Good morning, peeps, and welcome to Okay f Daily with Meet your Girl Danielle Moody, recording from the Brooklyn Bunker. So, folks, it has been now two days since the State of the Union and you no doubt heard my thoughts on woke Wednesday yesterday. But I the level of rage that I had while listening to the State of the Union is almost on par No, I guess it's not really on par, but it is almost like right below Trump levels. And let me tell you why. And here's the thing.
Here's the problem with the Biden administration, with Democrats in general. And I know, you know, people ask me and they say, hey, I started listening to your podcast, which hi all to welcome to the new listeners. I'm really excited. Please share with your friends. But people are asking me, They're like, well, what's the solution, what's the solution, And I'm like, the solution is actually really easy. You tell the fucking truth, right, You tell the truth about what's happening in this country,
what needs to be done, and you do it. What I'm finding really interesting are the acts that the Department of Justice is taking. For instance, the Department of Justice is deciding that they're going to put their full weight and force behind going after Russian arligarchs who have been buying up real estate and property and you know, boats and yachts and just shit inside of the United States, and they're going to freeze those assets and they're going to go for They're gonna go for the gold and
the gusto. And when this was first reported by CNN, my thought was like, Okay, so what the fuck are you doing about the American oligarchs that funneled money into the pockets of oh, I don't know, the fucking oath keepers, the Proud Boys, those people that were tactically planning on
the ground the insurrection. Where is this kind of like Biden standing up in front of Congress, in front of the fucking free world, and I use quotations in saying that, in front of the free fucking world, talking about like how the United States is going after these oligarchs and going after the wealthy, and I'm saying, where's the fucking smoke, Biden? For the American oligarchs. You have fucking Donald Trump sitting
up real cozy at Marlago. You got people sitting in that room right on the night of the State of the Union, who themselves were on the phone with insurrectionists who were using their money, their access right, their strategic planning in order to help people overthrow the government in the United States. And yet we're putting all this fucking smoke and fire behind getting Putin. And I'm like, who the fuck is getting McCarthy, Who the fuck is getting Gates,
Who the fuck is getting Donald Trump? Who the fuck is getting Eastman? Right, Like, I am so confused about how we had Democrats jumping up and down, screaming and chanting USA. Also notably, why Republicans sat on their fucking hands right, jumping up, chanting USA. And you're not doing dick in this country in order to secure our democracy. You're so busy going around wielding your big stick and fucking yelling from the top of the rooftops. How Putin
doesn't know what he's up against. Well, apparently Republicans don't know who they're up against because they ain't up against anybody. They clearly have no opposition because they are doing the same fucking things in the United States. They may not be rolling out heavy artillery, but if you fucking remember from the insurrection, they built a fucking guillotine. Those people had tactical equipment. They were either active or retired military
and police officers and all types of law enforcements. Right there were people that were put on chartered buses from all around the country to head to Washington, DC. Where the fuck is the follow up on who funded that? I just you know, folks, I am losing what is left of my fucking mind these days because I got to hold multiple things at one time. On one hand, I want to say, yes, the Ukrainian people need absolute help and protection and they are fleeing devastation that we
cannot imagine. I wrote about it in media, putting myself in their shoes, as if this would happen on our soil. You saw it on Patreon, you see it on media. But and at the same time, I'm like, if one more person sends me more reports of how the Ukrainians are treating the fucking black immigrants that are in their country, telling them that Ukrainians first, white people first black people. You gotta walk twelve fucking miles in order to get to a border just to be turned away, and we
can't talk about that. At the same time, you want to use it as a motherfucking footnote at the end of news segments. I have watched CNN, MSNBC, BBC and all of them will say, oh, well, you know the Ukrainians and they will show you know, horrible, horrific images and videos. Because let's all not forget right that media is a money game. It is a ratings game, and so what bleeds leads that is the fucking truth. And
