← The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
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- [00:02]
Buck Sexton
You're listening to the Buck Sexton show podcast. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody. Alex Berenson back with us now. You all know him, the guy who was right about all the COVID stuff when it was hard to be right. And we're going to talk about some of that and also Big Pharma and other interesting things going on in the world today. He has unreported truths on substack, which you should subscribe to. I am a subscriber. Definitely go check that. Alex, let's start with this. What are your thoughts as you're reading? And everyone who's, I think, pretty much a subscriber here on the podcast remembers you, remembers your work, remembers you going on Tucker show, remembers you going on Clay and Buck, talking about the COVID stuff and all the heat you were getting. The New York Times puts out a big piece now. We were misled on the COVID origins. Like it's been five years. Really now. What do you make of that?
- [00:56]
Alex Berenson
Yeah, well, I mean, I don't know what's more infuriating, the fact that, like it's five years in and they're still pretending there's a debate or the fact that the, you know, the person who wrote this, she, yeah, she attacks Fauci. Great. She says, you know, Christiane Andersen is, is full of it. Great. We know that. What does she not mention in the New York Times? She's not mentioned that the New York Times was pushing this nonsense. Not just in 2020, when, okay, you could say, well, you know, the, the scientific community did at least, was being steered by Fauci. But in 2021, in 2022, in 2023, long after there was tons of independent evidence. And frankly, after 2021, we knew about the COVID up too, because of the good work that some independent journalists have done and some foiaing. There was tons of evidence, and yet the New York Times was still relying on Christian Andersen, who is this immunologist in San Diego, on a few other people who clearly the game, who clearly were talking their book. And, and fine, okay, you want to attack those people, great. But don't pretend it's not. As I wrote in my substack yesterday, what the story should have said is not we were misled, it's we and the scientists misled you. And so, yeah, it's infuriating.
- [02:19]
Buck Sexton
I sit here and I just think that there has to be a bigger, bigger reckoning than what we've seen so far on the issue, I know, I know it has been five years. I'm a little bit like the guy who refuses to give up, give up the, the fight here. I mean, I think a lot of people on the right have, have moved on with this. I still, maybe because I moved to Florida and left New York, which I thought would never, never happen. I never thought I would leave New York City, but I, I'm not over it. I'm not okay with it. And then we have Cuomo. Cuomo wants to be not just the governor, I'm not just the mayor of New York City after having been a governor who had to resign for giving too many grabs and smooches to his ladies on staff. But he, I think, clearly wants to use it as a platform to run for president. And he's been getting a little bit of people have been pushing a little bit on, hey, remember what you did during, during COVID Does no one in New York care remember Cuomo chips and all the madness with this guy?
- [03:20]
Alex Berenson
No, I think they do. The problem is that, you know, there's, there's not a lot of great choices for New York City mayor right now. I mean, for Merrick Adams on down, I haven't looked at the polls. I don't even know if there have been polls. So I don't know if Cuomo can win.
- [03:35]
Buck Sexton
Can I just tell you? Cause he is by far number one in the polls. I think he doubles the next closest person support. And I think he just announced officially or he's about to announce officially.
- [03:44]
Alex Berenson
So I mean that, you know, I will say that Anthony Weiner for a time had, and it was sort of a similar thing after he got bounced from Congress. He was running and it looked like he had a chance, and then suddenly he didn't have a chance. Now Cuomo is, you know, it's a different situation, but, but we'll see what happens when, you know, when people are actually kind of reminded, by the way, one of the many terrible things of the Biden era, the Biden and Kamala era, is it has convinced every fourth rate Democratic politician that they can be presidents. Right? Because if those two, you know, one of them was president, one of them, you know, was, was the Democratic nominee. So you have, you have Tim Walls running around, you have Cuomo, you know, the disgraced governor positioning himself, you have Gavin Newsom doing whatever he can to pretend that he wasn't governor of California the last eight years or whatever it was. It's really, you know, it's really. The seven dwarves are out in force right now. And, you know, it's interesting you say that there hasn't been a reckoning and there clearly hasn't. There hasn't been a political or legal reckoning. And it's also interesting to me, Donald Trump, you know, look, he clearly, there's a lot of scores he wants to settle. He does not seem very interested in reopening Covid. And, you know, I don't know why that is. I haven't talked to people in the administration about why that is. And maybe it's a question worth asking. Maybe he just has so many other sort of things that are more personal to him that he wants to settle first. Or maybe he doesn't care particularly. I do think that there's increasingly a cultural reckoning. And, you know, I tweeted about, or I posted about this today that, you know, the New York Times, there was, there's a Democratic strategist who seems like a pretty honest guy talking about how far to the right young people, mostly men, but some women too, have moved in the last four years. And to me, that is clearly coping driven, you know, because, because look, if you're 23, you're not that worried about inflation, okay? You are, you are worried about what you saw five years ago when it became pretty clear to you that the medical establishment and all these people who were on TV didn't really have your interest at heart at all. And there could be this medical authoritarian state. And I think that that has moved young people significantly to the right. So I think we're. I think something is happening.
