Buck’s First Thoughts - Our Liberty Is Under Threat

of conservatives gathered around me. And I'm very appreciated for all of those who come up to talk to me, who want to have a chat, tell me they're part of Team Buck. But for those of you across the country, we have some things to get to today, as well as a number of just excellent guests. It'll be kind of a surprise, a whole variety. You know, I rarely do a lot of guests here on the show, but today because so many of my favorite conservatives are gathered

to one place. I mean to be honest with you, we have so many people that want to come on the show. Our biggest problem is who can we allow on the show. Well, let's first jump into what is it exactly that is in peril right now? What is it that's at stake. This CEPAC is about conservatism uncanceled. But I think one thing that brings us all together is the recognition that no matter who you are, no matter where you are in the country, you two face

the threat of cancelation. It doesn't matter if you're a public person or not, it doesn't matter what you say. I've had the social media companies, some of the most powerful organizations corporations in the world, coming after me, censoring me, trying to deep platform and undermine a message that I

put my life into. I mean, I'm doing everything I can to bring the best information to the people who listen to this show every day, and yet Facebook and Twitter and others decide we don't like what you've said, or rather, we're going to outsource the decision about what you've said to somebody else. We're going to make determinations about this through a third party, which is even more troubling because now there's less accountability. They launder their censorship.

You see, that's the whole point. That's the decision that they're making for all the rest of us. And if you have an unpopular opinion right now, even if it's popular by the numbers, in America. But if you believe things that are outside the liberal orthodoxy, outside the liberal consensus, you find yourself subject to destruction in the public square.

Well actually defenestration in a sense, first being kicked out of the public square, and then perhaps also the annihilation of your ability to be considered a person in this country and good standing. Liberty is in greater peril right now in America than at any time in my life.

And you know, if you've been listening to this show for years, that when things were good with Donald Trump, when we were in twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen, I would stop and tell you all to smell the roses. I told you this country was as good as you were going to see it for a long time. That

was the truth. And I know a lot of you now appreciated it because I said, go out se see your family, you know, have a great cookout, see your buddies, have some drinks in celebration, or however you celebrate, because enjoy the good times. So I tell you the truth about where we are in the country. You know that I'm not a catastrophist. I don't run around saying how awful. Everything is all the time so I can get attention.

And I'm here telling you that liberty is under greater threat right now in America than at any time in my lifetime, including after nine to eleven. Remember we had a Republican president after nine to eleven, but there was that threat of overreach. There was that considerable concern that they would go too far. And now we see already with the schism within the Republican Party, the possibility of

the military industrial complex trying to make a comeback. But that's a conversation we'll continue to have here for the years to come, I can assure you. But liberty is under threat because the left believes that they can cancel Conservatism, that they can actually undermine and destroy us in a way where we will not be able to come back. And their version of this is not that we all go away. It's that we change what we say. It's that we no longer have the beliefs that we hold dear.

We moderate them, we shift them. They're able to move the realm of acceptable conversation to something that's much more to their liking. This alone is catastrophic for us because once they can force you to bend the knee. Then they can force you to start to mouth the preferred slogans, to say the things that you know are untrue, but that if you don't say them, you can be destroyed. And that brings me to the extreme Equality Act as

I'm calling it. Now. Let me first say one of the central tenets of this show has always been and will always be, to treat people, all people, with dignity and decency, our fellow human beings. There is a love of your fellow human beings, as people made in the eye of God. There's a love that you must have to be a true Conservative, and it must extend, of course,

without any reference to a person's sexuality, ethnicity, religion. You must love your fellow human beings, or else you are failing as a conservative, because our whole constitution, the natural law that it is rooted in, the universal and endless truth that is rooted in, are undermined without that love,

without that sense of commonality and understanding. On this bill, though assessing this purely from a policy perspective, there are real there are real areas of concern, and I know that because they say it's an LGBTQ bill, we are all supposed to view this as an extension of the Civil Rights Act, but what it is actually doing to women's sports, what it actually would do to separation of the sexes, is both very concerning. I'm still also an open question. We have to find more of what's really

going to happen here. I want to share with you now. Now the Democrats in the House have already passed this bill, but I want to share with you what Senator rand Paul, who is an MD himself, which I like to note because people say, oh, what does he know about science? Well, he went to medical school and it's been a practicing

