't count. No, there were cities and towns throughout Europe that had the same population densities as cities and towns in America. Some of them had higher case rates. Some had lower case rates. It didn't matter.

None of them were true because millions of kids were already in school and they kept giving excuses. Well, that's Europe. It's different. It doesn't count. No, there were cities and towns throughout Europe that had the same population densities as cities and towns in America. Some of them had higher case rates. Some had lower case rates. It didn't matter.

They opened their schools and there was no negative consequence that they observed. And by the way, as you surely know, they also didn't have mask mandates on two-year-olds and stuff the way we had here. They did not have HEPA filters by and large. They did not have six feet of distancing across the board. Many of them were doing three feet or one meter or nothing at all.

They opened their schools and there was no negative consequence that they observed. And by the way, as you surely know, they also didn't have mask mandates on two-year-olds and stuff the way we had here. They did not have HEPA filters by and large. They did not have six feet of distancing across the board. Many of them were doing three feet or one meter or nothing at all.

All these excuses we were told were critical. We cannot open schools. They're not safe until we do this. They weren't doing any of that stuff there. Yet somehow this was like ignored. It was as if we didn't have modern technology to understand what was happening across the Atlantic. So to me,

All these excuses we were told were critical. We cannot open schools. They're not safe until we do this. They weren't doing any of that stuff there. Yet somehow this was like ignored. It was as if we didn't have modern technology to understand what was happening across the Atlantic. So to me,

It's very, very challenging to square how our public health, quote, experts kept telling the American public with the aid of the legacy media that all these very special interventions needed to happen in order to get kids in school, even though we had the most perfect open study, you know, natural study possible with millions of kids where none of this stuff was being used.

It's very, very challenging to square how our public health, quote, experts kept telling the American public with the aid of the legacy media that all these very special interventions needed to happen in order to get kids in school, even though we had the most perfect open study, you know, natural study possible with millions of kids where none of this stuff was being used.

but I should say a significant portion of my book that School Closures is the launch point. You will be happy to know I have multiple chapters exclusively devoted to the media where it's, I have like the media part one, part two, and part three, where I basically dissect and take apart. You look at the anatomy of what happened in these like lengthy New York Times features and other pieces.

but I should say a significant portion of my book that School Closures is the launch point. You will be happy to know I have multiple chapters exclusively devoted to the media where it's, I have like the media part one, part two, and part three, where I basically dissect and take apart. You look at the anatomy of what happened in these like lengthy New York Times features and other pieces.

to understand what was actually going on with journalists, where I basically describe that they shirked the sort of core responsibility, which is to be skeptical of claims by those in power. When you think about what journalists traditionally are supposed to be doing, they're very skeptical of big business, of the government, of the church, whatever it may be, all these large...

to understand what was actually going on with journalists, where I basically describe that they shirked the sort of core responsibility, which is to be skeptical of claims by those in power. When you think about what journalists traditionally are supposed to be doing, they're very skeptical of big business, of the government, of the church, whatever it may be, all these large...

institutions that journalists typically, or at least ostensibly, are highly critical of. Somehow that evaporated during the pandemic when it came to the public health authorities, which imposed arguably the single most invasive, you know, interventions on the American public in a generation, if not in history, yet there was no question. Even history.

institutions that journalists typically, or at least ostensibly, are highly critical of. Somehow that evaporated during the pandemic when it came to the public health authorities, which imposed arguably the single most invasive, you know, interventions on the American public in a generation, if not in history, yet there was no question. Even history.

exactly so it's it's it's so extraordinary and to what i discuss is i think a lot of this comes back to a sort of political tribalism the reality is most of the people who work in our prestigious legacy media outlets tend to be from the same background and same political persuasion as those within the public health community they all tend to lean toward the left

exactly so it's it's it's so extraordinary and to what i discuss is i think a lot of this comes back to a sort of political tribalism the reality is most of the people who work in our prestigious legacy media outlets tend to be from the same background and same political persuasion as those within the public health community they all tend to lean toward the left

And they also self-select for a certain type of person. You're not an iconoclast generally in getting in at the New York Times or moving up the ladder in public health. These people often are very smart and work very hard, but they're rule followers. They're people who tend to understand and want to be within the group.

And they also self-select for a certain type of person. You're not an iconoclast generally in getting in at the New York Times or moving up the ladder in public health. These people often are very smart and work very hard, but they're rule followers. They're people who tend to understand and want to be within the group.

So when you have this groupthink between these two really important institutions, the public health apparatus combined with the legacy media, it was basically unstoppable at that point. Because as you know, Trump in the middle of the summer or early summer had said in his way with a tweet in all caps, OPEN THE SCHOOLS IN THE FALL with a bunch of exclamation points.

So when you have this groupthink between these two really important institutions, the public health apparatus combined with the legacy media, it was basically unstoppable at that point. Because as you know, Trump in the middle of the summer or early summer had said in his way with a tweet in all caps, OPEN THE SCHOOLS IN THE FALL with a bunch of exclamation points.

And once he did that, he ensured that half the schools in the country would remain closed because these people, it was intolerable to them to ever agree with Trump on anything. So once he said something, it became immediately radioactive, and they had to take the opposite stance.

And once he did that, he ensured that half the schools in the country would remain closed because these people, it was intolerable to them to ever agree with Trump on anything. So once he said something, it became immediately radioactive, and they had to take the opposite stance.

And I give examples of how we know this is true because the American Academy of Pediatrics had come out very forcefully for opening schools. They even said, don't worry about six feet of distancing. As soon as Trump made that tweet, within days, the AAP reversed its guidance.

And I give examples of how we know this is true because the American Academy of Pediatrics had come out very forcefully for opening schools. They even said, don't worry about six feet of distancing. As soon as Trump made that tweet, within days, the AAP reversed its guidance.

Narrative formation is how policy essentially was both created and defended.

Narrative formation is how policy essentially was both created and defended.

And as you pointed out, I think at the beginning of our conversation, part of that narrative formation and sort of narrative, there's almost like a policing of the narrative, was the charge that anyone who disagreed was a fool, was, you know, you were a piece of garbage if you didn't want to wear a mask and keep your six feet of distancing. Never mind that these rules were made up and arbitrary.

And as you pointed out, I think at the beginning of our conversation, part of that narrative formation and sort of narrative, there's almost like a policing of the narrative, was the charge that anyone who disagreed was a fool, was, you know, you were a piece of garbage if you didn't want to wear a mask and keep your six feet of distancing. Never mind that these rules were made up and arbitrary.

you know, as I'm sure you're aware, that much of the mask, you know, defense of the mask mandates were based on studies such as ones that were done in a lab where they glued the mask to a mannequin's face. Like that is not how human beings operate. So, I mean, much of what I talk about in the book is this sort of distance between something that

you know, as I'm sure you're aware, that much of the mask, you know, defense of the mask mandates were based on studies such as ones that were done in a lab where they glued the mask to a mannequin's face. Like that is not how human beings operate. So, I mean, much of what I talk about in the book is this sort of distance between something that

might make intuitive sense and might look good in a lab study, but the distance between that and reality, because human beings are not mannequins. And generally, even health care professionals, and I'm sure you know about this, even they have trouble wearing a mask properly and tightly fitted for a long duration. And that's the professionals.

might make intuitive sense and might look good in a lab study, but the distance between that and reality, because human beings are not mannequins. And generally, even health care professionals, and I'm sure you know about this, even they have trouble wearing a mask properly and tightly fitted for a long duration. And that's the professionals.

There was zero chance that children in the school, you have a bunch of five-year-olds wearing a mask that their parents bought off of Etsy or Amazon, that they were having any sort of effect on this. And sure enough, there's zero randomized trials that show that mask mandates in schools are effective. And they're not.

There was zero chance that children in the school, you have a bunch of five-year-olds wearing a mask that their parents bought off of Etsy or Amazon, that they were having any sort of effect on this. And sure enough, there's zero randomized trials that show that mask mandates in schools are effective. And they're not.

In fact, there's quite a bit of evidence to the contrary, that they're just not effective. And it's not because a mask theoretically will stop a virus from passing through. Yes, it can if it's glued to a mannequin's face, but humans don't behave that way. And it's the same thing with the school closures overall.

In fact, there's quite a bit of evidence to the contrary, that they're just not effective. And it's not because a mask theoretically will stop a virus from passing through. Yes, it can if it's glued to a mannequin's face, but humans don't behave that way. And it's the same thing with the school closures overall.

Someone might intuitively think, well, yeah, there's a bunch of kids running around with snotty noses. Sure, closing schools will probably have some benefit. But again, that is the distance between the theory and the reality, because the reality is, as we talked about earlier, Over time, people don't comply with uncomfortable and difficult recommendations.

Someone might intuitively think, well, yeah, there's a bunch of kids running around with snotty noses. Sure, closing schools will probably have some benefit. But again, that is the distance between the theory and the reality, because the reality is, as we talked about earlier, Over time, people don't comply with uncomfortable and difficult recommendations.

Just like you're not going to keep a mask tightly fit to your face for eight hours, people, even the introverts among us, don't stay sequestered at home for weeks and then months and months on end. It doesn't happen. And sure enough, I point out in the book,

Just like you're not going to keep a mask tightly fit to your face for eight hours, people, even the introverts among us, don't stay sequestered at home for weeks and then months and months on end. It doesn't happen. And sure enough, I point out in the book,

There's a lot of mobile phone data that proves this, that even before they pulled back on a lot of guidance, people were already moving around. And that's to say nothing of a significant portion of the population of the first-line people who are out there working. who are always mixing in society. And where were their children going?

There's a lot of mobile phone data that proves this, that even before they pulled back on a lot of guidance, people were already moving around. And that's to say nothing of a significant portion of the population of the first-line people who are out there working. who are always mixing in society. And where were their children going?

Well, some were left home alone, but many of them went with the grandparent or a neighbor, or they went in some sort of childcare situation where they were mixing with kids from all different neighborhoods and towns, which it is argued is actually worse than just going to school if you're concerned with viral sort of spread.

Well, some were left home alone, but many of them went with the grandparent or a neighbor, or they went in some sort of childcare situation where they were mixing with kids from all different neighborhoods and towns, which it is argued is actually worse than just going to school if you're concerned with viral sort of spread.

That now, instead of kids being with the same group of kids every day at school, now they were mixing with all sorts of people. What I try to point out is that there's such a chasm between what our intuition might tell us and what actually occurs in real life that our intuitions are often wrong. And that's particularly true with medicine.

That now, instead of kids being with the same group of kids every day at school, now they were mixing with all sorts of people. What I try to point out is that there's such a chasm between what our intuition might tell us and what actually occurs in real life that our intuitions are often wrong. And that's particularly true with medicine.

And I give a zillion examples through history where things that seem really obvious, like they might work, don't actually work once they're tested. And that's exactly what happened in the pandemic, is that in America, our health professionals followed intuition and theory and ignored empirical reality.