it has always been in journalism, right. But at the same time, it is not only right the blue wide and the white that are fleeing war and violence and destruction. And so why is it why is it not being called out by those people, particularly journalists of color, that do have this space and place to do so calling out how radically different the fucking coverage is when wanting to invoke empathy in the world about these babies and
these women so long as they are white. But we're not telling the fucking stories of black people, black Africans, immigrants of color being told to get off of buses as if it is nineteen fifties fucking Jim Crow America and the reality. I tweeted this yesterday and I said, you know what, do you know what gets me on many, many occasions, is that no one gives a fuck about
black people. Do you remember back before Kanye was still kind of Kanye and it was the Awards season and it was a it was a telethon or something to that nature for Katrina. Right, So we're talking about the twenty tents when Katrina hit and Kanye West stood up in front of the world and said, George Bush doesn't care about black people because black people were on their rooftops as well, screaming for help, right they were being
picked off and shot at by police. Because when black people in New Orleans, we're trying to get the basic needs that they water, food from flooded out grocery stores. The media said, look at those looters, white people doing the same fucking thing. Oh my god, look at these victims of Hurricane Katrina. It is the same shit that plays out on the micro level fucking here in the United States, that plays out all over the world. And do you know what it is called. It is called
anti blackness. And I am so fucking tired of the laziness in journalism right now, the fucking lazy and the neglect and the purposeful erasure of the trauma and the struggle that black immigrants and immigrants of color are facing as they too are fleeing alongside their white compatriots to try and get to fucking safety, and no one gives
a shit. Biden, in his State of the Union, which opened up all about Ukraine, could have used that as an opportunity to say to his colleagues, right those that are in the European Union that says that discrimination should have no place in your country. It should have no place right now as all types of people, black people, immigrants of color are also fleeing. Yes, people in Ukraine, we understand and we see the torment that you are
going through. But that does not mean that you get to kick people who are also fleeing and needs safe down so that you can trample on them to get what it is that you need. My God, but once again this administration, when given the opportunity to do the right thing, will make sure that they punt it way down the fucking field. Let me go on with the State of the fucking Union, which is trash right to
say this, Joe Biden. Joe Biden wanted to close out his speech earlier this week, trying to rally the rally Congress, and while you're at it, post pass the Voting Rights Act, and pass this, and pass that, and pass this and
all there's all this applause. And do you know what I realized as I was listening to Joe Biden as a veteran in politics for the last I don't know, ten fifteen fucking years, is that it is the same fucking things that you've been trying to pass for the same amount of fucking time that have never gotten done because you don't have any strategy, because you're not willing to do whatever it takes in the same vein that Republicans are willing to do whatever it takes to destroy
and disrupt our democracy, to put women back chained into the kitchen, to put black people back chain behind a fucking car. They are willing to do what it takes. Democrats are not. And so Joe Biden can rattle off all of the fucking things and then to put I mean to make matters worse, We're not trying to defund the police. We need to fund the police. Are you
fucking kidding me? Why don't you just spit in my goddamn face and the faces of black people that had you in the middle of a fucking pandemic, march for our fucking lives, risk our lives through a virus, only to march for our lives to beg police to stop fucking killing us like dogs in the street. But you want to talk about more funding, as if we have enough money in the world to fund right to fund
out racism. Are you kidding me? The fucking police department in New York City has a budget in the fucking billions, in the billions. You think that, oh, what, they're all of a sudden not racist. Now you think, all of a sudden, what they're not throwing black and brown men and women up against walls, patting them down. Oh, because crime is up so they get to do whatever the fuck they want. Crime is up because the social safety nets are broken. Crime is not up because we need
more police. Show me the wealthy white neighborhoods in this country that are crawling around with police because that equal safety. Give me a fucking break. Joe Biden doesn't get it. Democrats don't fucking get it. And you know what, I will vote right because it's all that I can fucking do. But I will absolutely understand the people that dead. I'd not to because this country hasn't done dick for them.