- [06:13]
Buck Sexton
Can we dig into that? Because that was actually, I saw your tweet on that and that was why I was like, you know, I got to talk to Alex about this today. So Gen Z moves to the right because of the medical authoritarian madness. That's a. I think that the data certainly shows that and we can. There's a number of factors. The assault on masculinity, certainly for men, which is a very real, a very real thing. They can't come up with words to make being a man seem bad and make us all try to use those words and then say, what? Assault on masculinity? Like, we're aware of this. It's like when Gavin Newsom says no one on his staff said Latinx. And then there's all this stuff that comes out about him and others on his staff saying Latinx. They're just trying to, to blatantly rewrite history. But there was a point at which society decided. And it was really the, you know, the expert credentialed class in the medical. But really just in the sort of in general that if it meant a 1%, not even 1%, if it meant a.001% in hospitalizations for the elderly, no high school graduations, no sports, no socializing with your friends for years. For years.
- [07:22]
Alex Berenson
For years. It was crazy. And you know, again, like, I don't. I don't feel like I was any genius to say this was crazy. And you know, and to kowtow to the teachers unions and say we're not gonna reopen schools. Oh, we are gonna reopen schools. They just have to be properly ventilated, which is gonna take 20 years to do. I mean, it was all insanity. And you know, when. And I gotta go. I can go back and find the post or find the substack. But when did it be okay? When did it become okay for society to sacrifice the young for the old? It's the absolute opposite of what we should be doing. And, you know, I have three kids. But like, did you really need to have kids to recognize what a terrible idea that was?
- [08:10]
Buck Sexton
Yeah, no, I. I didn't have kids yet. I got one on the way right now. I'll be here in a few weeks.
- [08:14]
Alex Berenson
Congratulations.
- [08:15]
Buck Sexton
Thank you. Very exciting. But yeah, I. I remember sitting in my tiny one bedroom in New York City as the whole place went completely insane. And I just walking around like, what. What has happened to all of you people? And can I give you something that really another reason why Berenson came to mind here. I was. What. Have you seen this show? It's on. It's on Max, which used to be hbo, the Pit. Are you familiar with this show?
- [08:38]
Alex Berenson
I'm not. It's.
- [08:40]
Buck Sexton
It's funny. Noah Wiley, who was on the original ER, the Michael Crichton ER from the 90s, which was a very celebrated and popular show, then he's now the lead doctor in the. It's basically ER in Pittsburgh. I forget what the original ER was, but it's the same thing. It's just an emergency room drama. It's actually pretty well done. You might like it. I mean, the medical stuff is interesting. It seems, at least to my civilian non doctor, I, pretty realistic for. For what it is. I mean, certainly the super long waits in the er, you know, in the waiting room and like the, the mess, you know, they don't walk away from that stuff. But there's a whole scene where this guy gets. So it's clearly supposed to be a Trump supporter, too, who doesn't want someone who doesn't want to be told to wear a mask. And he's like, well, you know, when we're doing our surgery on you, like, experts who save lives recognize that it reduces infection to wear masks. And I mean, I, I wanted. My wife was there. I'm not somebody who talks to her. I was just furious. They're still doing this thing now, aren't they? They're still going to do the. Yeah, but masks. But masks really will save us. Like, they haven't. The medical establishment hasn't entirely abandoned this.
- [09:44]
Alex Berenson
No. And even, you know, so the Times, they wrote this piece on Sunday and, you know, two thirds of the way down there was the. What I. The line, which I did not say publicly, but this is a podcast, so it's still public. I probably shouldn't say, but I was. It was essentially the officer, she was asking for it line, where it's like, well, there were good reasons for them to lie about all this stuff, including essentially the fact that Trump was calling it the Woo flu. You know, even though that, that wasn't, that wasn't exactly how it was phrased, but it was like, it was like they had reasons to want to, you know, buffer trust in the scientific establishment. Yeah. By lying about where the, where it came from. It's like, just admit it was totally wrong and you shouldn't have done it. And let's, I mean, I'm not going to say let's move on, but let's start with that. And let's start with we're not going to pretend that lockdowns work. We're not going to pretend that the MRNA's, you know, were a particularly big scientific advance. Like, we can, you can argue with me if you want, about whether, you know, whether or not they worked at all or for how long they were. We can have a reasonable discussion about that. But every time I read how they saved millions of lives and you know, where this movement, it's like, okay, then why is Moderna stock down 93% from its high? Right. The people who actually put money in, in the game.