doctor for decades. He was speaking to Rachel Levine, supposed to be a senior HHS official, and he asked Rachel Levine about what the full scope and scale of the Equality Act would be for children, for teenagers when it comes to policy, now, federal government policy around transgender issues. Here is how that exchange went. Let it go into the record that the witness refused to answer the question. The question is a very specific one. Should minors be

making these momentous decisions? From most of the history of medicine, we wouldn't let you have a cut sewn up in the er. But you're willing to let a minor take things that prevent their puberty, and you think they get that back. You give a woman testosterone enough that she grows up beard, you think she's gonna go back looking like a woman. When you stop the testosterone, you have permanently changed them infertilities of another problem. None of these

drugs have been approved for this. They're all being used off label. I find it ironic that the left that went nuts over a hydroxy chloric when being used possibly for COVID are not alarmed that these hormones are being used off label. There's no long term studies. We don't know what happens to them. We do know that there are dozens and dozens of people been through this who regret that this happening, and a permanent change happened to them.

And you know, if you've ever been around children, fourteen year olds can't make this decision. In the gender dysphoria clinic in England, ten percent of the kids are between the age of three and ten. We should be outraged that someone's talking to a three year old about changing their sex. I can't thank you so much, Senator Levine.

Thank you for Levine's response, which we could also play for you, but I can just tell you what it was was to say that there's a lot of complexity here, that there's a lot of stuff that you have to think about, a lot of considerations that you have to have, and wouldn't actually say anything, wouldn't actually speak to what was going on, wouldn't give an answer to the question at all should children be allowed to have full gender transition as part of what they can do without parental consent,

without any change whatsoever. Should children be able to do that? The answer from somebody who'll be a top public health official and the Biden administration is it's really complicated. I

don't think it's really complicated. I think that we need to have a much more honest discussion about the fact that the very medical procedures, the science that they're advocating for here doesn't have any long term studies, that it's all being made up really on the fly, and there's tremendous damage, there's tremendous risk from all of this, and that we need to be much more serious as a

country about the risks we're putting children through. Because of what the activists class and the extreme left wants to achieve. And that's just one example here. We can talk about what it does to sports, we can talk about what it does in schools and a separation of the sexes. But let's be very very clear here. The reality of what we are seeing from this Biden administration is a left wing, far progressive Biden administration that is nothing like

what we were promised in the election cycle. And we knew it and we saw it coming. But how different would it really be if you had had a President Bernie Sanders at this point, or even a president AOC. Look at what they're doing, look at what they're focusing on. We need to understand the stakes here. Friends are high. You're in the freedom height. Thanks for listening to a Buck Sexton Show podcast to get the latest from Buck at buck sexton dot com. All right, I'm here at

sea pack. You probably get that sense. You can hear the many, many folks all around me, but I'm joined by the man himself. I think that's how we have to refer to you. I don't know if we call you the czar, you know, the we know you're the chairman, the old man from Yo man Matt slap of the American Conservative Union. He's the chairman of the ACU. He's here with me right now. Matt, thanks so much, Thanks Buck, thanks for being here. It's a lot to a lot of people. It is great and it's sunny and we

didn't close down. That's a big deal. Yeah. I got dragged to my first Sea pack by random friends. I think it was now almost fifteen years ago. I was a CIA officer and I was like, and they knew, they knew that I was a stealth conservative, you know, and they brought me in DC and I was like, this is awesome. So here I am not fifteen years later, actually presenting a sepac Buck Sexton, not hiding anymore. Yeah, you are what you are. Yeah, you can actually tell

people that you're patriotic, you love your country. Once you work in the federal government, you know, you know you got to keep that on the download sometimes from the libs that are lurking behind the sea. Well that's not true. If you work for HHS, they love you. But but you know, Bucks X and I have developed quite a close bond at Seapack. I held his phone yesterday. You seemed a little nervous as I had your phone. You

wondered where I was gonna go with that. You give them in your phone, you give them your life pretty much. So we got people that are all across the country list that they're gonna be watching the live stream. Matt, tell me this, what is what is uh this year? The thing that is setting the seapack apart? Well, I do think it's a big deal that the title is America uncanceled because we didn't say Conservatism uncanceled because I you know, yeah, I run a group that has conservative

in the title. But it's not really about being a conservative. It's like I don't believe in communism. I think Marxism is bad. Like our coalition could be so much bigger, Like you can disagree with this on all kinds of issues, but do you think like we should have constitution? How about that one? Right? Like there are on our side now, you know? So uh, And then they we physically were canceled.