But we keep putting our self, our lives, our hopes right on the line, only to be told much like the Ukrainians are telling the fucking African immigrants get to the back of the bus or get the fuck off. You know how many people said in Twitter right that, oh my god, the progressive shouldn't have been giving a rebuttal and oh my god, now is not the time. Now is not the time. Now is not the time. Tell me when the time is right, because I agree, now is not the time. But tell me when the
time is right? Is it when the comment is hovering over us right and our impending disaster is just minutes away? Is then the time? We are running out of time? I don't know how many times and how many different ways that I need to say that, because I feel I feel like I am screaming into a void. Because when I looked around at the tweets, the hot takes coming off right after Biden was done, you would have thought that, like he gave the speech to end all speeches.
And I'm thinking to myself as I was sitting on the couch, were we all listening to the same thing. What was rousing about that? What was deserved of applause for that? To say? What to spend half the time talking about how you're going after authoritarianisms, after an authoritarian regime, after a dictator, right that is right now waging war, But you're not talking at all, not one fucking mention of the war that is being fought at home right now. And I'm not saying not that it is an either
or proposition. I'm saying that it is a both end. That could have been a transitional point to talk about what we are facing at home as our democracy is being ripped away, one voter suppression law at a time.
Right that, after he was painting the picture of how evil Vladimir Putin is, that maybe he could have reminded the American people who exactly the last president was chummy with, who not only days before, had stood up in Marlago or where the fuck he was, to talk about how smart Putin was, to praise him, and that there were members that were within this very chamber who were applauding his moves and say, why can't we have a president that is like this? Like this? He had an opportunity
to show the American people exactly who the Republican Party is. Instead, he referred to them once a fucking again as my friends from across the aisle. Are we insane? I just you know, folks, I have very little patience I do. I pop off very quickly because I am not the smartest person in the room, right. I am not the one who has pedigree upon academic pedigree. But I am
not fucking dumb, and neither are you. So if all of us can see the parallels between what is happening, all of us in woke f nation who consistently are like, wait a minute, am I crazy? We come together as a collective here, right because it is the only place that I find these days where I don't feel crazy. Because when I turn on cable news, when I open up my computer to scrawl through and see who is writing what and where, I'm like, are we all look? Are we all in the same country right now? Are
we all paying attention to the same things? Because I don't think so. You know. It is it's as if, like our we don't have the capacity to hold big things right, We don't have the capacity to be able to see more than through a pinhole. And that is exactly what Joe Biden showed us as we I mean when I heard fund the police, and fund the police, and fund the police. You fund the police with fucking tanks. Do you not remember the tanks that were rolled out
in Ferguson. That was before the protests that happened in Oregon and the protests that happened in New York in twenty twenty. It was in Ferguson that we saw the militarized gear that you were so busy funding, funding, funding the fucking police with so that they can then turn around and use it against us. But then you want to come shuck and jive over to black and brown communities talking about give me your vote. Fuck you. That's
how I feel right now. Fuck you. I'm so tired of being used as a pawn in a game that I did not make up, in a game that I didn't volunteer for. I didn't ask to be fucking tribute. And here we are being used and abused because what they told us that we have no choice, we have choices, And I keep saying that's over and over again, and people will say, well, what is the choice not to vote. The choice is to burn the ship down. That's the fucking choice. How do you do that? Opt out? That's
how you do it. You begin to opt out, You begin to opt out of this pageantry and shit show. Right, do you know what the state of the Union was to me? It was like a pep rally for a losing fucking team. That's what it was. Them all up and down at being oh at the same talking points. Let me tell the same stale stories with new faces attached to them. If I heard one more story about my dad and Scranton, Joe Biden is almost a hundred and six. I don't care about your dad and Scranton.
