Scott’s work for Townhall is available here and you can follow him on Twitter here.
His fantastic review of “Unmasked: The Global Failure of COVID Mask Mandates” can be found here, and the book is available through Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
The podcast is also available through the Apple Podcast platform.
Previous episodes of the show are listed below:
And an auto-generated transcript for the episode is below:
Ian Miller:
Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Unmasked podcast. Today. We have a very special guest Scott Morefield from town hall. Well, first of all, thank you so much for doing this. Welcome to the show.
Scott Morefield:
Thanks for having me.
Ian Miller:
And I, before we kind of get into the questions, I just wanted to also say thank you for your, your excellent review of my book. You know, you really hit a lot of the important points I was trying to make with the data and kind of narrative of masking, and I'm really glad it came through and, and thank you for capturing it so well,
Scott Morefield:
Of course it was great. The book, it, it, it's just so important cuz we, we can see this stuff coming to an end. It seems like, but a lot of these assumptions are under the surface. So to have a book out there like this, that your work Barron's work I know Megan man mantel is coming out with a book. This stuff is just really important to hammer down the fact that it's just not, there's no science behind this nonsense and we can't let, 'em just get away with evading any sort of responsibility and pretending that their methods worked. And that's why they're now letting us free. So yeah, your book's really important to, to accomplish that.
Ian Miller:
Well, thank you. And I, I completely agree. That's the whole point is to try to destroy the kind of underlying arguments behind masking so that it, it can't ever be kind of brought back as some kind of semi permanent rolling measure down the road.
Scott Morefield:
Exactly.
Ian Miller:
So my first question for you just kind of early on, you know, what, what made you skeptical about the effectiveness of COVID policy? Was it something immediately you were skeptical of? Did it take some time? What was your kind of initial response to, to COVID
Scott Morefield:
Great question. My first town hall post critical of COVID measures to was released in March, 2020. It didn't take long to realize that all this, that they were just basically full of. And, and everything that they were trying to say. And the first thing that led me to that conclusion was the actual case fatality rate of the diamond princess outbreak initially. Because I, I remember following this some in January and February and you would see people you see these videos of people falling over and it was a little scary. I, I remember watching Tucker Carlson before the lockdowns, even before we knew that how, what this would be, he, he was saying, man, you know, there was, there may be no NCAA tournament. And I was like, you've gotta be kidding me, no NCAA tournament. Well, what is this?
Scott Morefield:
You know, and I was hoping maybe he was exaggerating and, and there were a lot of unknowns then, but just, just seeing the numbers come in and you could see if, if there were so even understanding the difference between case fatality rate and infection, fatality rate, and seeing that people who were logged as a case was a lot that that number was a lot lower than the amount of people actually getting infected. And they kept conflating that number early on and panicking people and making them think, man, I've got a 5% chance or a 3% chance of dying from this. And that's scary. I mean, regardless, I mean, we always knew the elderly were, were more susceptible when you start seeing these massive them using these high case, fatality rates and not even speaking to infection and the amount of people, the number of people who were actually infected it, it led me to think that there was more to this than what we were being told.
Scott Morefield:
So that's when I was like, this is, this is not why are they doing this? Because the best way, common sense logically the best way was always to protect the vulnerable and to let rib among the healthy population, because they were not gonna be susceptible. And it just seemed so common sensical. And this was obviously way for the great Barington declaration, but there were people saying this, even when I wrote that, I mean there were I remember seeing an interview from the Texas Lieutenant governor saying the same thing and he got a lot of flack for that, but yeah, it was pretty early. I could see through it pretty early.
Ian Miller:
Yeah. That's a great point. A lot of people forget that the initial numbers from like, like the world health organization, I think it was 3.4% or something was the fatality rate that they were, they were thrown out there.
Scott Morefield:
Terrifying. Yeah, exactly.
Ian Miller:
It's terrifying. It was totally incorrect, but it kind of set the tone for all the policies that came afterwards. Yeah.
Scott Morefield:
And now they'll admit that it's 0.2, what is it? Point oh two, you know, 0.2. They'll admit that now, but this is not what we were told at the beginning. Yeah. You know, that established this.