And I give a zillion examples through history where things that seem really obvious, like they might work, don't actually work once they're tested. And that's exactly what happened in the pandemic, is that in America, our health professionals followed intuition and theory and ignored empirical reality.

Right. Along with it on the airplanes, you know, where you're allowed to take it off while you're having a drink and all that. I mean, the idea. Yes, exactly. The idea that a bunch of kindergartners were going to effectively have a mask on all day long was basically so dishonest that it was farcical. There was almost a fantasy. I'm going to be charitable and say, David.

Right. Along with it on the airplanes, you know, where you're allowed to take it off while you're having a drink and all that. I mean, the idea. Yes, exactly. The idea that a bunch of kindergartners were going to effectively have a mask on all day long was basically so dishonest that it was farcical. There was almost a fantasy. I'm going to be charitable and say, David.

No, there was no reason to mandate them. For a vaccine that doesn't stop transmission or infection.

No, there was no reason to mandate them. For a vaccine that doesn't stop transmission or infection.

were moved to the priority line for the vaccine, and then they still didn't go back to school in many places, even after they went ahead of more vulnerable people. Just wanted to add that in since you're talking about the vaccine. No, of course.

were moved to the priority line for the vaccine, and then they still didn't go back to school in many places, even after they went ahead of more vulnerable people. Just wanted to add that in since you're talking about the vaccine. No, of course.

What you've described is the exact argument people keep giving to me is, do you know how many people died? I'm like, whether it's 10,000 or 10 million, that still doesn't mean that these interventions were effective, would ever be effective. It's irrelevant.

What you've described is the exact argument people keep giving to me is, do you know how many people died? I'm like, whether it's 10,000 or 10 million, that still doesn't mean that these interventions were effective, would ever be effective. It's irrelevant.

because while you know this and your audience knows it, it's really important that I wanted to set the record straight that because otherwise you have this convenient exculpatory narrative of, well, we did the best we could. That is what most people within the establishment are saying now. So I hope my book,

because while you know this and your audience knows it, it's really important that I wanted to set the record straight that because otherwise you have this convenient exculpatory narrative of, well, we did the best we could. That is what most people within the establishment are saying now. So I hope my book,

for people will serve as this counterweight to try, at least we'll have something in the quote, official record saying, no, we knew from day one what was going on. This is not a retrospective Monday morning quarterbacking. This book takes you through chronologically in real time. Here's what was known. So we actually have a historical record of the failure of the expert class that happened.

for people will serve as this counterweight to try, at least we'll have something in the quote, official record saying, no, we knew from day one what was going on. This is not a retrospective Monday morning quarterbacking. This book takes you through chronologically in real time. Here's what was known. So we actually have a historical record of the failure of the expert class that happened.

That's an homage to they barred children from speaking during lunch in many schools. So I named my sub stack after that completely bonkers practice. They were not allowed to talk. Little kids were having silent lunches while sitting on the concrete outside in New York City. and other places. So that is the odd name of the newsletter, silentlunch.net.

That's an homage to they barred children from speaking during lunch in many schools. So I named my sub stack after that completely bonkers practice. They were not allowed to talk. Little kids were having silent lunches while sitting on the concrete outside in New York City. and other places. So that is the odd name of the newsletter, silentlunch.net.

Yeah, I'm really glad to have the opportunity to chat with you.

Yeah, I'm really glad to have the opportunity to chat with you.

$229,000.

$229,000.

Well, my entire book is focused on, or at least it's the launch point, on the long-term school closures and then sort of all the decisions that followed in the wake of that. The mask mandates, barriers on desks, six feet of distancing, all this kind of

Well, my entire book is focused on, or at least it's the launch point, on the long-term school closures and then sort of all the decisions that followed in the wake of that. The mask mandates, barriers on desks, six feet of distancing, all this kind of

Nothing at all. I mean, and these have opaque sides. So the kid was like horse blinders.

Nothing at all. I mean, and these have opaque sides. So the kid was like horse blinders.

Yep.

Yep.

That's right. You could eat, but you weren't allowed to talk. So we had children. And meanwhile, at the same time, adults, you know, right down the block from the school were dining at a restaurant. You could go to a bar. I mean, right.

That's right. You could eat, but you weren't allowed to talk. So we had children. And meanwhile, at the same time, adults, you know, right down the block from the school were dining at a restaurant. You could go to a bar. I mean, right.

I mean, yeah, but yeah, children weren't allowed to speak during lunch. In New York City, some of the schools, the kids were sitting in the winter on concrete outside. Yeah. I mean, this is a good sort of launch into discussing this. When we talk about it, you sort of kind of laugh looking back. This was so radical, so absurd. The idea that children... That's if they were in school.

I mean, yeah, but yeah, children weren't allowed to speak during lunch. In New York City, some of the schools, the kids were sitting in the winter on concrete outside. Yeah. I mean, this is a good sort of launch into discussing this. When we talk about it, you sort of kind of laugh looking back. This was so radical, so absurd. The idea that children... That's if they were in school.

But millions of them were not even allowed, didn't set foot into a school building for over a year. Healthy kids. We barred healthy children from school while at the same time, malls were open, bars, restaurants, casinos, adults who were actually... at higher risk than children, they could carry on. But kids were barred from school.

But millions of them were not even allowed, didn't set foot into a school building for over a year. Healthy kids. We barred healthy children from school while at the same time, malls were open, bars, restaurants, casinos, adults who were actually... at higher risk than children, they could carry on. But kids were barred from school.

I mean, kids in California, they weren't, except for the governor's children, they were in school, in private school. Of course. But everyone else, this is such a wild, wild circumstance that I don't think it's been fully reckoned with how insane that is. And at the time it seemed insane, but a lot of people went along with it.

I mean, kids in California, they weren't, except for the governor's children, they were in school, in private school. Of course. But everyone else, this is such a wild, wild circumstance that I don't think it's been fully reckoned with how insane that is. And at the time it seemed insane, but a lot of people went along with it.

And the reason I wanted to write the book was, and this is years of research, was to try to create a historical record. And the book is not a cataloging of these are all the harms that happened to kids. I touch on that, of course. It's important. The book is like an anatomy of decision making.

And the reason I wanted to write the book was, and this is years of research, was to try to create a historical record. And the book is not a cataloging of these are all the harms that happened to kids. I touch on that, of course. It's important. The book is like an anatomy of decision making.

How is it that such an insane decision like that and all the ones that followed after, how did that happen? And that's what the book does. I try to kind of pull the curtain back and show this is how politicians, this is how health officials, this is how the legacy media made its decisions to create a culture where something like that actually happened.

How is it that such an insane decision like that and all the ones that followed after, how did that happen? And that's what the book does. I try to kind of pull the curtain back and show this is how politicians, this is how health officials, this is how the legacy media made its decisions to create a culture where something like that actually happened.

That's right. So I, I, go back and show the CDC created these guidebooks or playbooks for how to handle a pandemic. And there were a series of them, but two of them in particular were very, very important. One of them came out in 2007, and then there was a revision in 2017. These books were mentioned by officials from the CDC at the beginning of the pandemic.

That's right. So I, I, go back and show the CDC created these guidebooks or playbooks for how to handle a pandemic. And there were a series of them, but two of them in particular were very, very important. One of them came out in 2007, and then there was a revision in 2017. These books were mentioned by officials from the CDC at the beginning of the pandemic.

So there's no ambiguity that these were very important and influential. These are the guidebook on here's what you do when a pandemic comes. And One of the astonishing things about these books is they were built on these models. And people hear the word model and they might not know what that means. A study is something that actually happened. A model is a prediction.

So there's no ambiguity that these were very important and influential. These are the guidebook on here's what you do when a pandemic comes. And One of the astonishing things about these books is they were built on these models. And people hear the word model and they might not know what that means. A study is something that actually happened. A model is a prediction.

It's, you know, you see a graph where the lines are going to do this over time. It's based on various inputs. What in the... the researchers get to decide whatever inputs they want go in. So you plug the things in and then out comes your model saying whatever it is you want it to say. If you don't like what it says, well, you'll just change the inputs until they show what you want it to show.

It's, you know, you see a graph where the lines are going to do this over time. It's based on various inputs. What in the... the researchers get to decide whatever inputs they want go in. So you plug the things in and then out comes your model saying whatever it is you want it to say. If you don't like what it says, well, you'll just change the inputs until they show what you want it to show.

One of the people who was involved in creating some of the models in these guidebooks by the CDC, his daughter did a science experiment in school where she talked about it was supposed to simulate the flow of our transmission of a disease within a school. And like all this stuff was made up.

One of the people who was involved in creating some of the models in these guidebooks by the CDC, his daughter did a science experiment in school where she talked about it was supposed to simulate the flow of our transmission of a disease within a school. And like all this stuff was made up.

Like, and I go through details showing how, and even beyond her, this guy's daughter, even beyond Robert Glass, beyond her, his daughter, were like, More August people at places like Imperial College of London and IHME, these like very, very esteemed institutions, public health institutions, their models were deeply flawed.

Like, and I go through details showing how, and even beyond her, this guy's daughter, even beyond Robert Glass, beyond her, his daughter, were like, More August people at places like Imperial College of London and IHME, these like very, very esteemed institutions, public health institutions, their models were deeply flawed.

And because I'm a crazy person, I actually go in and read all of the models and I'm reading the supplement, you know, 35 pages in and tiny print. And one of the things I found was they had had this figure, something like 35 percent of transmission. They thought something to that effect was coming from schools. I'm like, where did this number come from? So I look through. There's a citation.

And because I'm a crazy person, I actually go in and read all of the models and I'm reading the supplement, you know, 35 pages in and tiny print. And one of the things I found was they had had this figure, something like 35 percent of transmission. They thought something to that effect was coming from schools. I'm like, where did this number come from? So I look through. There's a citation.

I'm like, oh, that's interesting. Then that citation goes to another citation. You go eight layers deep and there in the supplement, it says this number was chosen arbitrarily. Oh, my gosh. So people need to understand. Remember at the beginning of the pandemic, Megan, they had the flatten the curve meme. Everyone, they show if everyone just follows our orders, then it'll go down.

I'm like, oh, that's interesting. Then that citation goes to another citation. You go eight layers deep and there in the supplement, it says this number was chosen arbitrarily. Oh, my gosh. So people need to understand. Remember at the beginning of the pandemic, Megan, they had the flatten the curve meme. Everyone, they show if everyone just follows our orders, then it'll go down.

And then you don't have to worry about the hospitals being overwhelmed. And they had all these models saying two million people will die within the next X number of months if you don't do exactly what we're told. And they show you the graph. So a regular person, oh, my God, look what happens with the cases if we don't listen. But if we follow directions, then this will happen.