Scranton is not the only place in America we're fucking working class where what you really want to say is white working class people are the working class does not look like the white man and the hard at with the hard lunchbox headed out while his wife kisses him goodbye while she's holding a baby and a pie at the same fucking time. Where are we right now? We're trapped in some weird dystopian present where it's like the rest of us, see exactly what's happening, see exactly the
plans and the direction that we're moving in. And then you have the powers that be that are so desperate to hold on to what was that they are losing? What is that State of the Union was a pep rally that I did not need. It didn't offer a fucking thing. And on top of that, you want to talk about, oh, well, we'd take our masks off, isn't isn't this what we all wanted? No? I didn't want
it in time for mid terms. I wanted masks and mitigations to be rolled back when the scientists and the doctors said so, not when they were being dictated by the political fucking calendar. And if you think for a fucking minute that the people that had never been wearing their masks all along are gonna all of a sudden be like, oh, well, look Biden is with us now, US anti vaxers, anti maskers, so now we're going to vote Democrat? Are you dumb? They haven't voted with you
since nineteen fifty? How many times do we need to say that? But the base who you decided to throw under the bus yesterday with your oh fun fund fund the police, Yeah, you're gonna find fine, fine, Your asshole by yourself, because I went. I went, and I pulled up various sights where I know that black and brown people are always active in the comments sections. And I looked, and let me tell you something that folks are like, Oh, so I hope he's not looking for a second term.
I hope he's not coming to my community for a vote. Oh he can go take that fun fund down there to the white neighborhood, because that is not me. Imagine if this is how I feel, as somebody who is actually a staunch Democrat who has committed their life's work to strengthening and securing and expanding our democracy, that if I feel like this, what do you think that lukewarm
people felt like they are ice cold? Now they are fucking done and they're going to decide that you know what, No, I'm not going to pay attention to what is happening at the national and federal level because nothing is happening for my benefit. Right, you want to throw out these little COVID checks and blah blah blah blah, as if people are going to remember that come November, no, they
would actually remember being able to vote. They would actually be they would remember being able to get an abortion. They would actually remember having investments in their public schools. They would actually remember and understand a real push to deal with our climate crisis, none of which is happening. They would even right take all of that that I
just listed, put that on the back burner. If you would have put the people that were responsible for COVID s writing, that were responsible for the insurrection in jail, because at least then you would have a fucking talking point as to why I need to go with you. But you tell me what is the why? Why are we Democrats? Why are we voting for them in November? And it can't just be because the other guy is
a white supremaist, but that's what they're banking on. Somebody tweeted out and said, oh my god, who's doing the emails for the Democrats? I just got an email and it was horrible. It was all about Trump instead of all about Oh, I don't know the entire Republican Party that rolled out four hundred voters depression laws, that is trying to strip away your ability to have an abortion, that is putting a target on LGBTQ kids back. Did you hear any of that last night. Did you hear
any of that in the State of the Union. I didn't, and I was waiting, you know, I had thoughts and i'd put it up, and I said to folks, you know, I'm gonna go live after. I'm gonna go live after, right, And then I said, I'm not giving this country anymore of my time. I'm gonna go rest because it's not worth it. It's not worth it for me to stay up to scream. I can do that the next day, the day after. We are insignificant fucking trouble in this country,
significant trouble. And that one thing was mentioned in that State of the Union that would send off any alarms, not one thing, folks. Coming up next, I'm very excited is my conversation for the very first time with doctor Fauci. I mean, you know him, he doesn't need any introduction.