Ian Miller:
Exactly. so my next question is, is a little bit kind of going specifically into masks. At this point I think it's become pretty obvious to, to most people paying attention. We're, we're seeing that kind of more widely discussed. Now, there wasn't really any evidence or sign to suggest that mask wearing would work. And I've been asking a lot of people this, and I wanna get your opinion. What was it? Do you think that made them push it so hard? Why did they flip flop on this? Early on?
Scott Morefield:
Yeah, really the goal, I think, especially it, it may have been altruistic at the beginning. I think the goal was, people are panicking, really panicking, and we're gonna shut some things down. But as we open up, cuz this didn't have happened until may June that I, I never even thought that this would be an issue in March or April never even occurred to me. We were going in grocery stores with no masks. Everybody was, nobody was wearing a mask. It was not a concern. The virus goes down, they've gotta convince people to leave their basement. And, and so, all right, then I think the noble lie started that they call it, I would call it a noble. I, I wouldn't call it a noble lie, but in their minds, maybe that they, they say, oh, Fauci, the noble lie was, we were trying to save it for healthcare workers.
Scott Morefield:
No, the noble lie. He was telling the truth at the beginning. But the noble lie was, if you wear a mask, you'll be protected and you can come out. So I think that they were basically trying to get people to come out and engage in society and, and do conduct economic activity. And they knew they couldn't do that with out a security blanket. So I think that the mask were started as a security blanket to get economic activity going. And then they had to stick with that once they committed. So everything followed from that. So they had to ignore all the previous studies that you discussed in your book to ignore all that stuff and pretend this is something totally different, even though it's not, I mean, it is, but it's not, it's still a respiratory virus. It's still if it, if it doesn't work against the flu, it's not gonna work against, COVID never worked against the flu, doesn't work against COVID, but they had to convince. And then, and then I think as, as it went along, it became more and more about control about political politics, a political statement. So I think it it's morphed over the months and years, but, but I think it started off as kind of a noble lie.
Ian Miller:
Yeah. I, somebody asked me, but that, and mentioned noble I as like, I, I think it's better just to tell the truth there.
Scott Morefield:
Just tell the truth. That's a good, good strategy. Yeah,
Ian Miller:
Exactly. So early on, and it is kind of a political question in some ways, but do you think that if Donald Trump had come out and openly been kind of a, an advocate for masking had been really forcefully saying everybody should wear a mask, would the, the kind of mainstream media outlet's been doing, what you and I have been doing over the last year and a half? Like, what would they would, would the results have been different as far as media coverage? If Trump had been very openly supportive of masking,
Scott Morefield:
Probably it, it, whatever he said it, he messed up H hydrochloric one for everybody in inadvertently, cuz he, he says, oh, this could be great. And everybody's like, no, it, it can't. He could say, he could have said this sky, this is blue. And they would've said it was green. So but I'm not sure, honestly just thinking about that. I mean our governor here in Tennessee, bill Lee, he's pretty good. He's not as good as DeSantis or known during that era. He, he's not as good as some or Kim Reynolds. But I would rank him in the top five. I'd put him at, you know, at least between five and eight in terms of pretty solid governors during this pandemic. And he I remember I'll never forget just him going up there, face it, face mask work. You couldn't drive, you know, 30 minutes in Tennessee without seeing a billboard that had that. So they, they were really pushing it here early on. So I'm not necessarily convinced that that would've changed the narrative a whole lot. I mean, you, you can see how the react and how the reaction is to Trump now when he starts touting the vaccines. So, but yeah, they, they might, they might have it, it might have had some shift in it, but I, I don't know that it would've had a whole lot.
Ian Miller:
It's interesting. I, I have gone running around about that myself. I'm I'm not sure. I, I think that there would've maybe early on, especially there would've been more skepticism and that might've helped, it stopped spreading so widely as the most important thing to
Scott Morefield:
Do. You're saying, you're saying if he would've led from the start and been the one saying, wear a mask, wear a mask. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If the media would've been skeptical,
Ian Miller:
Cause early on, there were some articles from even the wall street journal saying like everybody wore masks in the 1918 flu and it was useless. So you know, that's true. Maybe there might have been a little change
Scott Morefield:
That's intriguing. Yeah. That's intriguing. I, I don't, I don't know. That's it feels like such a, at this point now, anyway, it feels like mandatory masking is such an, an evil, like it's become such a societal evil and a menace that it it's hard for me to imagine the media being against it.