And then you don't have to worry about the hospitals being overwhelmed. And they had all these models saying two million people will die within the next X number of months if you don't do exactly what we're told. And they show you the graph. So a regular person, oh, my God, look what happens with the cases if we don't listen. But if we follow directions, then this will happen.

And part of those directions was closing schools. In part, this was based on made up figures.

And part of those directions was closing schools. In part, this was based on made up figures.

One thing she does admit, she sort of touches on that. One thing she does admit is that the 15 days, she never had an intention of stopping there. She purposefully didn't tell the president or the American people. And she admits this, candidly.

One thing she does admit, she sort of touches on that. One thing she does admit is that the 15 days, she never had an intention of stopping there. She purposefully didn't tell the president or the American people. And she admits this, candidly.

Yeah. Let me just reel them in once they're already locked into it. It's like the frog in the pot. They're not going to, oh, we'll just go on. So that 15 days, people may forget. 15 days. To slow the spread. 15 days to slow the spread. Then they added another 30 days on right at the end. And same with the gatherings. Yes, we can touch on this. I mean, but a huge part of my book is about the media.

Yeah. Let me just reel them in once they're already locked into it. It's like the frog in the pot. They're not going to, oh, we'll just go on. So that 15 days, people may forget. 15 days. To slow the spread. 15 days to slow the spread. Then they added another 30 days on right at the end. And same with the gatherings. Yes, we can touch on this. I mean, but a huge part of my book is about the media.

It's really a work of media criticism. Imagine this, the entire master switch for our country is shut down. We have 15 days. Everyone's like, okay, let's all do this together. This is a scary new virus. At the end of 15 days, they're like, we're going to make it 30 more days. Where was any of the questioning from the media? It was crickets. They just were, let's keep going.

It's really a work of media criticism. Imagine this, the entire master switch for our country is shut down. We have 15 days. Everyone's like, okay, let's all do this together. This is a scary new virus. At the end of 15 days, they're like, we're going to make it 30 more days. Where was any of the questioning from the media? It was crickets. They just were, let's keep going.

There were some, but yes, it was very few.

There were some, but yes, it was very few.

No. And that's a large part of my book was this sort of conjunction between the media and the health establishment and how the media, which normally supposed to be skeptical. And normally, particularly when you think of the liberal media, of which I used to count myself a part of. Where their entire thing here was, throughout time, what's a journalist's job?

No. And that's a large part of my book was this sort of conjunction between the media and the health establishment and how the media, which normally supposed to be skeptical. And normally, particularly when you think of the liberal media, of which I used to count myself a part of. Where their entire thing here was, throughout time, what's a journalist's job?

It's to be skeptical of those in power. The government, the defense department, the church, all these large institutions, big businesses. Yet that evaporated. in the pandemic. So you had this circumstance where you had these bogus models that we were told, if you do these things, it's going to affect cases in such and such manner. And everyone's like, oh, that looks official.

It's to be skeptical of those in power. The government, the defense department, the church, all these large institutions, big businesses. Yet that evaporated. in the pandemic. So you had this circumstance where you had these bogus models that we were told, if you do these things, it's going to affect cases in such and such manner. And everyone's like, oh, that looks official.

It's from these fancy colleges. Deborah Burke, she's wearing a nice silk scarf. She looks like she's smart. I'll listen to her. She looks a school mommy. Yeah. Fauci is telling us this, you know, oh, we'll listen to them. But no one bothered to really investigate what was the underlying information? What was the underlying data that fed into these various models?

It's from these fancy colleges. Deborah Burke, she's wearing a nice silk scarf. She looks like she's smart. I'll listen to her. She looks a school mommy. Yeah. Fauci is telling us this, you know, oh, we'll listen to them. But no one bothered to really investigate what was the underlying information? What was the underlying data that fed into these various models?

So I spend a lot of time on this and in the book. And what I believe that I show persuasively is that unfortunately, this all comes down to tribalism, that political tribalism. We had such an, and I shouldn't use past tense, had, we have such an acrimonious political environment in our country. And the fact of the matter is most of the legacy or, you know, prestige media outlets, uh,

So I spend a lot of time on this and in the book. And what I believe that I show persuasively is that unfortunately, this all comes down to tribalism, that political tribalism. We had such an, and I shouldn't use past tense, had, we have such an acrimonious political environment in our country. And the fact of the matter is most of the legacy or, you know, prestige media outlets, uh,

are left-leaning, almost everyone there. Most of the people within public health also share that political persuasion. And what I show is that time and again, there's a zillion examples of this, that it was this sort of what I call like Newtonian physics. With every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. When Trump said... opened the schools, that was it.

are left-leaning, almost everyone there. Most of the people within public health also share that political persuasion. And what I show is that time and again, there's a zillion examples of this, that it was this sort of what I call like Newtonian physics. With every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. When Trump said... opened the schools, that was it.

He basically ensured that they would be closed.

He basically ensured that they would be closed.

And then- That's right. So the American Academy of Pediatrics comes out with this guidance early on saying, no matter what, let's get kids in school. And on top of that, they said, don't worry about six feet of distancing. If you can do it, great. But if you can't, let's just get the kids in school. This is the most important thing. It was unambiguous what they meant.

And then- That's right. So the American Academy of Pediatrics comes out with this guidance early on saying, no matter what, let's get kids in school. And on top of that, they said, don't worry about six feet of distancing. If you can do it, great. But if you can't, let's just get the kids in school. This is the most important thing. It was unambiguous what they meant.

Shortly thereafter, Trump tweets in all caps with like a million exclamation points as is his way. Schools need to open in the fall. Within days, the American Academy of Pediatrics reversed its guidance. It was so stark. It was so crazy, the reversal that even NPR had reported on at the time. Gone was any mention of, you know, don't worry about distancing. That was out.

Shortly thereafter, Trump tweets in all caps with like a million exclamation points as is his way. Schools need to open in the fall. Within days, the American Academy of Pediatrics reversed its guidance. It was so stark. It was so crazy, the reversal that even NPR had reported on at the time. Gone was any mention of, you know, don't worry about distancing. That was out.

Gone was the idea of no matter what, get kids in school. That was out. Instead, the new statement was, listen to the experts. Oh, God. And On top of that, something that was missing in the earlier guidance, we need money and lots of it if you want to open these schools. And here's the last thing that's interesting about the revised statement.

Gone was the idea of no matter what, get kids in school. That was out. Instead, the new statement was, listen to the experts. Oh, God. And On top of that, something that was missing in the earlier guidance, we need money and lots of it if you want to open these schools. And here's the last thing that's interesting about the revised statement.

It's not what's in the statement, but it's who authored the statement. And it wasn't the American Academy of Pediatrics by itself. It was co-authored with the two largest teachers unions in the country.

It's not what's in the statement, but it's who authored the statement. And it wasn't the American Academy of Pediatrics by itself. It was co-authored with the two largest teachers unions in the country.

I think public health and the media are the bigger villains because ultimately the teachers unions couldn't have made this outlandish list of demands that they did in so many places without having the cover of the media and public health saying these things. And I recount all sorts of stuff in the book.

I think public health and the media are the bigger villains because ultimately the teachers unions couldn't have made this outlandish list of demands that they did in so many places without having the cover of the media and public health saying these things. And I recount all sorts of stuff in the book.

Had Anthony Fauci and everyone else within the public health establishment said, hold on, none of this stuff is true that they're demanding. I have a whole long section in there about these claims about needing HEPA filters and HVAC upgrades. No one was challenging that. And believe me,

Had Anthony Fauci and everyone else within the public health establishment said, hold on, none of this stuff is true that they're demanding. I have a whole long section in there about these claims about needing HEPA filters and HVAC upgrades. No one was challenging that. And believe me,

Anthony Fauci was in front of a camera every single day, gave a zillion interviews, and tons of public health pundits. There was this one emergency medicine physician who I talk about in the book quite a bit.

Anthony Fauci was in front of a camera every single day, gave a zillion interviews, and tons of public health pundits. There was this one emergency medicine physician who I talk about in the book quite a bit.

She gave hundreds of interviews constantly on the speed dial at the New York Times and other places, even though she had no particular expertise in infectious diseases or any of these interventions. She was now an expert. She was on speed dial. None of these people... said a word that this is completely bogus.

She gave hundreds of interviews constantly on the speed dial at the New York Times and other places, even though she had no particular expertise in infectious diseases or any of these interventions. She was now an expert. She was on speed dial. None of these people... said a word that this is completely bogus.

And the most important part that I mentioned in the sort of chronology is that in late April and early May, many, many countries throughout Europe, 22 countries began to reopen their schools. Millions of children. We're not talking about like a little school somewhere in Tibet, you know, with 12 kids. Millions of children were going back to school in Europe.

And the most important part that I mentioned in the sort of chronology is that in late April and early May, many, many countries throughout Europe, 22 countries began to reopen their schools. Millions of children. We're not talking about like a little school somewhere in Tibet, you know, with 12 kids. Millions of children were going back to school in Europe.

And later that month in May, the education ministers met in the EU. And in that meeting, they announced, we have observed no negative impact from opening schools here. A month later, same meeting, same announcement. Here it is, yet another month later, we haven't observed any negative impact of opening schools, millions of children, 22 different countries.

And later that month in May, the education ministers met in the EU. And in that meeting, they announced, we have observed no negative impact from opening schools here. A month later, same meeting, same announcement. Here it is, yet another month later, we haven't observed any negative impact of opening schools, millions of children, 22 different countries.

No one in the American media reported on this. I did, ultimately. But when this initially happened, I was so astonished. I kept re-clicking the link for the video because I was like, how can this be? How is it possible that no media outlets? This wasn't in a blog. This wasn't some random or obscure medical journal. This is the meeting at the EU.

No one in the American media reported on this. I did, ultimately. But when this initially happened, I was so astonished. I kept re-clicking the link for the video because I was like, how can this be? How is it possible that no media outlets? This wasn't in a blog. This wasn't some random or obscure medical journal. This is the meeting at the EU.

And they said millions of kids are back in school and nothing has happened. It's fine. This was ignored. To me, this is kind of one of the original sins that I point out that happened. Once we ignored that or waved it away, and we can go through this, Megan, the various excuses they gave. Well, that's Europe. That's different. That doesn't count.

And they said millions of kids are back in school and nothing has happened. It's fine. This was ignored. To me, this is kind of one of the original sins that I point out that happened. Once we ignored that or waved it away, and we can go through this, Megan, the various excuses they gave. Well, that's Europe. That's different. That doesn't count.

And they gave this list of reasons which were all made up. None of them were real.

And they gave this list of reasons which were all made up. None of them were real.

No one in Europe, or very few, this was not the norm. They didn't have HEPA filters in all their schools. I've spent enough time in Europe. I know people in Europe. The schools there are not all these glistening oasis of HEPA filtered air. Many kids weren't wearing masks.