We were told by the state of Maryland, which has a you know, one of these Republican governors who's not so good, is uh, it's not safe to do this, Like no matter how many masks you where, it's not safe. And just because I thought masks are highly effective and you have social distancing as we really are in masks as we do. A really good point. I thought it was supposed to be highly Not only is the mask

apparently not enough to make you safe. Now we're told that even when you get the vaccine, which I haven't gotten. My mother's gotten it and she's going to be here if parents got them the apparently that doesn't keep you safe because even when you get the vaccine, you have to stay locked into your freezer, your basement. Do you know when you're safe, Matt, it's actually when doctor Fauci says, yes,

that's actually the science. Actually you would have been safe is after he threw out that pop fly at the at the game at the Gnats. You would have been safe if you sat by him in the stands when he took off his mask. There you go. Yeah. And also not much of a heater or across home plate, let's be honest. So if you were getting hit by that one heater, that was a cooler, that was not a heater. Yeah. So I'm so glad to be down

here in Florida. You know, one of the things we talk about a lot on the show and we've got, you know, a number of big stations in Miami and Tampa and elsewhere across the state. One of the things that we discuss is just what it's like to go from the unfree state of whatever, New York, California, to the free state of Florida. How much credit do you think Ronda Santist really deserves for this. I call him America's governor. He's great on opening up, he's great on

using common sense. On covid or Corona. He doesn't like say it doesn't exist or it's a Matthew says, no, it's real. But think about Florida. He's got an aged population because it's a place where people come to retire. He's got better numbers than all the governors who shut things down. I said on the stage a few moments ago that some of his colleagues got an Emmy for acting. He deserves the people Choice People's Choice Award because he's

just conservatism. Even if you don't like the word constitutionalism, Americanism is just common sense. That's really what it comes down to. You get to make your decisions. If you make bad decisions, you're probably gonna have a crappy life and then don't turn to me to fix all your problems. So the only other person that could also be referred to perhaps as the big guy or you know, the chief or whatever that's a seapack would be here on Sunday.

I believe, Yeah, I thought that, mister Donald Trump. Right, It's it's either it's either mister Schlab or mister Trump. That's the way it goes at seapack. So Trump's gonna be here. What are we expecting him to say? I know, we don't know, and no one knows until the words actually come out of his mouth. But what are you thinking? You know? I think it's interesting. I think he's trying to figure out, like what his political role is, you know, how he's gonna do endorsements, How does he play this

game as a former president. I talk to someone who's a close intimate of his. I won't I won't say who he or she is, but I do think everyone who's had interactions with him he's really at peace. He seems like a happy guy, maybe even a happier guy. You know, he's a little a few steps removed from like this constant attacking that would happen. And and I expect that to come through, just like he's he's at

ease with the situation. I think the left believes that he's like a bad evil, almost demonic person when they don't believe in the devil, but a bad evil guy. And he doesn't recycle, so that means yeah, And he doesn't have a fake dog, so that that too. But they really do think that, like he's a devious person. And you know, people are a combination of virtue's and vices. They're a cocktail of interesting things. And there's so much good and decent and wonderful about the guy. He's such

a great guy. Everybody would love to have a beer. He of course wouldn't because he doesn't drink with him. And so I think that's gonna come through on the stage. I think you and I talked about this. Conservatives don't overly emotionalize, We don't think with our passions by and large, but I do think this is a kind of an emotional moment. They silenced the man. It's it's disgusting, it's outrageous, and he's gonna be unplugged. And I think that's gonna

be a really important moment. Yeah, because of the Twitter band and the other social media platforms that have taken the former leader of the free world and said that you don't have access to the digital public square. This will be the first. While the Ayatola can have his. Of course, terrorists can have theirs, and Black Lives Matter can have theirs, and all these people get to have theirs who are who have done terrible things, but this

president can. And do you think it's fair to say, as we're having sepac here, that free speech is under the greatest threat in your lifetime? I always say in my lifetime, but I can't speak for others right now in this country. And do you also feel like liberty is in more duress? Yeah? I just talked to Senator Langford who gave great remarks on think about this. How crazy is it that the Abraham Accords, this great accomplishment

of President Trump. These Muslim countries agreed to have religious freedom in their countries as a part of those accords, while the United States Senate and the United States House is literally taking away our religious freedoms in this Equality Act. It literally says, specifically, you can't use your faith or anything to do with your faith as a reason not to be compelled by the government has never happened in this country. Matt, thanks so much for putting this all together.