Ian Miller:
Yeah, yeah.
Scott Morefield:
Even with Trump,
Ian Miller:
I know,
Scott Morefield:
I think eventually they probably to come around and jumped on board. I mean, they do it with the vaccines they're they love the VA. They know that he's responsible in some way or, or in a lot of ways for these quick, you know, rest vaccines, but they're still behind those. So maybe not.
Ian Miller:
It's good. That's a lot of interesting hypotheticals there. Yeah. And you, you kind of brought this up a second ago, but I wanted to get your sense of, you know, who do you think has done the best job in the us policy wise? Or what are the governors that have handled this best or, or local politicians you think?
Scott Morefield:
Yeah. So I would say Cameron Reynolds, probably number one, right there. Maybe DeSantis a close second. Kim Reynolds, I mean, what other state passed the law? Banning mass mandates, banning mass mandates a real law that doesn't have a sunset. So there's a law in Tennessee now and, and we managed to, to pass that, but it has a sunset and it also says that the governor can override the law. So that's interesting. I don't know why that's there. But yeah, I guess I do know why that's there, but it's, it's not all it's played out to be but has stuff on the books that actually protect their people from COVID fascism going forward. And I know DeSantis has that mentality too. And so it just, maybe their legislature is not as conservative as I is. So I think that if he had his druthers on everything, he would be every bit as good, but I would Kim Reynolds Ron DeSantis, Christie, no comes to mind.
Scott Morefield:
I, I know that there's issues that conservatives would disagree with her on lately non COVID related, but as, as far as COVID, she's been really solid. Billy, because honestly I've got issues with Billy of Tennessee, but he never did impose a statewide mass mandate and I've gotta give him credit for that. That's, that's a, that's a huge thing in my book, if you, I mean, obviously a governor has more authority to do that than a president would. But I still don't believe the governor, a governor should have that authority. I think that's, I don't think anybody should have that a but if anybody does, it would be a local, it should be a local county officials. But yeah, I'm trying to think. See, Alabama had a mass mad at Louisiana had one Tate Rees came along later. Greg Abbot came along later. So the, those guys in a second, I would put those guys in a second tier about who am I missing? Oh Rick, its Nebraska. He, he was solid, really solid him in top five for sure.
Ian Miller:
One other one that I, I, I think we all kind of his flies on the radar a bit was I think it was Henry MCMA masters in South Carolina.
Scott Morefield:
Mm that's true.
Ian Miller:
They, he did a really good job. It's just it's cuz South Carolina just doesn't get any attention seemingly that's
Scott Morefield:
Right. He did fantastic.
Ian Miller:
Yeah. It, it is. I, I mean, so this is kind of a related question. So, you know, I, I, it seems like from what we've seen in national elections, even local elections recently that the, the politicians that of came out there and, and allowed for more freedom and fought back against kind of these insane policies have benefited in elections and in polling and things like that. But you know, we're seeing some of these, these kind of blue state governors and maybe even some national change in terms of, of policy direction. So, you know, in the next couple of years, is that gonna be forgotten, are people, or will it benefit somebody like Ron DeSantis from winning the, you know, the 20, 24 presidential election, for example, or, or is it gonna be kind of have faded in memory by that point that it won't be as big of a, a benefit?
Scott Morefield:
I hope that the people don't forget. I, I really do. I, I think that's, I think political necessity has, is what has caused, like you said, it has caused some of the leaders to kind of gravitate over to what we would call team reality on this. The public is very susceptible to forgetting things, but this has been a two year ordeal. This has not just been a month, two weeks to flatten the curve, whatever this has been two years to flatten the curve. I don't think that people are gonna be quite as forgiving. I mean, there, there's gonna be a little bit of that fade, but I people are not gonna be as forgiving as they have been for issues in the past now, to what degree that holds true. I don't know, but if what we're gonna see a lot this year with Florida, if DeSantis can pull off the wind and when reasonably convincingly, I think that'll be a really good sign that people are remembering, especially in that state where you've got a lot of, you've got just a lot of, of division and a lot of, a lot of diversity and, and a lot of it's just, it's, it's kind of a swing state.