And I asked doctor Fauci a couple of things. We talk about COVID obviously, but I asked him about the coincidence in the fact that we are moving towards these quote unquote mitigation efforts or turn them completely backrolling them completely back coincidentally close to midterms, and you know, is that something that is a coincidence. Are we really still following the science? Those are just some of the questions
that will come up in my interview with doctor Faucci. Folks, I don't need to do any type of introduction for the man that we have all seen and heard from over the last two plus years. I don't even know what time zone we are in right now or what
wormhold that we are in with COVID. Doctor Fauci, thank you so much for making the time to join Woke a f Over the past couple of days, the past couple of weeks, we have seen a number of mitigation efforts being changed and a bunch of different guidelines being offered up by the CDC. Can you offer us some clarification as to why we are seeing these moves being made now by our governors with rolling back, mass wearing indoors,
rolling back. They need to show vaccination cards, things that were actually used in order to kind of relieve our anxiety, find ways to kind of normalize this very abnormal situation. Why are we making these shifts now? Well, there's good
scientific reason to do that. You know, there are different phases of what we've gone through over the last couple of years the like rather fulminent pandemic phase, which just you know, a few months ago we were dealing with almost a million cases a day, nine hundred thousand cases a day. The hospitals were threatened in their capacity, the deaths were very high. We've turned the corner at least
now with this Armicron variant. The Armicron variant was very challenging, much more transmissible than DELGA, a little bit less virulent in that many people had already been vaccinated and or had gotten infected. But what we've seen over the last several weeks is a peak and then a very sharp,
steady decline in cases, particularly in hospitalizations. And right now it's felt that given the direction of where this is going, which is in the right direction, and given the fact that the metrics for guidelines about things like masking requirements in indoor spaces including schools, according to the new metric, which is driven much more by how much severe disease there is rather than how many infections there are, because many of the infections are without symptoms, any of them
have mild symptoms. So that the CDC has made I think the appropriate decision of saying, if you look at the map of the country on a county by county basis, if you count us cases, then ninety plus percent of the country would fall under the umbrella of the guideline to continue restrictions like masking and indoor places, masking in schools. However, with the new metrics going in the right direction, and
given the fact that we now are prepared. We have vaccines, we have boosters, we have anti virals, we have hundreds of millions of testing available easily for people, and we have hundreds of millions of masks for those who need it, it is felt that we can begin to take those gentle steps, as it were, towards normality, which we all want to be at. So really it's a turning of the corner. Having said that, Danielle, we still must always be prepared to recognize and respond to any new variant
or to come along. We're going in the right directions, can pull back, we can say it's over, there's no chance of getting another variant. We've got to be prepared
to respond to another variant. So this is the question that I really want to ask, and obviously you're going to be asked by everyone, which is if we lull ourselves back into this place of quote unquote normalcy, and people get comfortable with not having the mass, not showing vaccinations, not needing to social distance, and all of these things.
If a new variant which is more likely than not to rear its head, how likely is it that we're going to be able to pull people back from the normalcy that we're allowing them or saying that is available to them right now. Well, that's part of the strategy. If one looks at it and examine it carefully, is that it is what we call like a sliding scale. It's you know, people have made metaphors and saying that.
You know, when you're in a really severe rainstorm, you go out and you put your gloshes on, your raincoat, a hat, an umbrella. Then when the rain slows down, you know, you may not have to have the galoshes in the raincoat, just an umbrella, and when it stops raining, you can put the umbrella down. However, when it starts to rain again, you take the umbrella out again, you put your raincoat on again, you put your galoshes on again.
That's what we're saying, we want to go and we are going in the right direction, but we need to be prepared to be able to recognize and quickly respond to the fact that there may be another variant. We can't be frightened and waiting for a variant and freeze ourselves where we are. We can approach normality as long as we keep in mind that we need to be able to recognize and respond to a variant if and
when it occurs. You know, and I love that analogy, I think to myself, though, funny enough, people don't protest the rain, and so they're more unluckily to put on galoshes when they need to because they don't see it as a political exercise. What do you say to the parents right now of young children that are under the age of five, that aren't able to get vaccinated at this time, who still feel like they are in a
vulnerable state because their children are not covered. That's an excellent question that so many parents are asking who have children in that age group, And the answer to that is to do what you can to surround your children with people who are vaccinated and boosted, and when you're in a vulnerable situation to wear a mask. We are trying now to get to the point where we don't need to have masks on children, but we want to make sure that the schools are safe. And this is
what I refer to as communal responsibility. There are many people for a variety of reasons. Many of them are politically I wouldn't say motivated, I don't mean motivated, but have a political tinge to it about not wanting to get vaccinated, saying I'll worry about myself and I'll take
care of myself and I'll take the risk. But when you're dealing with a transmissible virus, you have a personal responsibility to yourself and to your family, but you also have a responsibility to society because if you really want to make sure we put this virus, this outbreak in the rearview mirror, we can make a contribution by not giving the virus the opportunity to circulate among us, and you do that by getting vaccinated. Nobody likes to mandate
or require things. We call upon the spirit of the American people to be part of a society and communal effort to crush this virus. And that's the reason why we practically plead with people to get vaccinated and to get boosted to protect themselves, their family, and their community.