Thanks for being here, well here working folks who are curious to be able to watch this on a stream or on YouTube, well you can go to our website at conservative dot org. That's the best place to go. But I'll be honest with you, Buck, we've had some issues already. I hope the center holds and that conservatives when they come together and liberals. We talked about Alex Barnson being here, formerly of the New York Times. Everyone

should be able to speak on that stage. And if any of these companies throttle us, stop us, cancel us, there is going to be hell to pay. And that is what's going to rip this country apart. In the end. It'll be these people with power from the left who say that conservatives must be silenced. They will rip America apart and it'll be irrevocably. And so let's hope that the center holds and they do the right thing. Matt Lap Chairman of the ACU. Matt goodness, Buck talk to

you on stage. You're listening to the Buck Sexton Shoe podcast. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast on the iHeart radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm at Seedpack. But China is on a lot of people's minds given the challenge they post the United States and what it means for our economy, for national security. I'm gonna be on a panel talking about the Russian I'm actually speaking abot the Russian side of it, and Chinese cyber threats

and big tech threats to the US. What I've got the man himself here to talk to us about what's going on with China in all regards. Gordon Chang is with us and he is the author of the Great US US China Tech War. Gordon is always good to see you. Thank you so much, Buck and Gordon G. Chang is his Twitter folks, You should follow him and

read his latest research and analysis on these topics. Gordon, what is right now for the Biden administration The biggest challenge that they have with China that you're worried they're gonna fail, Well, probably it's gonna be the South China. See in Taiwan. You remember on January twenty three, China's H six K bombers. They're nuclear capable. While they were threatening Taiwan by going through its air defense identification zone. They also simulated an attack on the Theodore Roosevelt Carrier

Strike Group, which was in the vicinity. So that was a message not only to Taipei, but certainly an extremely pointed message to the Biden administration. Now, if somebody asks you to gauge the biggest challenge we have from China on the cyber front, something that's getting talked about a bit here at CEPAC, how do you view that Going from the US perspective right now, I think the problem is,

you know, China's cyber criminals. I get that, But the most the biggest threat is that we're not defending ourselves. This is our country. We know that they've been doing this for decades. We don't do enough about it, and so it's really I think a problem of American inability to defend our own networks. Just give you one example, and this is the one that really sticks in my

craw and this goes back to twenty fourteen. That was the time of the cyber attack on Sony Pitchers Entertainment obviously came from North Korea, but those North Koreans were actually on Chinese soil. When they launched that attack, they were launched from Chinese IP addresses. Now, the FBI at the time was asked, is any other country involved? The answer was no, that is just impossible because China maintains the Great Firewall. It is the world's most sophisticated set

of Internet controls. The Chinese knew, of course about the North Grand hackers, that they're permanently on Chinese soil, but they launched it went through the Great Firewall. They Chinese obviously saw it go out. They saw the hundreds of terabytes of data exfiltrated from Sony that came back into the China, and yet the FBI was saying no, no other country involved. That shows you this is a failure of the United States to defend our networks when the

f B I wasn't willing to tell the truth. Gordon, In terms of the tech race that we have right now with China, five g comes to mind. There are a number of areas. I mean, if the US is going to maintain its position as the global leader really in all senses, but but particularly in a commercial and economic sense, technology is absolutely critical. You mentioned that there's cyber that the Chinese Communist Party has a vast network of cyber theft going on has for a long time.

How far ahead are we when it comes to Chinese technology and where are areas where we may even be at risk of falling behind? Well, there are areas where we are behind, and we're years behind. So, for instance, quantum communications, the Chinese have it, we do not. And this is particularly galling because it was an American who discovered really the principles that that permit quantum communications, Albert Einstein. He talked about the spooky phenomena of particles at distances

moving in tandem that permits quantum communications. Yet the Chinese were able to develop this with a lot of resources and also bringing in a lot of foreign talent, and it's unhackable. So they've got it, we do not. You know, artificial intelligence, we probably are still ahead, maybe by a few years. Quantum computing where maybe ahead by a couple of years. But there are a lot of things where

you know, it's really very very close. How should we look at the changes that are already happening that you expect to happen, which in the US approach to China, I mean, I know there was this almost maniacal focus on Russia during the Trump administration. Now we're in the Bide administration, there seems to be a broader recognition because of the politics having shifted here that China is a much bigger concern challenge across the board for America than

Russia is. Russia still has stuff they can do, but China is a bigger concern. How is the Biden administration doing things differently so far? And where do you expect them to do even more things differently going forward? Well, we have as executive orders, and that tells us what he's been doing, and that is particularly distressing. So, for instance,

just a little background. May first, twenty twenty, President Trump issues an EO executive Order which says, no, you American utility or grid operator can buy equipment from China because it could be sabotaged. What does Biden do, first hours of his presidency on January twenty, he issues an executive order that repeals that prohibition. Now, I understand every administration wants to review the China policy of its predecessor, but leave the protections in place. What Biden did was indefensible.