Scott Morefield:
That's been leaning Republican lately, but if he can win that says that'll say a lot about that. And I don't know, as far as 20, 24, it's really hard to predict, you know, we're gonna see, I, I feel like you, this may be a future question, but I don't know that we're done with COVID. So this may be an ongoing battle and on sleeve, it is, it's probably gonna be good for conservatives because our side, yeah, we're going, it's going slow, but our side keeps gaining ground. It's not like we're giving up any ground here. We keep gaining ground
Ian Miller:
Politically.
Scott Morefield:
So that's a good sign.
Ian Miller:
That actually was another question I had. So we'll, we'll go into that one right now. That's good timing. So, you know, I think my concern right now is that it's become more politically acceptable or even encouraged now for places to lift mask mandates or, or some remove some policies. But as soon as we get another new variant, which I'm sure will inevitably come, or, you know, we get the surges that we've seen seasonally in the summer when months, or, and especially in the winter months they'll go right back to it. And all of a sudden the science will change again. You know, is that too pessimistic? Do you agree with that? It seems like you agree, but what are your thoughts? Yeah.
Scott Morefield:
Yeah. I'm afraid of that in some areas, of course you see a little bit of a diminishing aspect to that, because if you interestingly like with the Delta wave, you, you would see some, you saw a, a decent amount of a decent number of places rolling back into mandates. And, but then with you saw a few less, so it's not like everybody just went right back, mass mandates all the GLP areas for the most part. I mean, I know you had ASA Hutchinson, Arkansas begging his legislature to overturn a law that he has signed banning mass mandates. Because you know, he's worthless, but, but in most red places lifeless normal mean I'm in Tennessee. Life was normal during Delta and onn for the vast majority of people for the large part, it was totally normal. Except a few times I had to fly and that was that's always hellish.
Scott Morefield:
But, but as far as just going into stores, there was no issues. Some people wear mask, some people don't and it's live and let live, which is really the way it's all. It should have been this whole time. But I don't know. I mean, it, it is, it's, it's hard to say what the as far as them going back into it, I will, I will say that they've backed themselves into the corner. That was my latest town hall actually on Monday. But because I know that some people don't like I'll bring up the fact that N 90 fives. Okay. So now they say that N 90 fives work as protection. Okay. So they've this whole time they've been saying that source control source control. So two people can be wearing a t-shirt material over their noses and it's source control, and then we're all protected.
Scott Morefield:
Right? Well, the more stuff that comes out, the more that's been deemed nonsense, but now you've got all these people, Leanna WY as east jaw the Washington post, the, the Atlantic saying that one way masking were works to protect you in a meaningful way. And so you would caveat that with wear it correctly, maybe double mask have it fit, tested, replace it regularly. Don't touch it. So you could, you could caveat with all these things, but theoretically, at least they're now claiming, well, they are claiming that one way masking works to protect the wearer. So what person would be, if someone, if anybody is going to wear a mask correctly, it's gonna be somebody who's themselves immunocompromised. So wear the mask. And I don't have to wear one because one may masking, according to them works. Right. So I don't know.
Scott Morefield:
Yeah, you would've, you, I know that you've done charts on N 95 mandates. We know they don't work the N 95 mandates. So we don't, there's reasons for that. One of the reasons that people don't wear 'em right. Whatever you could say, you know, it's not sustainable. You can't wear an N 95 for long, correctly, because you're not gonna be able to breathe. Yeah. but theoretically, right. They can protect themselves. So force masking should be over from a logical perspective. So like I had a tweet thread out the other other day, keep the receipts because I just put a link to in Avery tweet a link of all these articles where they're now saying that, because they're saying that to get their people on board with, Hey, we're gonna have to relax the Mendix for now. Sorry, but you guys are gonna have to come outta your basement. You know, we love ya. Yada, yada. So Leanna, WY, you know, the queen of the IANS, her self on CNN says this now, you know, she's the voice of reason now. So
Ian Miller:
You made a, a big money betting against that just six months ago.