No one in Europe, or very few, this was not the norm. They didn't have HEPA filters in all their schools. I've spent enough time in Europe. I know people in Europe. The schools there are not all these glistening oasis of HEPA filtered air. Many kids weren't wearing masks.

In fact, the ECDC, that's like Europe's version of the CDC, recommended against kids in primary schools wearing masks, where in the U.S., they wanted kids as young as two years old to wear masks all day. They weren't doing distancing. In many instances, it was three feet or like what they would say, one meter or no distancing required at all.

In fact, the ECDC, that's like Europe's version of the CDC, recommended against kids in primary schools wearing masks, where in the U.S., they wanted kids as young as two years old to wear masks all day. They weren't doing distancing. In many instances, it was three feet or like what they would say, one meter or no distancing required at all.

A list of things that we kept being told by these public health experts. Well, don't don't look at Europe. It's almost like a magician. Look away. Don't look there. That's because and then they would list the things they controlled the They did all these things.

A list of things that we kept being told by these public health experts. Well, don't don't look at Europe. It's almost like a magician. Look away. Don't look there. That's because and then they would list the things they controlled the They did all these things.

Right. I mean, one of the things, to your point, that's really important is this was so coded politically within our country that opening schools or wanting to go to work or go to the beach even or a child playing at a playground, that was coded as right wing. And to want to, you know, and it was virtuous and left wing if you stayed home.

Right. I mean, one of the things, to your point, that's really important is this was so coded politically within our country that opening schools or wanting to go to work or go to the beach even or a child playing at a playground, that was coded as right wing. And to want to, you know, and it was virtuous and left wing if you stayed home.

Yes. Because those countries, which are far more progressive than the United States, they sent their kids back to school. And then you have other countries with more conservative governments where they were doing the reverse. There was no correlation between the political leaning of a particular government in their countries.

Yes. Because those countries, which are far more progressive than the United States, they sent their kids back to school. And then you have other countries with more conservative governments where they were doing the reverse. There was no correlation between the political leaning of a particular government in their countries.

And with whether things were open or locked down, there was no correlation. So the idea, but in America, people were living within such a bubble of our own sort of world here that anyone who went against Trump was virtuous and anyone who agreed with him was this heartbreaker. horrible monster. What are you, some right-wing, you know, asshole? You're trying to do your own research?

And with whether things were open or locked down, there was no correlation. So the idea, but in America, people were living within such a bubble of our own sort of world here that anyone who went against Trump was virtuous and anyone who agreed with him was this heartbreaker. horrible monster. What are you, some right-wing, you know, asshole? You're trying to do your own research?

So you had this situation that was so divisive in America. And again, it comes down to, we go back to that American Academy of Pediatrics reversal, where it was so clear that what was happening was this had to be a sort of reaction against Trump. And one of the things that I talk about in the book is that after I started writing my articles about

So you had this situation that was so divisive in America. And again, it comes down to, we go back to that American Academy of Pediatrics reversal, where it was so clear that what was happening was this had to be a sort of reaction against Trump. And one of the things that I talk about in the book is that after I started writing my articles about

which were some of the only articles in sort of what we might consider legacy media or mainstream.

which were some of the only articles in sort of what we might consider legacy media or mainstream.

It was like, I'm actually getting value out of New York Magazine. Later in The Atlantic and other places. Right. And in Wired, which is, you know, ostensibly nonpolitical.

It was like, I'm actually getting value out of New York Magazine. Later in The Atlantic and other places. Right. And in Wired, which is, you know, ostensibly nonpolitical.

Right. So, okay. Somehow I managed to get my contrarian pieces in these publications. And people have asked me why and how did that happen? Because I've had other journalists who sort of shared some of my views. How did you do it? I said, because I provided evidence. Like, I think that's what it comes down to. But...

Right. So, okay. Somehow I managed to get my contrarian pieces in these publications. And people have asked me why and how did that happen? Because I've had other journalists who sort of shared some of my views. How did you do it? I said, because I provided evidence. Like, I think that's what it comes down to. But...

One of the things that I talk about is once these articles started coming out, I started getting emails from doctors around the country and regular people too, and former CDC officials. And these were doctors, not just necessarily some random pediatrician in a suburb somewhere. We're talking about people at elite university hospitals, at some of our top institutions.

One of the things that I talk about is once these articles started coming out, I started getting emails from doctors around the country and regular people too, and former CDC officials. And these were doctors, not just necessarily some random pediatrician in a suburb somewhere. We're talking about people at elite university hospitals, at some of our top institutions.

And they would write me and say, I want you to know I agree with you. I think what's going on is crazy. There's no evidence of closing schools is going to be beneficial. This is terrible. Having little, you know, toddlers wearing masks, whatever it was. He said, I want to agree with you, but this all has to be off the record. I can't talk about it publicly. And I was like, why?

And they would write me and say, I want you to know I agree with you. I think what's going on is crazy. There's no evidence of closing schools is going to be beneficial. This is terrible. Having little, you know, toddlers wearing masks, whatever it was. He said, I want to agree with you, but this all has to be off the record. I can't talk about it publicly. And I was like, why?

How is this happening? Because one, they knew. The environment was so clear. People aren't stupid that they self-censored. And number two, they were overtly censored. Many people were admonished by their superiors. Some administrator at the hospital saying, don't ever talk about this again. And I have a couple stories of that where people spoke out. So there was this environment overtly

How is this happening? Because one, they knew. The environment was so clear. People aren't stupid that they self-censored. And number two, they were overtly censored. Many people were admonished by their superiors. Some administrator at the hospital saying, don't ever talk about this again. And I have a couple stories of that where people spoke out. So there was this environment overtly

where no one, no one could be seen, including, you know, a university hospital as an institution, none of them could be seen as agreeing with Trump.

where no one, no one could be seen, including, you know, a university hospital as an institution, none of them could be seen as agreeing with Trump.

I was there with Jay.

I was there with Jay.

Oh yeah. You can do that to me from Harvard, Stanford and Oxford. Oh. If they're maligned, if they're called fringe, I don't stand a chance against this. So there was no way that. And look, I'm sympathetic toward if this is someone how they're making their living, you know, taking care of their family. They've spent the last 20 years studying in order to work in medicine.

Oh yeah. You can do that to me from Harvard, Stanford and Oxford. Oh. If they're maligned, if they're called fringe, I don't stand a chance against this. So there was no way that. And look, I'm sympathetic toward if this is someone how they're making their living, you know, taking care of their family. They've spent the last 20 years studying in order to work in medicine.

I'm somewhat sympathetic to the idea that they didn't want to get fired.

I'm somewhat sympathetic to the idea that they didn't want to get fired.

And NIH more broadly. That's right. When you control the purse strings. But I would say, Megan, even beyond any sort of explicit thread of withholding funding, people were social creatures. And most people...

And NIH more broadly. That's right. When you control the purse strings. But I would say, Megan, even beyond any sort of explicit thread of withholding funding, people were social creatures. And most people...

are not really inclined to be in the out group, and I talk about this in the book, is that if you think about medicine, it self-selects generally for a certain type of person, a really hard worker, someone who's smart. These are great traits in a doctor, hard worker and smart, but it also selects for rule followers. It doesn't select for iconoclasts.

are not really inclined to be in the out group, and I talk about this in the book, is that if you think about medicine, it self-selects generally for a certain type of person, a really hard worker, someone who's smart. These are great traits in a doctor, hard worker and smart, but it also selects for rule followers. It doesn't select for iconoclasts.

You go in, you do your residency, you have to listen to the attending. You're not going to start challenging them. They got there by following the rules. These are people who their general nature is not to be an outcast. So they don't want to be cast out of that social group. And I would argue the same thing is within the sort of prestige media outlets. How do you get to the New York Times?

You go in, you do your residency, you have to listen to the attending. You're not going to start challenging them. They got there by following the rules. These are people who their general nature is not to be an outcast. So they don't want to be cast out of that social group. And I would argue the same thing is within the sort of prestige media outlets. How do you get to the New York Times?

Well, you got straight A's in school growing up. Then you went to Brown. Then maybe you went to Columbia Journalism School. And now you're at the Times. I'm not saying every reporter there is like this. There certainly are plenty who are excellent reporters important independent work there.

Well, you got straight A's in school growing up. Then you went to Brown. Then maybe you went to Columbia Journalism School. And now you're at the Times. I'm not saying every reporter there is like this. There certainly are plenty who are excellent reporters important independent work there.

But nevertheless, the broader type of person who gets into an institution like that is the same type of person who's going to get into Columbia University Medical Center and these types of places. It self-selects for people who got to where they are, became successful by being part of an in-group. So you have these two institutions, health and

But nevertheless, the broader type of person who gets into an institution like that is the same type of person who's going to get into Columbia University Medical Center and these types of places. It self-selects for people who got to where they are, became successful by being part of an in-group. So you have these two institutions, health and

and media that were controlling the narrative within our country, yet the people within those institutions were a certain type of personality. And I'm not saying this was nefarious even. This is just kind of a human nature. And then you had the small group of them who were coming to me off the record saying, hey, I don't like what's going on. This is wrong, but I can't say anything about it.

and media that were controlling the narrative within our country, yet the people within those institutions were a certain type of personality. And I'm not saying this was nefarious even. This is just kind of a human nature. And then you had the small group of them who were coming to me off the record saying, hey, I don't like what's going on. This is wrong, but I can't say anything about it.

So it's really important for people listening and watching this program to understand, and hopefully they'll read my book and get a deeper understanding.

So it's really important for people listening and watching this program to understand, and hopefully they'll read my book and get a deeper understanding.

Hopefully they'll have an understanding of how, what I try to show is how narratives get created. It's sort of like, how do the gears turn within our society? It's almost like Plato's cave. Who's looking at the shadows? Who's creating those shadows? How do you actually get out of the cave? A lot of the book is about evidence. That's the way that we really can arm ourselves to be aware.

Hopefully they'll have an understanding of how, what I try to show is how narratives get created. It's sort of like, how do the gears turn within our society? It's almost like Plato's cave. Who's looking at the shadows? Who's creating those shadows? How do you actually get out of the cave? A lot of the book is about evidence. That's the way that we really can arm ourselves to be aware.

It's sort of like a media literacy that you can even bring to your doctor. I suspect you, Megan, when you go to the doctor, they're not like, here's what you need to do. You're like, yes, doctor. Not anymore. Right, this isn't 1955 where you just do what people say. And this doesn't mean that we should ignore what quote experts say.

It's sort of like a media literacy that you can even bring to your doctor. I suspect you, Megan, when you go to the doctor, they're not like, here's what you need to do. You're like, yes, doctor. Not anymore. Right, this isn't 1955 where you just do what people say. And this doesn't mean that we should ignore what quote experts say.