You know, the other part of this pandemic too, isn't just obviously the loss of life, but it is also the emotional health and the erosion of emotional health and mental health and wellbeing that we've seen across the country
since the beginning of the pandemic. What are your thoughts about how, as a race to get to this normal, that we deal with the collective trauma that we've experienced in this country and around the world, and that that getting back to normal will erase kind of the experience and the trauma that people are still holding and will be holding. That's such a good point, Danielle. In fact, that's an important part of our comprehensive approach to dealing
with this outbreak. You're absolutely correct. There have been scars, emotional scars, economic scars, mental health scars that people have had. We have got to and we will put resources into addressing mental health, developmental and other issues with regard to COVID. It is a very important issue that we can't neglect. We know, we've seen the detrimental effect of when kids are not allowed to be in school in person number one, number two, we've seen the stress on families who've lost
their jobs because of the effect on the economy. Those are things we have to address. They're all part of the broad problem. And finally, last question, what do you say to the critics, doctor Fauci, that are saying that the expedient nature that we are withdrawing the mitigation efforts are in time for midterms that are in a couple of months. What do you say to those people are that are saying, isn't this interesting timing? Well, I just
think that's just absolutely not the case. We're guided by public health issues, by the science, by the data, by the evidence. That has always been the case. One of the important and unfortunate aspects of all of this is that the divisiveness in this country is so contraindicated when you're trying to deal as a nation together to fight one of the greatest challenges that we've had in well
over a hundred years. It's really unfortunate that there has been politicization of that that does nothing but impede an effective response. That's too bad, unfortunately. I want to thank you so much for your time and all of the work that you have done in trying to provide clear guidelines, facts and steps to keep us all safe over the last couple of years, and we appreciate it. Thank you very much, Dannyell. It's good to have been with you. Thank you, Thank you, folks. And now for your woke
moment of wellness. The State of the Union really got me. It put me back in a place of anger and rage that I don't want to be in. And while it is my work right, my job to follow the news and report on it and analyze it and be able to figure out a way to deliver it to all of you, it was an important moment that I want to offer that I believe each and every one of us need to recognize in our own lives. I, like I said, I was going to go live right
after the State of the Union. I was going to go and do an Instagram live, and I realized that I had no more energy left in me. And like I said, this country doesn't deserve it. I needed rest. And I think too often we are told to keep going, keep grinding, keep pushing, and ignore what our bodies right
and our minds are telling us. I am done. That's what happens when we reach exhaustion, right when we can't move from the couch when it's hard to get up, our body and our mind is telling us I am finished, and instead of ignoring it, instead of pushing ourselves to be as productive as we can. I think that a part of self care is really listening to those signals that are sometimes not so subtle, that our minds and our bodies are sending to us. Right, that you need
to rest. Right, that it is okay not to follow the blow by blow, That it is okay to turn it off, That it is okay to not send that email because I'm not in the right frame mind. Right, that it is okay to tell your bosses right, I need a break. Like a friend of mine just recently said, I need a sabbatical. I've been doing this work, I've been doing all these things. I'm going through a lot of issues. I need a break. We have to be able to recognize for ourselves before we have a breakdown,
when enough is enough. And I really hope, through active, regular self care that we don't continue to push ourselves to that break where we have a breakdown and then realize that we need the rest. Rest is not something that we should earn. Right, We don't need to earn it. We're human beings, We're not machines, and I think that
it's important always for us to recognize that truth. So allow yourself, give yourself the permission to take a break before you push yourself too far and then your body pushes back in ways that end to you in the hospital. This self care, right and wellness is about prevention, right, not just preventing like our rage from taking over our bodies, but from preventing that rage to turn into sickness and
take over our bodies. So do pay attention not just to the news, but to yourself as always, dear friends, Power to the people and to all the people. Power. Get woke and stay woke as fuck, and stay well as fuck.