- [10:59]
Buck Sexton
Yeah.
- [10:59]
Alex Berenson
Know that this, that this was a complete hype job and didn't do very much.
- [11:03]
Buck Sexton
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- [12:20]
Alex Berenson
I think that's true.
- [12:22]
Buck Sexton
What should be done? What do they want him to do? What do you want him to do?
- [12:26]
Alex Berenson
Well, you know, one thing that if they can find a way to do this within the bounds of the First Amendment, they can reduce the amount of pharmaceutical advertising on television. That would unquestionably be a good thing. And again, like maybe you force them to put in so many disclaimers that it becomes economically impossible. Maybe you say that the ads have to look a certain way so that they're not so attractive. But I do think that clearly pharmaceutical advertising is a bad thing generally. Right. It encourages over prescriptions. And in the US we use a lot of drugs. We use all in every category. We use lots and lots of drugs and probably overprescribe. And that's probably led to, you know, because physicians come under pressure from, you know, from people who've seen these ads and, and it's easier at some point just to agree to get them out of your office than to, than to explain to them, hey, maybe you should, maybe you should exercise some more or whatever the, you know, whatever the solution might be. So I think, I think reducing pharmaceutical advertising would be a good thing. Now again, there's a First Amendment issue that they're going to have to figure out. My personal bugaboo these days and something that I've written about recently for unreported truths for my subsec, and I'm thinking very, very seriously about writing a book about is about opioids and Generally sort of this move towards, you know, what I call drugs of abuse, addictive drugs. Whether. And that can be, that can be, you know, that can be opioids, that can be amphetamines, that can be sort of the state level way that we've legalized cannabis. The United States has a terrible problem with addiction and overdose. Um, and can I tell you that.
- [14:13]
Buck Sexton
On one of the things that I know you've been for a long time somebody who's just very opposed to weed, and there are very few areas in public policy life where I think I have been kind of bamboozled. You know, maybe it's a little self congratulatory, but I tend to be good at smelling the bs And I believed the, oh, legalize, don't crim. Not about anything except for weed. I mean, I was never like, oh yeah, heroin, just like let people inject. I mean, you know, Cause there's different, right? There's a difference between, you know, the difference between being bitten by a chihuahua and being bitten by a lion. Like, there's a difference between weed and fentanyl, clearly. But even with weed, I, you know, and I think maybe it's part of my generation too. And all the libertarians I knew were like, come on, man, like everyone's serving all this time in prison for weed. But that it was not that bad for you. And really important medicinally. Years ago, it's been about a decade, but years ago I believed that. And now when I see this stuff, I'm like, that is just bull. It is crap.
- [15:16]
Alex Berenson
Yes, it is crap. It is, it is just, it is just a very powerful intoxicant. And you know, if you want to legalize it on that basis, it's not a good idea. But like, that would at least be honest. But everything.
- [15:27]
Buck Sexton
But you know what I'm talking about, right? They were saying, oh, people need it for. People need it for glaucoma and for fibromyalgia. And I'm like, wait, what? That's what they need weed for?
- [15:37]
Alex Berenson
Yeah. Total lie. The condition that weed cures is called not being high. And it's very effective at curing that. Everything else is pretty much nonsense. So no, but we have a big problem. And you can go back and look 25 years ago, even a bit longer. And the U.S. yes, we prescribed a lot of opioids, but we were sort of on the same chart as the rest of the world. And then, you know, Purdue Pharma, but it wasn't just Purdue Pharma, Purdue Pharma And Medicare did something called the fifth Vital sign, where they basically encouraged doctors to treat pain as literally. I'm not joking. The other vital signs are like your breathing rate and your heart rate.
- [16:18]
Buck Sexton
I'm gonna guess. Yeah, pain was. I'm gonna guess you've read this book. If you haven't, this needs to be the next thing that you. Sam Quinones, Dreamland, where he goes, okay, I figured you'd be all over this. It is an amazing book. He's an LA Times reporter. It's a great book. I don't care. I don't know what his politics are. The politics don't come through in the book. Just a lot of really interesting information. And when he goes into the basis for what you said, the fifth sign is pain. And everyone has to, like, how much pain are you in right now? It's like, I'm fine. Like, what am I? But to create that. And then also the. It's not addictive with OxyContin. That. That was a.