It's leaving America vulnerable to sabotage. I can't explain why he would do that. Now we've seen also similar moves on the part of the Biden administration to take down Trump era protections, and so that gives you a sense, you know, trumpet Biden administration officials sometimes save some very good things music to the ears of people who are concerned about China. But we got to see what they were doing, and so far this is a big giveaway. And one more thing, Buck, I'm sorry, no, go forward.

What Biden did with regard to China and his executive orders were giveaways. They were unilateral decisions and actions. We didn't get anything in return. How do you think the Chinese economy is going to do? Given that they have seemed to at least try to get out of the get out of the lockdown situation faster than we have here in the US. That's at least been a goal.

Are you expecting China to go back to a year of major economic growth in part because they view this as an opportunity to get ahead of the US right to close that gap a little bit more coming out of COVID, Well, they certainly view it that way. In the Chinese state media and their friends say eight percent

growth for Beijing this year. That's really unlikely. And the reason is that no economy is going to do well unless a country has safe and effective vaccines and they've been able to put them into the arms of people. You know, we've got three vaccines now, Fiser, Maderna, and Johnson and Johnson, which was recently given FDA approval a couple of days ago. China doesn't have any vaccine that is both safe and proven to that has proven safe

and to be effective. There are vaccines, you know, have had trials of thirty five percent effective, you know, up ale to fifty percent effective, maybe some sixty five percent, but they haven't been proven safe and we haven't seen the data. And countries will only accept Chinese vaccines if they can't get Maderna, Johnson and Johnson. What is the what do we know at this stage about the Wuhan lab facility theory? Right? Where are we in that investigation?

Bring us into the COVID discussion here, what's the latest and what do we know about where this thing actually came from? Well, the World Health Organization mission to Wuhan, which wrapped up about two weeks ago, said that it was extremely unlikely that it was a lab leak. But also we also know that the Trump administration felt that it was the most credible likely source of the disease. You gotta remember just just put everything aside for the moment.

We know that the lab was looking at coronaviruses, we know that they were engineering to make them more dangerous. We know it wasn't endeering to safety protocols, and this virus just happens to start twenty miles from that lab. So I think it's certainly the most credible source, and there's a lot of more scientific evidence to shows that's

the case. What are you going to be looking for if you were if you were sitting on the other side of the chess board and looking to see two two, I should say get ahead of what Shijin Ping would like to do. Would like to accomplish visa VUS policy in the next two years. He wants to overthrow our government. Whether he can do that this year or next year, or maybe five years down the road, that's what he's

trying to do. You have to look at what he's doing to incite violence on American streets, which is what China did last year and what China did in January of this year. Gordon Chang. Everybody follow him Gordon g. Chang dot com. Also on Twitter Gordon g. Chang, and you can check out the Great US China Tech War. Gordon. I always appreciate it. Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you so much. Buck, You're in the Freedom Height. Thanks for listening to the Buck Sexton Show podcast. Get

the latest from Bucket buck Sexton dot com. All right here at SEPAK with Senator Mike Lee of the Great State of Utah, Sally. Good to see. It's been a while. Good to see. So I am angry about something that's going on in America right now. I want to ask you about looks. I'm hoping you're going to try to help fix them. I believe that's part that's part of your job, part of your mandate. Right in the Senate,

I want to start with big tech. The suppression of ideas and speech that's going on right now is unlike anything we've ever seen before in this country. Big tech is now effectively acting as an arm of the DNC. You're trying to deal with the legislative side of this. You get a lot of pushback from people saying you're either not doing it the right way or not doing enough. You're telling me you have a bill right now to deal with big tech. How do we tackle this giant

so that we have free speech again in America. We tackle it by identifying what the problem is. We've had at the outset some challenge and the fact that when government acts to restrict free speech, we've got one set of tools, the First Amendment tools when a non government actor does it, ironically, it's the same thing, the First