Scott Morefield:
I would've never guessed that, you know, MIS lock the vaccinated in their homes exactly. Or the UN vaccinated, you know?
Ian Miller:
Yeah. so one of interesting thing you just brought up is kind of the protection of one way masking, but a lot of that same argument could be applied to like vaccination where people that have been vaccinated. Exactly. You're protected. Right. That's the whole thing, supposedly. So is it right? So you, you know, you should feel protected. You shouldn't be worried about what everybody else is doing around you because you're not gonna get seriously ill. Yeah. So kind of relatedly, you know, these politicians brought in vaccine passport policies in a lot of the country and in the world, which never made any sense by that logic, but there's still an effect in many areas, you know, France Italy's policy just got so much worse where they literally fired. I think it was over 500,000 people over 50 for not getting vaccinated. There's still an effect in, in LA, in San Francisco, New York are, are, you know, what are your think? Are these policies close enough to, is close to ending as well? Are they, you know, how is this remotely defensible at this point after this winter? You know, what, what do we do with this?
Scott Morefield:
That is mindboggling to me. I mean, you can see some, I I've seen trickles of different companies doing away with their vaccine mandates. So that's a good sign. Washington DC, a lot of pressure because you've Maryland to the north. You've got Virginia to the south. None of those have vaccine mandates. So it's absolutely crucifying DC restaurants. And I'm not sure that mayor Bowser even cares about any of that, but it is an interesting I love seeing the free market at work there because the more places that way, there's a, and that's what they've been trying to avoid, but they've not been able to avoid the fact that there's a control group. They hate that they hate control groups because it just shows their insanity for what exactly what it is. The vaccine mandates it. We're, we're talking about a vaccine that's two years, almost two years. It's not two years old, but it's, you know, it's been development for almost, you know, a year and a half. It's against the spike protein where three variants from that it's less and less efficacious for less and less time the longer time goes by. So they never explain that stuff. They never will say or explain why you need a vaccine against the spike protein of the is it the wild varying or the VE it's, you know, the, maybe the wild variant,
Ian Miller:
I think it's the wild. Yeah.
Scott Morefield:
Yeah. So why do we need a vaccine against the spike protein of the wild we're dealing with right now that evade it for the most part. And then if you're gonna have to get a new vaccine every three months, or even Reuters admitted six months that it loses most of its efficacy, whatever protection it, it got, which I'm not convinced there's any there, because you, you have a, for two weeks after getting the VA risk is greatly increased. So by the time you level that out, are you even getting any protection, but say you do get protection six months of you're gonna have to get this job again every six months. I mean, what kind of sense does that make? It is just not, it's not sustainable. So I don't wanna understand even the concept of fully vaccinated. Well, if they're, if they're gonna be intellectually honest with us, they would need to say that fully vaccinated is the same. They keep trying to make this different term and conflated with up to date. Well, what is that? Cuz if you were vaccinated a year ago, a I promise in any meaningful sense of the word, you're not fully vaccinated, you're only, you're not even, you're not even immune, but if you had it two years ago, we've got studies out. Now that say your antibody teachers are probably real similar to what they were when you first had it.
Scott Morefield:
Yeah. So it's astounding to me just ignoring the natural immunity. And then just the nonsense about the vaccine it's, it's, it's, it's become a God to them. I mean, vaccination and masking are basically the, I mean, this is their new God and they're gonna go down, swinging with it.
Ian Miller:
Yeah. kind of relatedly to that. Yeah. Have you been surprised by what people have been willing to put up with with these policies? I personally have been, but what have you been surprised? Yeah.
Scott Morefield:
Yeah. It's, it's, it's crazy. I remember walking into E even now in east Tennessee for me. I'm I'm for, I've been blessed, just living where I live. Where do you live by the way? I
Ian Miller:
I'm in Southern California.