- [16:51]
Alex Berenson
And we are still paying, which is.
- [16:53]
Buck Sexton
Clearly, just to be clear. It's a huge, huge, huge lie. Everybody, obviously. But that was what they said.
- [16:58]
Alex Berenson
That was what they said. And by the way, another interesting thing about oxycodone is that it's not a new drug, by the way. Fentanyl is not new either. Fentanyl was invented in 1959. So these drugs have been around. It's just that we have managed this crisis so badly. And there's this left libertarian nexus that you see in cannabis, but you see with opioids and other drugs of abuse, too, where it's, well, we can't tell people no. And then if something goes wrong on the left, it's like, well, we have to give people endless rehab. We can never send them to jail. It's just got. We've just got to treat them as these poor, you know, patients. And it is a big. It's all a big lie. And it's led to over a million deaths.
- [17:44]
Buck Sexton
I said this on radio recently because we're talking about the border, Alex, because when people talk about what a problem Fentanyl is that now I'm actually forgetting, but I think as recently as 2004, all overdose deaths in America, it was like 15,000 or 20,000 or something.
- [18:01]
Alex Berenson
That's correct.
- [18:02]
Buck Sexton
It was a tiny fraction of what it is now.
- [18:05]
Alex Berenson
That's correct. And in 1980, it was 6,000. Okay. And in 1960, you're not going to believe this, but it's true in 1960, including suicides, not Just accidental overdose. It was fewer than 2,000. Okay. The idea that the United States has, you know, has this culture of drug use that you can't fix, that you just have to manage and you have to do all this harm reduction and let people use until they die, because we're just this incredibly screwed up country. The historical record actually suggests the opposite.
- [18:39]
Buck Sexton
Well, this is. This is a very good book that you're going to write. So you need to write this book, because this is an important book. And I know a guy with a very big radio show that now is on 555 stations, I think, where you should come and talk about the book when you write it. So that's a good thing for you to do.
- [18:53]
Alex Berenson
All right. Well, that's. So that's what I'm up to. And, you know, I am working hard and somebody I won't name who told me that I should get a podcast on the go also.
- [19:01]
Buck Sexton
But you should at least do a weekly to go with your substack. Okay. That's orders from somebody who's a smart guy who likes Berenson's work. So you should at least do a weekly podcast to add into your stuff. All your subscribers, including me, are going to be very pleased with that. Can I ask you an Israel question? Which is funny to me because you're. You're a little heterodox. Like, I don't necessarily know you're going to go on. You know, I feel like you call balls and strikes with Trump. I have no idea what you're going to say. I don't. I don't think I've ever talked about Israel, Hamas stuff. Can we do one of those questions? In a second after I get to.
- [19:31]
Alex Berenson
Let's. Sure.
- [19:32]
Buck Sexton
Okay. All right. I'm. This is going to be interesting to me because I don't. Alex could go. Alex all of a sudden could throw a cafe on. He could go wild. I have no idea what's going on here. Let's see. But our sponsor here, that's why I'm thinking about this. International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews has supported and will continue to support the people of Israel with life saving, security essentials. And your gift today will help save lives by providing bomb shelters, armored security vehicles, ambulance, firefighting equipment, flak jackets, bulletproof vests, and so much more. Your generous donation today will help ensure the people of Israel are safe and secure in the days to come. As you know, the fighting has started again. The ceasefire has ended. Give a gift to bless Israel and her people by visiting supportifcj.org that's one word, supportifcj.org or call 888-488-IFCJ. That's 888488, IFCJ. What do you make of where things stand right now? I mean, I mentioned it just there, Alex, but Israel's bombing again going into Gaza. They can't get the hostages back. Where's, where's your mind on all this?
- [20:33]
Alex Berenson
So putting aside, you know, what Trump is doing in the US Response, because that I think, actually is a much more complicated question. I think. Look, look where Israel was on October 8, and look where they are now. They have destroyed Hezbollah. They, you know, they have essentially made it impossible for the Iranians to get to them through Syria. They have shown the Iranians that they can attack the Iranian air defenses whenever they want. And they have, and they have leveled Gaza right now. They've done a lot of damage to the civilian population. But the Gaza, you know, Hamas started the war, right? And so you don't really get, say if you start the war that, you know, now it's over. Like, the other side gets, you know, well, one side or the other gets to say that it's over, but it's sort of too bad for you that you started this war. So I don't have a problem. And it's pretty clear, it was clear to me in December that the ceasefire had come about because Israel had won right there. Nobody. The Hamas bet was, we're going to do this incredible thing on October 7th. We're going to punch the Israelis in the nose, we're going to do all this damage, we're going to show that, that, you know, that the border security that they had was BS and then.