Amendment that serves as a tool against that. But the way we should address this is by recognizing that, well, anyone has the power to start a company, start a business and be liberal hacks, be liberal shills, you know, to do whatever they want to get their message out there. They can do that if they won't. But what they can't do is defraud people in the process of doing it, deceive people into thinking they're offering one service when they're

in fact offering another. The bill I have introduced recently in the Senate, it's called the Promise Act, would give the Federal Trade Commission the authority to pursue aggressive enforcement action against any online provider, including an especially social media companies who say one thing about their content moderation policies, say one thing on their policies themselves or through their CEOs, who say, oh, we're not going to tip the political

scales one way or another, and then do the opposite, where they facilitate leftist speech but they suppress and deep platform conservative speech. That's what's been happening. Would that open up, then the lawsuits that seem to be necessary to get these big tech companies to stop the obvious suppression of some ideas they don't like me. What would be actions?

What would be the teeth in the bill? Okay, so the action would be an order from the Federal Trade Commission, which would then have the power to issue heavy fines and otherwise punish companies that do this. There was another proposal that we considered a few months ago that I still think has some potential of we could get enough votes on it that we were working on the Senate Judiciary Committee on which I sit. It would itself open up a private right of action for aggrieved persons against

some of these individuals. This bill deals with it from the government end, and it gives the government the enforcement authority to go after companies that deceive there would be customers. What about Section two thirty in all of this, it got a lot of attention in the last year of Trump's presidency. Obviously Democrats aren't talking about it a lot

right now, what's your position now on it? And would it be enough or would it be wise even to remove Section to thirty protection from these companies so that forever when listening. This is the publisher versus platform dichotomy that's allowed them to, as people say, have their cake and eat it two on this issue where they're not liable for pretty much anything posted on their sites, which is understandable because third parties have to be able use

them and interact with them. But then they also decide, well, we're going to actually act as publisher in an editorial sense as well. Yeah, so how do you view this?

We don't want them to have their cake and eat it two, and I think significant reform to two thirty is necessary, and that's one of the things that we were undertaking in the Judiciary Committee last year, where we cobbled together various reforms to make them actually accountable under it, and in some cases even to subject them to civil liability.

A third party and not just by government. If they want to have this advantage to operate online, they need to be clear about what their policies are, and they need to be honest and consistent and not political hacks about how they dispense with it. We do have a unique feature today in that most people on any given day might well get substantial share or even a majority, of their information from some online source. Many of them

get it almost exclusively through social media. A small handful of individuals are now sort of imbued with the power to decide what information people get access to in which they don't. This came to a head and I had a moment of real alarm. Starting in September and October, as we got closer to the November election, we saw even more aggressive, blatant action by these They suppressed the New York Post story about Hunter Biden's last for example,

on Twitter. I mean that is clear. That's really effectively an incon donation to the Democrats in an election cycle from Twitter. Likewise, with Facebook, with the American Principles Project advertisement that was revoked taken down from their website because it went after Joe Biden and went after one of the Democrats in the Senate based on a piece of legislation that they support, and Facebook took it down, saying we had to take it down because it lacked context.

I asked them, in what respect does that differentiate it from any other political advertisement, or for that matter, any other advertisement at all. When Cooke runs an ad, are you gonna say it lacks context because in that same ad there wasn't a line about pepsi or about some

other beverage. Now you wouldn't do that. I later sat through two hearings with Jack Dorrissey of Twitter and with Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, and I asked them about these questions, and they said, well, look, we've got Democrats unhappy with us and Republicans so we're even handed, so we're all good. And I said, no, no no, no, no, you're not understanding me. Everyone can rattle of five, ten, fifteen, twenty examples of conservative interests or candidates or individuals who have been deep

platformed or whose speech has been suppressed. Can you name me one corresponding example on the left? Even one? They couldn't. Yeah, it's very clear that this is ideologically motivated, and anybody who knows people as I do who work in some of these Silicon Valley giants will tell you that the

wokeness has really overtaken it. I mean, they're even people that under stand that this might not be long term and long term smart for their business model, are afraid of getting mobbed by the by the PC police inside their own institution. We're speaking to Senator Mike Lee of Utah for everybody who's joining us at Senator Lee, at the state level, I know you're you're handlings at the federal level, but you're also men who understands the law

and the constitutionality of these issues. Is there much that Utah, perhaps Texas, other states can do to deal with this? I know, I know Governor DeSantis of Florida had said that he's trying to provide state level protections. How do