Scott Morefield:
Okay. Oh my gosh.
Ian Miller:
Yeah.
Scott Morefield:
Yeah, you you've you've had it rough. So you probably don't. I mean, it, it, you know, you're you probably don't have the luxury that I've had, but even here we had a mass mandate from, I guess it was August of 2020 until March, 2021. So about seven to eight months, we had a county mass mandate in our county and it was imposed by the health department and, and the mayor. And there was no teeth to it. So you, you, you know, there was nobody going in and checking a business and saying, where's your mask? Nothing like that, but, but even then I was shocked at how many people went along with it, cuz I never did. You know, so we would walk into places without a mask and you know, I would, I would see maybe one or two other people in a grocery store that didn't have one. It's always nice just to see somebody with some sanity there. But, but it was a little bit unnerving to be honest to how many people were going along with this. It's, it's always that. And so, and then I, I would listen to accounts of people, cast and whatnot and, and people in places like Ohio or where you are especially, and you know, you, you don't, you try not wearing a mask in a store and you're gonna get kicked out even wearing it under your nose would probably get you kicked out.
Scott Morefield:
Yeah. so yeah, it's, it's the people's compliance, is it, was it very unnerving? It is nice to see more and more, cause you know, back then you would see the polls in 70 plus percent of people supported mass mandates and that's gradually coming down so you can see some of that stuff coming down. So I think people are getting, like I said, you know, we're, we're winning, but not as fast as I would like. But I think people are starting to wise to it, but the, the willingness of people to just put away critical thinking to me is just, it's, it's, it's amazing. I mean, all of us have lost friends over this. I've lost friends people that just, you know, they, they, our views can abide and there's no way to get past it. Yeah. And it's, it's, it's, it's sad.
Ian Miller:
Yeah, absolutely. It, I, I definitely have lost friends and it is, it's kind of hard to believe that it's come to that, but
Scott Morefield:
Made a lot of new friends too.
Ian Miller:
Exactly, exactly. So kinda switching gears for a second, you know, you write for, for town hall what are some of the challenges for you for writing, you know, writing for a news outlet? Have you felt any pressure to kind of self censor your opinions? So, you know, you're not offending people or is there, is there any of that or has it been totally fine?
Scott Morefield:
Yeah, that's a good question. It's I was at the daily Culver when the when I, this started and I, I had done a, I did a weekly call with town hall for a while done that since I guess, 2018. But, but as far as the news, we had to be really careful. I, I remember starting off, I would, I would just try to pick things to cover that I knew were we write straight at the daily, the call we, we wrote rate news. So I would just cover media hits that, you know, if Scott Atlas did a media hit on Fox news, that was gold. I would try to cover that stuff. Pretty, but I had to do it without bias in the writing part, but that's fine cuz he's saying what he needs to say. Well, everything that needs to be said, I don't need to say it.
Scott Morefield:
I just need to cover what he said. So it's, it's the, the, I would just try to pick things that, that further the truth in that regard, but it started as it got more and more political, it just got tougher and tougher to pick things that had to do. I know for a while the mask became, it was harder to get those kind of stories approved. And then, you know, at town hall, my column, I can cover what I want generally, but there's certain things you have to be careful about and it all revolves around and, and at daily caller too, it all revolves around not wanting to get kicked off Facebook and that's, that's where it all comes, what it all comes down to. So it's not that the people disagreed with me so much, it's just, Hey, we don't want to lose.
Scott Morefield:
We don't wanna get kicked off Facebook. And it's a, it's a, it sucks. I mean, that's why it is gonna, you know, truth socials coming out in a month and we've got alternate, finally, some alternate platforms that are workable, but they're still not Twitter and Facebook and you can't reach as many, nearly as many people. And, and if it's, if it's an echo chamber, what good is that? Yeah, in some ways. But I think that that covering stuff was, I, I, I had to choose my words. You can't just come out and say the things that I would say about the vaccine, if you and I were just talking in a bar somewhere you can't say the things that Alex Berenson says, even though I, I suspect that Alex Beren been correct almost a hundred percent of the time you couldn't come right out and say that stuff in a column, usually you just have to wait, you have to hide behind some bigger names saying it and then report that they said it, or just be really careful on how you write it. So yeah, if a column is different, obviously from a news coverage coverage. So, but I, I on the news coverage stuff, I had to be really careful with my words on a column. I could be a little stricter or a little looser with what I say, but even then I couldn't just be as open as I would like to be. And that's because they want, they don't want to get banned by Facebook.