- [21:49]
Buck Sexton
The, the, can I jump in on that? Isn't that just, wasn't that just a, I mean, put aside the, the monstrousness of it and just the horrific nature of the attack, which is a given.
- [22:00]
Alex Berenson
Yes.
- [22:01]
Buck Sexton
But is, is as, just, to me, it strikes me as strategically a huge miscalculation from them as well. From them as well.
- [22:07]
Alex Berenson
It, it turned out to be a huge miscalculation. I don't think they knew that because, because one of the things about it is they didn't really tell Iran, I think, in detail, or Hezbollah in detail. They sort of thought, we're going to do this and the Arab world is going to come to our aid. And, you know, and the Persians and Hezbollah are going to come to our aid, the Shi are going to come to our Aid it's going to be a great day for everybody who hates Jews. And it turned out that none of those people actually like Hamas, and so they let Hamas fight and get destroyed. And then the Israelis did this, you know, incredible, really. One of the great intelligence operations of all.
- [22:44]
Buck Sexton
I was going to say that. And I know a lot of intel operations, you know, historically, and from the time when I worked there, what they pulled off with the pagers and the beepers is maybe the most impressive intel operation I've ever heard of.
- [22:55]
Alex Berenson
And by the way, it's rare that you can have an intel operation that makes a difference strategically. Right. Not just tactically, but that was actually a strategically. It's like radar in World War II. It actually changed the course of what was happening in Lebanon. So. So the Israelis won. Right. And then they made, you know, sort of a pretty favorable ceasefire with Hamas. And Hamas, I think, has realized that there's going to be no Hamas left if they hand over all the hostages. So they don't want to. So the Israelis are just going to go in and beat them up some more. And maybe the problem, I guess, for the Israelis is there really is no other governing force in Gaza. So what you really do with Gaza, nobody knows. Right. And, I mean, the Trump Gaza thing was insane, but it was in. So it was sort of Trump's response to the problem of Gaza, which has no solution.
- [23:46]
Buck Sexton
Well, I was going to say, I've told people that it's. The Trump thing sounds a little bit outlandish until you think about the more outlandish, outlandish option is keep Hamas in charge, let them rebuild with international money and just go back, you know, just go back to what we had. I mean, I actually think that's crazier than trying to build Trump Tower Gaza or whatever it was he's talking about.
- [24:06]
Alex Berenson
I mean, that's right. I mean, so. So. So the Israelis may feel like, hey, we're just going to do this again and we're going to, you know, we're going to either kill every, you know, Everybody with an AK who's over 12 in Gaza, or we're gonna kill, you know, make it so miserable that either, you know, that there's some sane people in Hamas or there's some sane people outside Hamas who say we just can't live like this anymore. I don't know what their calculation is, but I do know this. They are now in a position of strength, and they're going to do what they want.
- [24:40]
Buck Sexton
Yeah. And they should. This is what I keep telling people, you know, elections have consequences. Starting wars have consequences too. This is what, this is reality. This has been true of all, for all of human history. And Gaza started this war. So, you know, there's that thing about mess around and find out. That's what's going on right now. Alex Berenson, everybody. He's going to be starting a podcast soon. He announced it on this show. So now we're going to, we're going to keep him, keep him to it at least once a week, Alex. And check out Unreported Truth. Subscribe. Do it on Substack. Thanks for making the time and always great to chat with you.
- [25:08]
Alex Berenson
Always a pleasure. And yeah, I'll be in. We'll be competitors soon, but I hope that's great.
- [25:13]
Buck Sexton
I'll come on the Berenson show. I like no one. Everyone always just expects me to host. I can guest. I like guesting. You know what I mean? Like, everyone's just, I've been, I've been hosting for 15 years. I'm like, I'll show up and guess with people. So you let me know.
- [25:25]
Alex Berenson
Well, you're, you're a very good host because I think what I'll have to learn when I host, that you can't over talk the guests. And you're very good at, you know, you.
- [25:33]
Buck Sexton
Thank you. I want the guest. I want the guest to shine. I like to throw that pitch right down the middle and let them swing. So good to see you, my friend. Thanks again.
- [25:42]
Alex Berenson
Thank you, sir.