Editor’s Note: Say What? is the segment of Liberty Nation Radio where we unveil some of the most wacky, astonishing, and damnable things uttered by politicians and the chattering class.
Tim Donner: The nation was shocked when Tiger Woods, a legend well beyond the golf course where he may already be the greatest of all time, was roughed up badly in a single-car crash in a posh neighborhood 30 miles south of LA, suffering multiple fractures to his right leg, requiring a rod and screws and pins to be inserted in his leg and foot and ankle, which are, of course, central to his livelihood. After years of dominating his sport, all-time greatness, followed by ugly revelations about his extramarital affair, Tiger was awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Donald Trump in 2019, ten years after the dark stories came out.
Donald Trump: A true legend. An extraordinary athlete who has transformed golf and achieved new levels of dominance. He's also a great person. He's a great guy. Tiger introduced countless new people to the sport of golf from every background and from every walk of life. He inspired millions of young Americans with his thrilling wire-to-wire victories. Tiger Woods is a global symbol of American excellence, devotion, and drive.
Tim: Of course, the first question after his accident was whether Tiger Woods was drunk. But the sheriff in charge said he was not. In terms of whether he'll ever be able to play golf again, let's just say if it was anyone other than Tiger Woods, no chance. But with him, who knows?
Meanwhile, COVID-19 remains an ongoing health threat despite falling caseloads in 90% of the country and more than two million people a day getting the vaccine, with a big dump of new vaccine supply expected early this month. But a couple of issues surrounding the pandemic have become political hot potatoes. First, schools, so many of which remain closed to in-person learning thanks to pressure from teachers’ unions. And House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) said on ABC's This Week that the same Democrats who spoke constantly about following the science in the Trump era are doing the reverse.
Steve Scalise: There's so much science out there that says that this is hurting kids, millions of kids in America right now that are not getting in classroom learning every day. And again, you look at CDC guidance, you can look at the American Academy of Pediatrics. They all lay out how you can safely reopen schools. About 40% of children in America today are learning in school. So you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Those are in hotspots and places where the virus is not as serious. But if you look at what the priority should be, it should be the children. And that's not the case because right now you can see, as the unions have stepped up and said that they don't want in-classroom learning, you've seen the pressure on the CDC to reverse guidance, which was very clear.
Tim: It certainly doesn't help that the media are ginning up high levels of fear about the pandemic. The man conservatives trusted the most on Trump's COVID advisory team, Dr. Scott Atlas, said, "The health and media elite keep bombarding us with the same discredited information and baseless predictions about variances in the virus.”
Dr. Scott Atlas: Well, there's not only no accountability, there's a repetition of stuff as if it were never proven wrong. I mean, we're seeing it with the schools. When you look at the American media in particular, where people keep stressing what we don't know, what might happen. And we know so much about the variants, there's no evidence that there is some kind of massive spike due to these variants. There is no evidence that there's increased lethality, but we have American stories. If you look at the data from the National Bureau of Economic Research, over 90% of American stories, negative, and therefore fear invoking. Whereas in Europe, just over 50%.
Tim: And what exactly would you expect from a media that served as a bullhorn for the leftist message that Trump was to blame for all of those who died in the pandemic? The same media now toe the line in support of every decision on COVID made by the new administration.
And for those of you who've been vaccinated and think that means liberation day has arrived, the omnipresent Dr. Anthony Fauci says, "Think again."
Anthony Fauci: There are certain aspects of being vaccinated and what that means to you personally, and your own personal safety and that of your family versus what vaccines will allow you to do in society. One relates to you yourself being vaccinated, and the other relates to the number of people and the relative percentage of people in society that will be vaccinated. Because there will be things that you will not be able to do because the burden of virus in society will be very high. Indoor dining, theaters, places where people congregate. That's because of the safety of society.
Tim: Indeed, we are not out of the woods quite yet. One revealing barometer will be what Major League Baseball decides about crowds when the new season starts in early April.
Then there's the matter of the stimulus package for the victims of the COVID shutdown. How much is enough? Well, the Republican who despised Trump and was loved for it by the media and is now presented as a true bipartisan kind of guy, Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, said, "With Democrats in control of Congress, the GOP, even him, doesn't even have a say in the matter." And listen to his glowing introduction.
New York Times reporter: One of the things we need more than ever is to find some common ground. And if there's somebody who's trying to find common ground in Washington, it is Senator Romney, somebody who has tried to cross the aisle many a time.
Mitt Romney: The Democratic leadership has determined that they want to push through the plan without any changes to it whatsoever and without any input from Republicans. And because it will be done through budget reconciliation, they don't need any of our votes. We indicated also, we're happy to compromise to meet in the middle, to work together. But the administration had no interest really in pursuing that path and the Democratic leadership in the Senate and the House has not picked up that path either. There's a lot of stuff in there that's just simply wasteful. And I wish we could use the money that we're going to go out and borrow from China to actually do things that'll make a difference.
Tim: Hard to argue with that. And the Biden administration is running into problems in a couple of other areas, like the southern border, where this president is putting kids in cages just like Trump did. And White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was confronted about it by the increasingly aggressive Peter Doocy of Fox News.
Peter Doocy: Why is the Biden administration reopening a temporary facility for migrant children in Texas? It's the same facility that was open for a month in the Trump administration, summer 2019. That is when Joe Biden said, "Under Trump, there have been horrifying scenes at the border of kids being kept in cages." And Kamala Harris said basically babies in cages is human rights abuse being committed by the United States government. So how is this any different than that?
Jen Psaki: We very much feel that way. One, there's a pandemic going on. This is not kids being kept in cages. This is kids ... This is a facility that was opened that's going to follow the same standards as other HHS facilities. That was never our intention of replicating the immigration policies of the past administration.
Tim: Oh, heaven forbid. But that's exactly what they've done. Just like Barack Obama did before Trump. But, of course, we never heard about that in eight years of Obama and heard about it constantly under Trump. Then there's the matter of the Biden team trying to take credit for things Trump accomplished. Associated Press reporter Matt Lee confronted State Department spokesman Ned Price about turning Trump's work in bringing businesses back from overseas into their own achievement.
Matt Lee: Isn't it a bit disingenuous to claim credit for the 18 companies winding down? All of this work was done under the previous administration.
Ned Price: Matt, I'm not-
Matt Lee: And you guys have only been in month, right? Are you telling me that in the last four weeks these 18 companies all of a sudden decided to say, "Oh my God, we better not do anything. What should we do? ... Yes or no.
Ned Price: I am speaking for the Department of State.
Tim: Again, folks, that's not a Fox News reporter. That's a reporter for the most mainstream of all news operations, the Associated Press.
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