you see their role in this? Because while you're in the Senate right now, as we know, the Democrats have a day facto majorities, you have to you might have to wait a little while before this bill can get through that you're proposing, what can states do to protect people so that they actually have free speech rights in the digital public square? Okay, So, first and foremost, it's at the state level, where most law enforcement should happen,

rather than at the federal government. We can't ever allow it to be constant traded so much at the federal level that states don't have authority. It is also worth pointing out here that when someone is defrauded within their own state, when someone is lured in with one set of promises, it turns out to be false as can as can be the case with digital online service providers of one sort or another, including social media companies, that can also be a state offense. Yeah. In fact, most

criminal offenses, most nearly all torts our state offenses. So if we analogize this to a state tort of some sort of deceptive trade practice, yeah, that ought to be something that states can and should enforce on their own, independently of anything Congress is able to put in place. I want to pose to you something, just a general question.

I want your reaction to it. The statement that the constitution and individual liberty seem to be under more direst more threat for the last twelve months in this country, basically since the start of the pandemic than in living memory. What do you think of that? And why haven't courts stepped up. Why hasn't there been more of an effort to restore liberty, whether it's religious freedom, whether it's freedom of assembly, areas where there's a clear constitutional violation and

overreached by these lockdown policies. It's because this effort has arisen during an emergency. And this is one thing that we've got to be clear about every single time we talk. There is no country on earth that has moved in a socialistic direction or towards any type of totalitarian regime in the absence of a purported emergency. The existence of an emergency, including a global pandemic, is not a reason

to disregard the protections of the Constitution. It's quite to the contrary, are a reason to be more vigilant about them than we ever have been. People have assumed that it's somehow okay to restrict the freedom of assembly during the pandemic. People can choose to do that if they want, and they may want to consider that for one or more healthful reasons that they may have. That always has to be up to the individual or to the organization

in the private sphere. My reading of the Constitution, my reading of that portion of the First amendment says that that's not an option for the government. We should never let it be. Senator mike lea Utah, appreciate you coming by. Thanks so much for joining us today. Thank you, Buck. This is bucks first thoughts the news you need to get through your day in forty five minutes. Make sure you subscribe on the iHeart app or wherever you get your podcasts. The man himself live and in person for

the first time here on the Buck Sexton Show. We got Alex Barrenson, author of several books on Amazon of unreported truths about COVID nineteen. Also, please go by his latest thriller novel you support his work on COVID nineteen truth go by The Power Couple or one of his other excellent spy thrillers. Alex good to see in person, minut Buck. It's nice to media face. Yeah, how are

we doing here? Man? It feels to me like we're not We're not learning the lessons we need to about COVID and now we're really descending into crazy town with even after the vaccine, things have to stay the same. Yes, I mean, why is that? And if we are, you know, close to herd immunity, which By the way, that was a phrase you were not allowed to use in the media until Joe Biden became the president. It was, you know,

equivalent to saying that Grandma was going to die. Now, you know, people are acknowledging that perhaps one hundred million, perhaps one hundred and fifty million Americans have already been infected and recovered from this. The official count is way low, and yet somehow nothing is going to change. I don't I don't understand the public health logic of it. I don't understand the political logic of it, and I don't

understand why people are putting up with it. I have to wonder, at what point does it become clear you think to everybody that the answer to the question we get to try to achieve normalcy Again. First of all, they're tending that they don't know what normal is. Now I'm sure you've seen that what is normal really and so normal has has has shifted as a term. But beyond that, we can stop wearing masks. When Fauci says so that really seems to be the actual policy, I'm

being serious. Yeah, I mean, who who died and made him king? Um? You know this is always one of the signal mistakes we made at the beginning here was giving public that public health establishment much too much power their technicians. Okay, their job is to present various courses of action. Here's what it might look like if you shut down, Here's what it might look like if you if you stay the course. And here's what beds we

might need. And for our leaders, whose job it is to represent the interests of everybody, not just people who might get very sick from COVID, but children who might be affected by school closures, business owners, these are these are decisions that shouldn't be left to the public health establishment any more than the question of whether or not to drop the atomic bomb on Japan and nineteen forty five should have been left to Robert Oppenheimer. Right, Truman