Ian Miller:
They, that's interesting to bring that up. And I noticed you, you recently wrote a column about Joe Rogan which is, is obviously still a very hot topic of conversation and all the kind of going along with it, all the increased censorship calls from literally from the government, which is kind of scary. But so you know, what are your thoughts on this and what was important for you in your mind to take away from your article on Joe Rogan?
Scott Morefield:
Yeah, that, that was the, the fact that they're trying, that they were trying so hard and this was an op that there was no doubt that they came after him with both barrels. They purposely dug up just outta context, not defending the use of the N-word, but this was not even in their same planet as calling somebody that maliciously, you know, he's just uttering the syllables. Okay. That's not, it just it's non sense what they were going after him for, and they're doing it because he, he facilitates conversations. They don't like, and that's really scary because if the lift hates anything, they hate their worldview being challenged. And when you can convert back and forth and dialogue with people, maybe you can convince 'em that you might be right, or you can show them data. You can show them a chart, Hey, what's up with this chart?
Scott Morefield:
Explain this to me. It's a conversation. Joe Rogan has conversations and he has people on there that the left disagrees with. They hate that they would never do that. You're not gonna see one of us make it onto MSNBC for a conversation. You know, you're, you're not gonna, or a leftist podcast to, we're not gonna get invited to anything like that because we've got facts on our side and they don't want to hear that. So that's why they hate Joe Rogan. He he's kind of a, just himself, but he's just an open mind, go likes to talk and likes to he's open minded. And he likes to have conversations with people. So that's, it's, it's bone chilling. It's our well end. There's so much our well end about this age that we live in, but the attempts to silence this guy we're pretty blatant. I don't know. What's I don't think he'll, I mean, he, he probably won't lose his he's maybe too big right now, but they almost got him and yeah. And I think they'll still, they're probably still digging in the archives trying to find something that he said to try to get him.
Ian Miller:
Yeah.
Scott Morefield:
But it's not because they're, you know, they're not crying in a corner because the other, the magical syllables I can tell you that.
Ian Miller:
Yeah, absolutely. Intent matters, I think is, is a, exactly is a lesson that everybody needs to take to heart here. Yes. So I, I wanted to, I have just a couple, like two more questions for you, but the one of my, my senses has been that the media in a lot of ways has been responsible for a lot of these policies that we've seen by not covering them by not presenting any of the harms. I mean, you can see fact checks and they'll say like, oh, there's no harms for, for putting masks on kids, for example you know, by ignoring the data and not showing the impact of the policies, like basically just showing here's what we did. What was the result? Is there any hope to solve to them at this point? Are they totally gone? What can we do about the media?
Scott Morefield:
Yeah. It's, it's so polarized right now. There's no such thing as ma I guess the closest thing we might have the mainstream media is the wall street journal. Everything else is either a super right or, or, or they call 'em super right, because they're so they're, they're trying to report things as normal, but it's right by the left standards. And most outlets of course are, are super left leaning. So I don't know. I, I don't, I don't think there's any hope for 'em. I, I think that it, everybody is gonna go to their places to get the truth. I think Fox news does a good job of trying to be balanced as much as they can, and that comes across as right. Leaning just because these days being balanced is right leaning, but which is really crazy to, to think about. But and you know, they've got their opinion shows and stuff in the evenings, but as far as the website and their news division, that's as balanced as you can get. I think they do a good job with that, but I don't think there's any bringing back to left wing media. I think that they're too far gone and they're, they're, COVID co COVID cult members too. So you can't come back from that. You're, they're indoctrinated all the way.