It doesn't mean that we should dismiss it out of hand, but it does mean that you should bring your own skepticism with you and you need to think about evidence. Ultimately, my book really, I think it's about kind of what we might call like epistemology. It's like, how do you know what is true? How do you know that this thing is true? And over and over again,

It doesn't mean that we should dismiss it out of hand, but it does mean that you should bring your own skepticism with you and you need to think about evidence. Ultimately, my book really, I think it's about kind of what we might call like epistemology. It's like, how do you know what is true? How do you know that this thing is true? And over and over again,

in our country, and we still do this now and it's every topic under the sun, but when I show what happened in the pandemic with such horrible consequence, is that the experts repeatedly told us things without providing any evidence behind what they were telling us, and then the media regurgitated this same information without providing evidence.

in our country, and we still do this now and it's every topic under the sun, but when I show what happened in the pandemic with such horrible consequence, is that the experts repeatedly told us things without providing any evidence behind what they were telling us, and then the media regurgitated this same information without providing evidence.

And within philosophy, that's called what's known as a logical fallacy. This is it's an argument from authority. Just because a person is saying something doesn't mean it's true. And they never pushed back and said, well, wait a minute. I know you're saying that they need HEPA filters and we can't open a school until they get the HEPA filter. What's the evidence behind this claim?

And within philosophy, that's called what's known as a logical fallacy. This is it's an argument from authority. Just because a person is saying something doesn't mean it's true. And they never pushed back and said, well, wait a minute. I know you're saying that they need HEPA filters and we can't open a school until they get the HEPA filter. What's the evidence behind this claim?

What is the evidence for this? No one bothered to push back.

What is the evidence for this? No one bothered to push back.

I think one of the most important and remarkable things that happened in the pandemic that we need to reckon with as a society is that this was one of the most classist, class-based policy endeavors that had ever occurred in America. It's quite remarkable. The people who made the rules coincidentally fared the best during the pandemic. So you have what people today might call the laptop class.

I think one of the most important and remarkable things that happened in the pandemic that we need to reckon with as a society is that this was one of the most classist, class-based policy endeavors that had ever occurred in America. It's quite remarkable. The people who made the rules coincidentally fared the best during the pandemic. So you have what people today might call the laptop class.

Who do you think works at the CDC, the NIH? Who are these people on television and working at these elite media outlets? By and large, these people are making six-figure salaries or seven-figure. Their lives are very different from the people, millions and millions of people in our country who their policies and their guidelines were affecting.

Who do you think works at the CDC, the NIH? Who are these people on television and working at these elite media outlets? By and large, these people are making six-figure salaries or seven-figure. Their lives are very different from the people, millions and millions of people in our country who their policies and their guidelines were affecting.

And that includes, I mean, there were kids who were sitting in a parking lot of a Taco Bell to try to get a Wi-Fi signal so they could do their fake remote learning. There are children who are in homes that are unsafe. One of the crazy things that happened was there was a drop in claims of child abuse early on. And you might think, oh, that's great. Child abuse went down. It's so heartbreaking.

And that includes, I mean, there were kids who were sitting in a parking lot of a Taco Bell to try to get a Wi-Fi signal so they could do their fake remote learning. There are children who are in homes that are unsafe. One of the crazy things that happened was there was a drop in claims of child abuse early on. And you might think, oh, that's great. Child abuse went down. It's so heartbreaking.

What they found was it's not that it went down. It's that teachers and educators are the most important line of defense for a child who is in danger at home. Now those kids had no one to talk to, and some of them were left home with a monster. Yeah. You had kids who didn't have their final year there. This was their chance to get into college. Maybe they were a football player.

What they found was it's not that it went down. It's that teachers and educators are the most important line of defense for a child who is in danger at home. Now those kids had no one to talk to, and some of them were left home with a monster. Yeah. You had kids who didn't have their final year there. This was their chance to get into college. Maybe they were a football player.

Maybe there was someone who was a wonderful actor or an artist. All of those things were canceled. You're not going to get recruited for the football season to play in a college and get recruited there if there is no season. So all these things were happening to kids around the country.

Maybe there was someone who was a wonderful actor or an artist. All of those things were canceled. You're not going to get recruited for the football season to play in a college and get recruited there if there is no season. So all these things were happening to kids around the country.

And I haven't even mentioned learning loss, which obviously is the most overt that people rightfully so are continuing to talk about. There are so many things that we're affecting, and it's not a small number, millions and millions of kids, including we can touch on kids who have learning disabilities. And it's something like 7 million of them, I think.

And I haven't even mentioned learning loss, which obviously is the most overt that people rightfully so are continuing to talk about. There are so many things that we're affecting, and it's not a small number, millions and millions of kids, including we can touch on kids who have learning disabilities. And it's something like 7 million of them, I think.

get an IEP, which is like a special program that they're required to get by law. And some of these things require them to have physical therapy. You can't do that through a computer screen. Children with severe autism, children with all sorts of physical and variety of neurological challenges and disabilities. These kids, unless you lived in a very wealthy family,

get an IEP, which is like a special program that they're required to get by law. And some of these things require them to have physical therapy. You can't do that through a computer screen. Children with severe autism, children with all sorts of physical and variety of neurological challenges and disabilities. These kids, unless you lived in a very wealthy family,

They were screwed and they still haven't come back from this.

They were screwed and they still haven't come back from this.

Like the TikTok videos of everyone.

Like the TikTok videos of everyone.

I think, yeah, I don't know what's in the mind of all the teachers. Some of them definitely appear to have taken advantage. Others, I think, genuinely were frightened by a media that, you know, if it bleeds, it leads. And I talk about this in the book. The American media was unique in its dialing the knob up to 11. for hysteria over this.

I think, yeah, I don't know what's in the mind of all the teachers. Some of them definitely appear to have taken advantage. Others, I think, genuinely were frightened by a media that, you know, if it bleeds, it leads. And I talk about this in the book. The American media was unique in its dialing the knob up to 11. for hysteria over this.

And there was some research out of Dartmouth where they sort of do like a content, like tone analysis. And the US was off the charts in the way we covered this phenomena that was happening. Whereas, and I talk about this, there was an article in the New York Times that came out on the very, that was like hysterical about if schools open, this is what could happen. And there's like...

And there was some research out of Dartmouth where they sort of do like a content, like tone analysis. And the US was off the charts in the way we covered this phenomena that was happening. Whereas, and I talk about this, there was an article in the New York Times that came out on the very, that was like hysterical about if schools open, this is what could happen. And there's like...

flames practically shooting out of the screen if you're reading the article. On the very same day, an article came out in what's known as the BMJ. It's the British Medical Journal. And the title was something like, kids are not super spreaders, open the schools.

flames practically shooting out of the screen if you're reading the article. On the very same day, an article came out in what's known as the BMJ. It's the British Medical Journal. And the title was something like, kids are not super spreaders, open the schools.

The dichotomy on this one day of these two articles couldn't be more stark and more emblematic of the difference of how we were experiencing the pandemic here in America versus other places. This It's not to say that they were flawless outside the United States, but there was something uniquely hysterical about the response in America.

The dichotomy on this one day of these two articles couldn't be more stark and more emblematic of the difference of how we were experiencing the pandemic here in America versus other places. This It's not to say that they were flawless outside the United States, but there was something uniquely hysterical about the response in America.

We are a country that was ill-equipped to function under duress. And I understand why... people felt that Trump had poisoned the well to such a degree that, that ultimately they had to react in this manner. But those are reasons, not excuses.

We are a country that was ill-equipped to function under duress. And I understand why... people felt that Trump had poisoned the well to such a degree that, that ultimately they had to react in this manner. But those are reasons, not excuses.

That is not like the idea that someone, he was so odious to them, such TDS, as you were saying that it didn't, I mean, Trump could say, I love puppies and vanilla ice cream. And they would say, I hate puppies. I hate vanilla. It didn't matter. So there was such an environment created that all of these people were terrified.

That is not like the idea that someone, he was so odious to them, such TDS, as you were saying that it didn't, I mean, Trump could say, I love puppies and vanilla ice cream. And they would say, I hate puppies. I hate vanilla. It didn't matter. So there was such an environment created that all of these people were terrified.

Only a very small portion had the courage, like Martin Kulldorff and others, to come out and say, you know what? Trump is right. He's right on something. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, even if you disagree with him on everything. But they couldn't do it. The media just couldn't bring itself to possibly agree with

Only a very small portion had the courage, like Martin Kulldorff and others, to come out and say, you know what? Trump is right. He's right on something. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, even if you disagree with him on everything. But they couldn't do it. The media just couldn't bring itself to possibly agree with

this man, even on something that he was so clearly right that millions of kids in school in Europe, it didn't matter.

this man, even on something that he was so clearly right that millions of kids in school in Europe, it didn't matter.

They can't let it go. And the idea that they were misled, but your job as a journalist is to ask questions.

They can't let it go. And the idea that they were misled, but your job as a journalist is to ask questions.

to not allow to simply quote an expert, so to speak, an expert on something without asking, well, wait, what's the evidence behind that claim? Or if you don't ask them, then go report it out yourself and dig into it. And that's what I started doing from the beginning. I was like, I thought it was so strange. We kept being told all these things. School is dangerous.

to not allow to simply quote an expert, so to speak, an expert on something without asking, well, wait, what's the evidence behind that claim? Or if you don't ask them, then go report it out yourself and dig into it. And that's what I started doing from the beginning. I was like, I thought it was so strange. We kept being told all these things. School is dangerous.

The kids, they might spread it to everyone. And all these various claims. I'm like, wait a minute, is that true? And I couldn't speak to people in the United States. So I started talking to experts in Europe. And I'm like, let me find someone, anyone who knows what's going on. And I was like, well, wait a minute. This is all bullshit. Everything they're saying is made up.

The kids, they might spread it to everyone. And all these various claims. I'm like, wait a minute, is that true? And I couldn't speak to people in the United States. So I started talking to experts in Europe. And I'm like, let me find someone, anyone who knows what's going on. And I was like, well, wait a minute. This is all bullshit. Everything they're saying is made up.

I know there might be some listeners or viewers who are thinking that I'm overstating things. They might think that this is hyperbole. I'm telling you, if you read the book, it's deeply destabilizing. But I hope also really instructive to see how... wildly off so much of the information we were given was. And it's easy for the media to make these claims.

I know there might be some listeners or viewers who are thinking that I'm overstating things. They might think that this is hyperbole. I'm telling you, if you read the book, it's deeply destabilizing. But I hope also really instructive to see how... wildly off so much of the information we were given was. And it's easy for the media to make these claims.

Trump said plenty of crazy things himself where he, oh, the virus is just going to go away. And they misquoted him about the bleach thing and whatever else. There are plenty of crazy things. It's not hard to find something from Trump or from QAnon or whatever. And that's where the media kind of dug its hooks in. Mm-hmm.