made that decision. That's a that's a political choice based on balancing various needs. Instead, we anointed you know, Anthony Faucci, a bureaucrat, really a mid to upper level bureaucrat, as our boss. And guess what he likes it and does not? Is there no hurry to give back this power? Now? How would you assess how the Biden administration has acted since taking taking the White House and taking over after

the inauguration. On COVID policy so far, I mean, how do you score them based on what we've actually seen? What have they done? They you know that they they've supposedly improved vaccine distribution, the results of which you know, basically that's a state level issue. Anyway, They've now said they're going to send twenty five million masks to you know, people who live in senior homes, and they keep every day they come out with a new warning. You know,

today things are terrible, Tomorrow things will be great. The next day things will be terrible again. Their messaging has been sort of completely inconsistent. And on schools, which to me is the most important issue of all, they have not really stood up to the teachers unions in any meaningful way. They have this, they have this sort of you know, roadmap to open schools, which would actually result, if it were followed closely, in schools being closed. Okay,

in Florida's schools are open right now. Florida would have to close many of those schools if it followed the roadmap. It doesn't even seem like there's an argument when you're talking about whether schools should be open or not. There are schools opens many that they are fine. That's there's no problems. So what are we even talking about? What are we what? How is there even a conversation about schools not being open in New York? They're talking about

where in person learning will be next fall. That's right, it's what are we talking about. We're talking about a bunch of frightened teachers, unfortunately, who are being led by a bunch of the most cynical union leaders in history, and who I guess see this as a chance to, you know, chisel out some more concessions. And meanwhile they're look, I don't understand it. If, unfortunately, schooling is not you know, Unfortunately, unfortunately, schooling is mostly a local issues, so this battle has

to be fought locally over and over again. But if it were a national level issue, and if you know, anybody reasonable, we're in charge the responsibility. We are opening all our schools, not K through five, not K through eight. We are opening all our schools. And if you don't want to teach, that's fine. You don't have to show up for work. You'll be fired. That's what should happen,

and unfortunately it has not happened. Why should grocery store workers and people delivering the mail and I just went to the DMV, for heaven's sakes in New York. Why shouldn't they have to show up for their jobs? And many of them have been doing it really from the beginnings, right, But teachers don't. Don't. I don't understand that. I don't understand it either. It's yeah, it makes you wonder if they can really keep the title essential for those teachers

that refuse to go and teach. And why should teachers in all almost every other country be showing up for work? You know, in France, okay, France has strong unions. They like to strike, and they like to strike. The teachers knew that in person's schooling was important and they insisted on it. And the French schools are open, you know, come the false surge, the schools stayed open. Our schools should be open. Are people reaching out to you now

in back channel? Who we're you know, we're either very critical in the beginning. I mean, if I if on the scale of heat for one's COVID beliefs, you know, if we're on like a ten point scale, I think I get like a six you're in a nine point

five right about twenty eighth. You're way off at the top of the scale of the heat you get for telling people things that you always do back up with research in facts that we're speaking Alex Parentson and folks get his book The Power Couple, but also unreported Truths about COVID power couples a novel. But support people who are doing good work on issues where they're getting a lot of pushback. Are people starting to say, finally, you

know what, you actually were right about this? Not so much that it's not that those people, those people will never admit they're wrong. What I am hearing about is physicians, a lot of physicians, a lot of scientists saying, you know, I had you know, I've done some research and I'm sort of afraid to share it anywhere else. Can you publish this for me? You know, there's something it could be in sort of several different domains that has happened recently.

And on the one hand, that's great for me as a journalist that you know, like there's nobody else to approach, so they're approaching me. On their hand, it's terrible. There should be ten people like me or fifty people like me out there, speaking loudly and getting the truth out, and that, you know, instead instead there's like four of us. It's really bad, Alex. Where do you think this goes?

I mean, I would hope that, you know, assuming that this, you know, that the decline in cases and hospitalizations continues, we will be at a place where everybody's eyes are open to the fact that this is almost over and people just stop listening to the nonsense that's coming out of Fauction's or other people's mouths. Whether or not that happens, I don't know, but that's what I hope. Do you think there's a level at which everybody will realize that

it's it's really time. I start to worry that this has now become a mindset and almost a religion for people. Well, it's the Emperor has no clothes, right, you know, when the little boy pointed it out, everyone finally admitted it. I hope that's what happens. We'll have to see go get unreported truths about COVID nineteen on Amazon as long as Amazon still, but you could definitely get The Power Couple, which is a great novel written by Alex Barnson Alex

in person, we get to shake hands. Thanks so much,