Ian Miller:
I agree. It's it's painful to see some of the stuff that gets published and the comments that are made. And I mean, I, you know, I'm sure you see it. I do this all the time where it put these comments up from CNN and then they're immediately disproven shortly afterwards. Yes. so I, you wrote about this recently with the former CDC director. So is it important to you as we see the kind of conversation changing, you know, like Washington post saying mass mandates never worked, is it important to you that they, they just get it right now? Or is it, is it important that they kind of admit that they were always wrong from the beginning?
Scott Morefield:
Yeah. I'll, I'll settle for them just getting it right now, but it's, it's let's just, let's just take our wins, even Leanna win. Goodness gracious. I know that she's that she's been insane this whole time, but I'll take whatever she'll give us. And not just because that moves to the Overton window a little, it that's, the, the goal is to not let the, if our goal is to not let this happen again, that's the goal. So anytime they admit something, then they foster the goal of not having this happen again, I'll take that. It would be great if they would apologize. I don't think they ever will. Fcis definitely, you know, he'll probably never, never admit any of this stuff, but of course, yeah, the, the post about red Redfield, the former CDC director, he was, you know, talking about how they lot less, a lower opinion of mass than he wants had when he said they were as, as good as a vaccine, which that's an ironic statement in itself. It became one cause maybe he was right, but for different reasons. But yeah, we'll, we'll take what we can get from, from anybody that wants to come on board with some reality, always looking for those stories. I mean, when I'm clipping the headline or clipping news I do that on Twitter, like clip, clip you know, different, various talking heads saying things that's the stuff I look for the most for somebody on CNN that says something that may makes sense. I'll I'll put it up. Yeah. Cause they need to be watched.
Ian Miller:
Yeah. So my last question for you, and I think this was the case in Nashville. I'm, I'm not a hundred percent sure, but how can anybody look at the continuation of like school masking policies, where there's no mask mandate for anything else in life? Like, you know, you walk into the store and no problem, but the schools are, they're the only place that are masked. How can anybody look at that and, and say that this is based off of science or evidence at this point,
Scott Morefield:
None they're they're cult members there there's none. I mean, they, they they ignore and there's so much, there's so much evidence on this. And so many studies done and so many mainstream people coming out now and saying that this makes no sense. And you still have people hanging onto this. Thankfully they're a minority now. But that's the worst thing is, is the forcibly muzzling of children, the forcible muzzling of children. It it's horrifying that it's gone on this long. And just, just the fact at just the fact that there are still school districts allowing this to happen is beyond me. I, I, I, I don't understand it, but it's gonna take going and it's, it's gonna take running against school board members who vote for these things. I mean, we had a massive school board shift in San Francisco. I, I, I don't know how big a part mask played in that, but but interestingly, they were able to re they, they recalled three school board members just because of stupid COVID stuff.
Scott Morefield:
I mean, keeping the schools closed was a big factor. So it's gonna take just replacing school board members and going forward. Any, any school board candidate should be asked, Hey, if, if if there's a COVID resurgence, are you gonna forcibly muzzle our kids because, and what data are you gonna show that says, this has any effect? Cause like with your charts, if, if, if it, if it had any effect, we would it right, because Florida, Tennessee, a lot of states had counties that did mask in counties that did not mask, especially Florida. And there's no discernible difference at all.
Ian Miller:
Yep.
Scott Morefield:
And you would see that and they don't, I don't understand. It's just, it's so frustrating when you talk to people and they, they, I don't, it's, there's so much cognitive dissonance that they're willing to accept. And, and I, I still, I can only explain it by using terms like religion and cult, because that's the only way you can explain irrational behavior
Ian Miller:
And least. That's a great point about asking these potential school board, you know, politicians down the road and everybody's gonna have to pay a lot closer attention to this going forward. You know what absolutely. What's your position on this? Thank you so much, Scott, for doing this. I really appreciate you coming on the show. You can follow Scott on Twitter at SK Moorefield and then at obviously you read@townhall.com. There's tons of great columns you put up all the time. So go check it out and thank you again, Scott.
Scott Morefield:
Thank you Ian. It was great being here.
Episode 11: Scott Morefield on Policy Failures, School Masking and The Media