Trump said plenty of crazy things himself where he, oh, the virus is just going to go away. And they misquoted him about the bleach thing and whatever else. There are plenty of crazy things. It's not hard to find something from Trump or from QAnon or whatever. And that's where the media kind of dug its hooks in. Mm-hmm.

But what no one was doing was looking, of course, with the mirror at themselves. And it's much more upsetting when the experts, I don't listen to QAnon. I don't take my guidance on how to conduct myself or what's happening. But I used to listen to the CDC. I used to listen to the NIH. And what I show is that these people deeply, deeply let us down.

But what no one was doing was looking, of course, with the mirror at themselves. And it's much more upsetting when the experts, I don't listen to QAnon. I don't take my guidance on how to conduct myself or what's happening. But I used to listen to the CDC. I used to listen to the NIH. And what I show is that these people deeply, deeply let us down.

Seasonality.

Seasonality.

I had written one of the articles challenging one crazy rule or another, which all of my work, none of it's been retracted. As far as I'm aware, there's no giant corrections in any of them. This doesn't mean I don't make mistakes, but directionally, everything I wrote was true. And one of the articles, I remember my wife was talking with a friend of hers about it. And I think at this point I'd,

I had written one of the articles challenging one crazy rule or another, which all of my work, none of it's been retracted. As far as I'm aware, there's no giant corrections in any of them. This doesn't mean I don't make mistakes, but directionally, everything I wrote was true. And one of the articles, I remember my wife was talking with a friend of hers about it. And I think at this point I'd,

started writing for the free press, or maybe it was on my own sub stack, but I had written for the Atlantic and the New York times and New York, plenty of these types of contrarian pieces. And she said, well, where's the article? Where's it coming out? And my wife said, it may have been my, my sub stack or the free bet. She said, well, if it's not in the Atlantic, then I don't believe it.

started writing for the free press, or maybe it was on my own sub stack, but I had written for the Atlantic and the New York times and New York, plenty of these types of contrarian pieces. And she said, well, where's the article? Where's it coming out? And my wife said, it may have been my, my sub stack or the free bet. She said, well, if it's not in the Atlantic, then I don't believe it.

And she said, but it's David, you, you know him, he's the same reporter. He wrote other things. And she was like, yeah, I'm not interested. It's not. So to have that like imprimatur of these certain institutions meant everything.

And she said, but it's David, you, you know him, he's the same reporter. He wrote other things. And she was like, yeah, I'm not interested. It's not. So to have that like imprimatur of these certain institutions meant everything.

And, and this, the problem is the idea that like most, I think regular people, at least some of them are on particularly on the left. So all these things are like, it made intuitive sense. It's like, well, of course, if you're closed schools, all those snot nose kids, that's going to help or mask. I think maybe having something in front of my face might.

And, and this, the problem is the idea that like most, I think regular people, at least some of them are on particularly on the left. So all these things are like, it made intuitive sense. It's like, well, of course, if you're closed schools, all those snot nose kids, that's going to help or mask. I think maybe having something in front of my face might.

The problem is, and I give all these crazy examples through history, our intuitions are often wrong. And that happens especially within medicine. That's why we need randomized studies. That's why we need actual, like a structured, what's known as evidence-based medicine. But instead, during the pandemic, over and over...

The problem is, and I give all these crazy examples through history, our intuitions are often wrong. And that happens especially within medicine. That's why we need randomized studies. That's why we need actual, like a structured, what's known as evidence-based medicine. But instead, during the pandemic, over and over...

We were just told it's basic physics that masks work, but that's not how human beings work. A child might pull it off. It doesn't stay glued to your face. They were using studies done on mannequins where the masks were glued to their face. And this is the stuff that the CDC and other people were citing as evidence that everyone needs to wear a mask.

We were just told it's basic physics that masks work, but that's not how human beings work. A child might pull it off. It doesn't stay glued to your face. They were using studies done on mannequins where the masks were glued to their face. And this is the stuff that the CDC and other people were citing as evidence that everyone needs to wear a mask.

Our intuitions are wrong all the time, but yet we didn't actually look at science. We were told we're just following the science. There was no following the

Our intuitions are wrong all the time, but yet we didn't actually look at science. We were told we're just following the science. There was no following the

I mean, I was, I believe, the first journalist in a mainstream publication to interview Dror Mavorak, who was the Israeli physician who initially found the signal of myocarditis in young males. And, you know, again, this is just completely radioactive. It doesn't mean that the vaccines weren't necessarily beneficial for old people and those who are vulnerable. I'm not making that statement.

I mean, I was, I believe, the first journalist in a mainstream publication to interview Dror Mavorak, who was the Israeli physician who initially found the signal of myocarditis in young males. And, you know, again, this is just completely radioactive. It doesn't mean that the vaccines weren't necessarily beneficial for old people and those who are vulnerable. I'm not making that statement.

I'm not talking about that one way or the other. What is true... is that there is this effect from the vaccine, particularly for young males, not exclusively to them, but they were affected far more than any other group. And there's reasons for that we don't need to get into. And this was essentially ignored and kind of like buried by the CDC when the signal came out. And I give examples of that.

I'm not talking about that one way or the other. What is true... is that there is this effect from the vaccine, particularly for young males, not exclusively to them, but they were affected far more than any other group. And there's reasons for that we don't need to get into. And this was essentially ignored and kind of like buried by the CDC when the signal came out. And I give examples of that.

I mean, the thing that's interesting is setting that aside, how these sort of danger signals were buried. Teachers were prioritized for vaccines in much of the country in many locations, yet they still didn't go back to school in many locations even after that. So they were put ahead of sometimes more vulnerable people. And you can look this up. This isn't me making this up.

I mean, the thing that's interesting is setting that aside, how these sort of danger signals were buried. Teachers were prioritized for vaccines in much of the country in many locations, yet they still didn't go back to school in many locations even after that. So they were put ahead of sometimes more vulnerable people. And you can look this up. This isn't me making this up.

This isn't a conspiracy theory. You can see the different levels of sort of priority that the CDC and various health governing bodies put out. They prioritize teachers in many locations. Okay, I got it. You want to be protected? And they still didn't go back to school.

This isn't a conspiracy theory. You can see the different levels of sort of priority that the CDC and various health governing bodies put out. They prioritize teachers in many locations. Okay, I got it. You want to be protected? And they still didn't go back to school.

But meanwhile, and this goes back to what we talked about in the very beginning, how class-based the whole entire pandemic response was.

But meanwhile, and this goes back to what we talked about in the very beginning, how class-based the whole entire pandemic response was.

So there's that. I don't... I don't suggest that there was criminal behavior. I don't know enough about, you know, those angles. What I would say is Fauci was sort of the figurehead. He was the face of the response in our country. And Anthony Fauci, along with many, many others,

So there's that. I don't... I don't suggest that there was criminal behavior. I don't know enough about, you know, those angles. What I would say is Fauci was sort of the figurehead. He was the face of the response in our country. And Anthony Fauci, along with many, many others,

overstated evidence over and over again and they said kids couldn't go back to school until it was safe with a contrived list of reasons and that there was never any support behind them and not only was there not support for them we had an enormous amount of evidence right across the atlantic showing millions of children in school without consequence without doing any of this stuff he

overstated evidence over and over again and they said kids couldn't go back to school until it was safe with a contrived list of reasons and that there was never any support behind them and not only was there not support for them we had an enormous amount of evidence right across the atlantic showing millions of children in school without consequence without doing any of this stuff he

Deport all undocumented immigrants. Voters favoring the government trying to deport all 11 million of them. Back in 2016, just 38 percent of voters wanted the government to try to deport all 11 million undocumented immigrants. Compare it to where we are in 2025. Fifth. 56 percent, the majority, the American people have come a long way on this issue, much closer to Donald Trump.

Deport all undocumented immigrants. Voters favoring the government trying to deport all 11 million of them. Back in 2016, just 38 percent of voters wanted the government to try to deport all 11 million undocumented immigrants. Compare it to where we are in 2025. Fifth. 56 percent, the majority, the American people have come a long way on this issue, much closer to Donald Trump.

And I think that's a big part of the reason why Americans are increasingly saying the country is on the right track when it comes to immigration policy and why Donald Trump's net approval rating on that issue is in the positive.

And I think that's a big part of the reason why Americans are increasingly saying the country is on the right track when it comes to immigration policy and why Donald Trump's net approval rating on that issue is in the positive.

$229,000.

Well, my entire book is focused on, or at least it's the launch point, on the long-term school closures and then sort of all the decisions that followed in the wake of that. The mask mandates, barriers on desks, six feet of distancing, all this kind of

Nothing at all. I mean, and these have opaque sides. So the kid was like horse blinders.

Yep.

That's right. You could eat, but you weren't allowed to talk. So we had children. And meanwhile, at the same time, adults, you know, right down the block from the school were dining at a restaurant. You could go to a bar. I mean, right.

I mean, yeah, but yeah, children weren't allowed to speak during lunch. In New York City, some of the schools, the kids were sitting in the winter on concrete outside. Yeah. I mean, this is a good sort of launch into discussing this. When we talk about it, you sort of kind of laugh looking back. This was so radical, so absurd. The idea that children... That's if they were in school.

But millions of them were not even allowed, didn't set foot into a school building for over a year. Healthy kids. We barred healthy children from school while at the same time, malls were open, bars, restaurants, casinos, adults who were actually... at higher risk than children, they could carry on. But kids were barred from school.

I mean, kids in California, they weren't, except for the governor's children, they were in school, in private school. Of course. But everyone else, this is such a wild, wild circumstance that I don't think it's been fully reckoned with how insane that is. And at the time it seemed insane, but a lot of people went along with it.

And the reason I wanted to write the book was, and this is years of research, was to try to create a historical record. And the book is not a cataloging of these are all the harms that happened to kids. I touch on that, of course. It's important. The book is like an anatomy of decision making.

How is it that such an insane decision like that and all the ones that followed after, how did that happen? And that's what the book does. I try to kind of pull the curtain back and show this is how politicians, this is how health officials, this is how the legacy media made its decisions to create a culture where something like that actually happened.

That's right. So I, I, go back and show the CDC created these guidebooks or playbooks for how to handle a pandemic. And there were a series of them, but two of them in particular were very, very important. One of them came out in 2007, and then there was a revision in 2017. These books were mentioned by officials from the CDC at the beginning of the pandemic.

So there's no ambiguity that these were very important and influential. These are the guidebook on here's what you do when a pandemic comes. And One of the astonishing things about these books is they were built on these models. And people hear the word model and they might not know what that means. A study is something that actually happened. A model is a prediction.

It's, you know, you see a graph where the lines are going to do this over time. It's based on various inputs. What in the... the researchers get to decide whatever inputs they want go in. So you plug the things in and then out comes your model saying whatever it is you want it to say. If you don't like what it says, well, you'll just change the inputs until they show what you want it to show.

One of the people who was involved in creating some of the models in these guidebooks by the CDC, his daughter did a science experiment in school where she talked about it was supposed to simulate the flow of our transmission of a disease within a school. And like all this stuff was made up.

Like, and I go through details showing how, and even beyond her, this guy's daughter, even beyond Robert Glass, beyond her, his daughter, were like, More August people at places like Imperial College of London and IHME, these like very, very esteemed institutions, public health institutions, their models were deeply flawed.

And because I'm a crazy person, I actually go in and read all of the models and I'm reading the supplement, you know, 35 pages in and tiny print. And one of the things I found was they had had this figure, something like 35 percent of transmission. They thought something to that effect was coming from schools. I'm like, where did this number come from? So I look through. There's a citation.

I'm like, oh, that's interesting. Then that citation goes to another citation. You go eight layers deep and there in the supplement, it says this number was chosen arbitrarily. Oh, my gosh. So people need to understand. Remember at the beginning of the pandemic, Megan, they had the flatten the curve meme. Everyone, they show if everyone just follows our orders, then it'll go down.

And then you don't have to worry about the hospitals being overwhelmed. And they had all these models saying two million people will die within the next X number of months if you don't do exactly what we're told. And they show you the graph. So a regular person, oh, my God, look what happens with the cases if we don't listen. But if we follow directions, then this will happen.

And part of those directions was closing schools. In part, this was based on made up figures.

One thing she does admit, she sort of touches on that. One thing she does admit is that the 15 days, she never had an intention of stopping there. She purposefully didn't tell the president or the American people. And she admits this, candidly.

Yeah. Let me just reel them in once they're already locked into it. It's like the frog in the pot. They're not going to, oh, we'll just go on. So that 15 days, people may forget. 15 days. To slow the spread. 15 days to slow the spread. Then they added another 30 days on right at the end. And same with the gatherings. Yes, we can touch on this. I mean, but a huge part of my book is about the media.

It's really a work of media criticism. Imagine this, the entire master switch for our country is shut down. We have 15 days. Everyone's like, okay, let's all do this together. This is a scary new virus. At the end of 15 days, they're like, we're going to make it 30 more days. Where was any of the questioning from the media? It was crickets. They just were, let's keep going.

There were some, but yes, it was very few.

No. And that's a large part of my book was this sort of conjunction between the media and the health establishment and how the media, which normally supposed to be skeptical. And normally, particularly when you think of the liberal media, of which I used to count myself a part of. Where their entire thing here was, throughout time, what's a journalist's job?

It's to be skeptical of those in power. The government, the defense department, the church, all these large institutions, big businesses. Yet that evaporated. in the pandemic. So you had this circumstance where you had these bogus models that we were told, if you do these things, it's going to affect cases in such and such manner. And everyone's like, oh, that looks official.

It's from these fancy colleges. Deborah Burke, she's wearing a nice silk scarf. She looks like she's smart. I'll listen to her. She looks a school mommy. Yeah. Fauci is telling us this, you know, oh, we'll listen to them. But no one bothered to really investigate what was the underlying information? What was the underlying data that fed into these various models?

So I spend a lot of time on this and in the book. And what I believe that I show persuasively is that unfortunately, this all comes down to tribalism, that political tribalism. We had such an, and I shouldn't use past tense, had, we have such an acrimonious political environment in our country. And the fact of the matter is most of the legacy or, you know, prestige media outlets, uh,

are left-leaning, almost everyone there. Most of the people within public health also share that political persuasion. And what I show is that time and again, there's a zillion examples of this, that it was this sort of what I call like Newtonian physics. With every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. When Trump said... opened the schools, that was it.

He basically ensured that they would be closed.

And then- That's right. So the American Academy of Pediatrics comes out with this guidance early on saying, no matter what, let's get kids in school. And on top of that, they said, don't worry about six feet of distancing. If you can do it, great. But if you can't, let's just get the kids in school. This is the most important thing. It was unambiguous what they meant.

Shortly thereafter, Trump tweets in all caps with like a million exclamation points as is his way. Schools need to open in the fall. Within days, the American Academy of Pediatrics reversed its guidance. It was so stark. It was so crazy, the reversal that even NPR had reported on at the time. Gone was any mention of, you know, don't worry about distancing. That was out.

Gone was the idea of no matter what, get kids in school. That was out. Instead, the new statement was, listen to the experts. Oh, God. And On top of that, something that was missing in the earlier guidance, we need money and lots of it if you want to open these schools. And here's the last thing that's interesting about the revised statement.

It's not what's in the statement, but it's who authored the statement. And it wasn't the American Academy of Pediatrics by itself. It was co-authored with the two largest teachers unions in the country.

I think public health and the media are the bigger villains because ultimately the teachers unions couldn't have made this outlandish list of demands that they did in so many places without having the cover of the media and public health saying these things. And I recount all sorts of stuff in the book.

Had Anthony Fauci and everyone else within the public health establishment said, hold on, none of this stuff is true that they're demanding. I have a whole long section in there about these claims about needing HEPA filters and HVAC upgrades. No one was challenging that. And believe me,

Anthony Fauci was in front of a camera every single day, gave a zillion interviews, and tons of public health pundits. There was this one emergency medicine physician who I talk about in the book quite a bit.

She gave hundreds of interviews constantly on the speed dial at the New York Times and other places, even though she had no particular expertise in infectious diseases or any of these interventions. She was now an expert. She was on speed dial. None of these people... said a word that this is completely bogus.

And the most important part that I mentioned in the sort of chronology is that in late April and early May, many, many countries throughout Europe, 22 countries began to reopen their schools. Millions of children. We're not talking about like a little school somewhere in Tibet, you know, with 12 kids. Millions of children were going back to school in Europe.

And later that month in May, the education ministers met in the EU. And in that meeting, they announced, we have observed no negative impact from opening schools here. A month later, same meeting, same announcement. Here it is, yet another month later, we haven't observed any negative impact of opening schools, millions of children, 22 different countries.

No one in the American media reported on this. I did, ultimately. But when this initially happened, I was so astonished. I kept re-clicking the link for the video because I was like, how can this be? How is it possible that no media outlets? This wasn't in a blog. This wasn't some random or obscure medical journal. This is the meeting at the EU.

And they said millions of kids are back in school and nothing has happened. It's fine. This was ignored. To me, this is kind of one of the original sins that I point out that happened. Once we ignored that or waved it away, and we can go through this, Megan, the various excuses they gave. Well, that's Europe. That's different. That doesn't count.

And they gave this list of reasons which were all made up. None of them were real.

No one in Europe, or very few, this was not the norm. They didn't have HEPA filters in all their schools. I've spent enough time in Europe. I know people in Europe. The schools there are not all these glistening oasis of HEPA filtered air. Many kids weren't wearing masks.

In fact, the ECDC, that's like Europe's version of the CDC, recommended against kids in primary schools wearing masks, where in the U.S., they wanted kids as young as two years old to wear masks all day. They weren't doing distancing. In many instances, it was three feet or like what they would say, one meter or no distancing required at all.

A list of things that we kept being told by these public health experts. Well, don't don't look at Europe. It's almost like a magician. Look away. Don't look there. That's because and then they would list the things they controlled the They did all these things.

Right. I mean, one of the things, to your point, that's really important is this was so coded politically within our country that opening schools or wanting to go to work or go to the beach even or a child playing at a playground, that was coded as right wing. And to want to, you know, and it was virtuous and left wing if you stayed home.

Yes. Because those countries, which are far more progressive than the United States, they sent their kids back to school. And then you have other countries with more conservative governments where they were doing the reverse. There was no correlation between the political leaning of a particular government in their countries.

And with whether things were open or locked down, there was no correlation. So the idea, but in America, people were living within such a bubble of our own sort of world here that anyone who went against Trump was virtuous and anyone who agreed with him was this heartbreaker. horrible monster. What are you, some right-wing, you know, asshole? You're trying to do your own research?

So you had this situation that was so divisive in America. And again, it comes down to, we go back to that American Academy of Pediatrics reversal, where it was so clear that what was happening was this had to be a sort of reaction against Trump. And one of the things that I talk about in the book is that after I started writing my articles about

which were some of the only articles in sort of what we might consider legacy media or mainstream.

It was like, I'm actually getting value out of New York Magazine. Later in The Atlantic and other places. Right. And in Wired, which is, you know, ostensibly nonpolitical.

Right. So, okay. Somehow I managed to get my contrarian pieces in these publications. And people have asked me why and how did that happen? Because I've had other journalists who sort of shared some of my views. How did you do it? I said, because I provided evidence. Like, I think that's what it comes down to. But...

One of the things that I talk about is once these articles started coming out, I started getting emails from doctors around the country and regular people too, and former CDC officials. And these were doctors, not just necessarily some random pediatrician in a suburb somewhere. We're talking about people at elite university hospitals, at some of our top institutions.

And they would write me and say, I want you to know I agree with you. I think what's going on is crazy. There's no evidence of closing schools is going to be beneficial. This is terrible. Having little, you know, toddlers wearing masks, whatever it was. He said, I want to agree with you, but this all has to be off the record. I can't talk about it publicly. And I was like, why?

How is this happening? Because one, they knew. The environment was so clear. People aren't stupid that they self-censored. And number two, they were overtly censored. Many people were admonished by their superiors. Some administrator at the hospital saying, don't ever talk about this again. And I have a couple stories of that where people spoke out. So there was this environment overtly

where no one, no one could be seen, including, you know, a university hospital as an institution, none of them could be seen as agreeing with Trump.

I was there with Jay.

Oh yeah. You can do that to me from Harvard, Stanford and Oxford. Oh. If they're maligned, if they're called fringe, I don't stand a chance against this. So there was no way that. And look, I'm sympathetic toward if this is someone how they're making their living, you know, taking care of their family. They've spent the last 20 years studying in order to work in medicine.

I'm somewhat sympathetic to the idea that they didn't want to get fired.

And NIH more broadly. That's right. When you control the purse strings. But I would say, Megan, even beyond any sort of explicit thread of withholding funding, people were social creatures. And most people...

are not really inclined to be in the out group, and I talk about this in the book, is that if you think about medicine, it self-selects generally for a certain type of person, a really hard worker, someone who's smart. These are great traits in a doctor, hard worker and smart, but it also selects for rule followers. It doesn't select for iconoclasts.

You go in, you do your residency, you have to listen to the attending. You're not going to start challenging them. They got there by following the rules. These are people who their general nature is not to be an outcast. So they don't want to be cast out of that social group. And I would argue the same thing is within the sort of prestige media outlets. How do you get to the New York Times?

Well, you got straight A's in school growing up. Then you went to Brown. Then maybe you went to Columbia Journalism School. And now you're at the Times. I'm not saying every reporter there is like this. There certainly are plenty who are excellent reporters important independent work there.

But nevertheless, the broader type of person who gets into an institution like that is the same type of person who's going to get into Columbia University Medical Center and these types of places. It self-selects for people who got to where they are, became successful by being part of an in-group. So you have these two institutions, health and

and media that were controlling the narrative within our country, yet the people within those institutions were a certain type of personality. And I'm not saying this was nefarious even. This is just kind of a human nature. And then you had the small group of them who were coming to me off the record saying, hey, I don't like what's going on. This is wrong, but I can't say anything about it.

So it's really important for people listening and watching this program to understand, and hopefully they'll read my book and get a deeper understanding.

Hopefully they'll have an understanding of how, what I try to show is how narratives get created. It's sort of like, how do the gears turn within our society? It's almost like Plato's cave. Who's looking at the shadows? Who's creating those shadows? How do you actually get out of the cave? A lot of the book is about evidence. That's the way that we really can arm ourselves to be aware.

It's sort of like a media literacy that you can even bring to your doctor. I suspect you, Megan, when you go to the doctor, they're not like, here's what you need to do. You're like, yes, doctor. Not anymore. Right, this isn't 1955 where you just do what people say. And this doesn't mean that we should ignore what quote experts say.

It doesn't mean that we should dismiss it out of hand, but it does mean that you should bring your own skepticism with you and you need to think about evidence. Ultimately, my book really, I think it's about kind of what we might call like epistemology. It's like, how do you know what is true? How do you know that this thing is true? And over and over again,

in our country, and we still do this now and it's every topic under the sun, but when I show what happened in the pandemic with such horrible consequence, is that the experts repeatedly told us things without providing any evidence behind what they were telling us, and then the media regurgitated this same information without providing evidence.

And within philosophy, that's called what's known as a logical fallacy. This is it's an argument from authority. Just because a person is saying something doesn't mean it's true. And they never pushed back and said, well, wait a minute. I know you're saying that they need HEPA filters and we can't open a school until they get the HEPA filter. What's the evidence behind this claim?

What is the evidence for this? No one bothered to push back.

I think one of the most important and remarkable things that happened in the pandemic that we need to reckon with as a society is that this was one of the most classist, class-based policy endeavors that had ever occurred in America. It's quite remarkable. The people who made the rules coincidentally fared the best during the pandemic. So you have what people today might call the laptop class.

Who do you think works at the CDC, the NIH? Who are these people on television and working at these elite media outlets? By and large, these people are making six-figure salaries or seven-figure. Their lives are very different from the people, millions and millions of people in our country who their policies and their guidelines were affecting.

And that includes, I mean, there were kids who were sitting in a parking lot of a Taco Bell to try to get a Wi-Fi signal so they could do their fake remote learning. There are children who are in homes that are unsafe. One of the crazy things that happened was there was a drop in claims of child abuse early on. And you might think, oh, that's great. Child abuse went down. It's so heartbreaking.

What they found was it's not that it went down. It's that teachers and educators are the most important line of defense for a child who is in danger at home. Now those kids had no one to talk to, and some of them were left home with a monster. Yeah. You had kids who didn't have their final year there. This was their chance to get into college. Maybe they were a football player.

Maybe there was someone who was a wonderful actor or an artist. All of those things were canceled. You're not going to get recruited for the football season to play in a college and get recruited there if there is no season. So all these things were happening to kids around the country.

And I haven't even mentioned learning loss, which obviously is the most overt that people rightfully so are continuing to talk about. There are so many things that we're affecting, and it's not a small number, millions and millions of kids, including we can touch on kids who have learning disabilities. And it's something like 7 million of them, I think.

get an IEP, which is like a special program that they're required to get by law. And some of these things require them to have physical therapy. You can't do that through a computer screen. Children with severe autism, children with all sorts of physical and variety of neurological challenges and disabilities. These kids, unless you lived in a very wealthy family,

They were screwed and they still haven't come back from this.

Like the TikTok videos of everyone.

I think, yeah, I don't know what's in the mind of all the teachers. Some of them definitely appear to have taken advantage. Others, I think, genuinely were frightened by a media that, you know, if it bleeds, it leads. And I talk about this in the book. The American media was unique in its dialing the knob up to 11. for hysteria over this.

And there was some research out of Dartmouth where they sort of do like a content, like tone analysis. And the US was off the charts in the way we covered this phenomena that was happening. Whereas, and I talk about this, there was an article in the New York Times that came out on the very, that was like hysterical about if schools open, this is what could happen. And there's like...

flames practically shooting out of the screen if you're reading the article. On the very same day, an article came out in what's known as the BMJ. It's the British Medical Journal. And the title was something like, kids are not super spreaders, open the schools.

The dichotomy on this one day of these two articles couldn't be more stark and more emblematic of the difference of how we were experiencing the pandemic here in America versus other places. This It's not to say that they were flawless outside the United States, but there was something uniquely hysterical about the response in America.

We are a country that was ill-equipped to function under duress. And I understand why... people felt that Trump had poisoned the well to such a degree that, that ultimately they had to react in this manner. But those are reasons, not excuses.

That is not like the idea that someone, he was so odious to them, such TDS, as you were saying that it didn't, I mean, Trump could say, I love puppies and vanilla ice cream. And they would say, I hate puppies. I hate vanilla. It didn't matter. So there was such an environment created that all of these people were terrified.

Only a very small portion had the courage, like Martin Kulldorff and others, to come out and say, you know what? Trump is right. He's right on something. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, even if you disagree with him on everything. But they couldn't do it. The media just couldn't bring itself to possibly agree with

this man, even on something that he was so clearly right that millions of kids in school in Europe, it didn't matter.

They can't let it go. And the idea that they were misled, but your job as a journalist is to ask questions.

to not allow to simply quote an expert, so to speak, an expert on something without asking, well, wait, what's the evidence behind that claim? Or if you don't ask them, then go report it out yourself and dig into it. And that's what I started doing from the beginning. I was like, I thought it was so strange. We kept being told all these things. School is dangerous.

The kids, they might spread it to everyone. And all these various claims. I'm like, wait a minute, is that true? And I couldn't speak to people in the United States. So I started talking to experts in Europe. And I'm like, let me find someone, anyone who knows what's going on. And I was like, well, wait a minute. This is all bullshit. Everything they're saying is made up.

I know there might be some listeners or viewers who are thinking that I'm overstating things. They might think that this is hyperbole. I'm telling you, if you read the book, it's deeply destabilizing. But I hope also really instructive to see how... wildly off so much of the information we were given was. And it's easy for the media to make these claims.

Trump said plenty of crazy things himself where he, oh, the virus is just going to go away. And they misquoted him about the bleach thing and whatever else. There are plenty of crazy things. It's not hard to find something from Trump or from QAnon or whatever. And that's where the media kind of dug its hooks in. Mm-hmm.

But what no one was doing was looking, of course, with the mirror at themselves. And it's much more upsetting when the experts, I don't listen to QAnon. I don't take my guidance on how to conduct myself or what's happening. But I used to listen to the CDC. I used to listen to the NIH. And what I show is that these people deeply, deeply let us down.

Seasonality.

I had written one of the articles challenging one crazy rule or another, which all of my work, none of it's been retracted. As far as I'm aware, there's no giant corrections in any of them. This doesn't mean I don't make mistakes, but directionally, everything I wrote was true. And one of the articles, I remember my wife was talking with a friend of hers about it. And I think at this point I'd,

started writing for the free press, or maybe it was on my own sub stack, but I had written for the Atlantic and the New York times and New York, plenty of these types of contrarian pieces. And she said, well, where's the article? Where's it coming out? And my wife said, it may have been my, my sub stack or the free bet. She said, well, if it's not in the Atlantic, then I don't believe it.

And she said, but it's David, you, you know him, he's the same reporter. He wrote other things. And she was like, yeah, I'm not interested. It's not. So to have that like imprimatur of these certain institutions meant everything.

And, and this, the problem is the idea that like most, I think regular people, at least some of them are on particularly on the left. So all these things are like, it made intuitive sense. It's like, well, of course, if you're closed schools, all those snot nose kids, that's going to help or mask. I think maybe having something in front of my face might.

The problem is, and I give all these crazy examples through history, our intuitions are often wrong. And that happens especially within medicine. That's why we need randomized studies. That's why we need actual, like a structured, what's known as evidence-based medicine. But instead, during the pandemic, over and over...

We were just told it's basic physics that masks work, but that's not how human beings work. A child might pull it off. It doesn't stay glued to your face. They were using studies done on mannequins where the masks were glued to their face. And this is the stuff that the CDC and other people were citing as evidence that everyone needs to wear a mask.

Our intuitions are wrong all the time, but yet we didn't actually look at science. We were told we're just following the science. There was no following the

I mean, I was, I believe, the first journalist in a mainstream publication to interview Dror Mavorak, who was the Israeli physician who initially found the signal of myocarditis in young males. And, you know, again, this is just completely radioactive. It doesn't mean that the vaccines weren't necessarily beneficial for old people and those who are vulnerable. I'm not making that statement.

I'm not talking about that one way or the other. What is true... is that there is this effect from the vaccine, particularly for young males, not exclusively to them, but they were affected far more than any other group. And there's reasons for that we don't need to get into. And this was essentially ignored and kind of like buried by the CDC when the signal came out. And I give examples of that.

I mean, the thing that's interesting is setting that aside, how these sort of danger signals were buried. Teachers were prioritized for vaccines in much of the country in many locations, yet they still didn't go back to school in many locations even after that. So they were put ahead of sometimes more vulnerable people. And you can look this up. This isn't me making this up.

This isn't a conspiracy theory. You can see the different levels of sort of priority that the CDC and various health governing bodies put out. They prioritize teachers in many locations. Okay, I got it. You want to be protected? And they still didn't go back to school.

But meanwhile, and this goes back to what we talked about in the very beginning, how class-based the whole entire pandemic response was.

So there's that. I don't... I don't suggest that there was criminal behavior. I don't know enough about, you know, those angles. What I would say is Fauci was sort of the figurehead. He was the face of the response in our country. And Anthony Fauci, along with many, many others,

overstated evidence over and over again and they said kids couldn't go back to school until it was safe with a contrived list of reasons and that there was never any support behind them and not only was there not support for them we had an enormous amount of evidence right across the atlantic showing millions of children in school without consequence without doing any of this stuff he

Deport all undocumented immigrants. Voters favoring the government trying to deport all 11 million of them. Back in 2016, just 38 percent of voters wanted the government to try to deport all 11 million undocumented immigrants. Compare it to where we are in 2025. Fifth. 56 percent, the majority, the American people have come a long way on this issue, much closer to Donald Trump.

And I think that's a big part of the reason why Americans are increasingly saying the country is on the right track when it comes to immigration policy and why Donald Trump's net approval rating on that issue is in the positive.