The Adam and Dr. Drew Show - Classic #1721 The Ultimate F*** You

Episode Date: June 30, 2026

May 18, 2023Adam and Drew take a deep dive into the reason CDC Director Rochelle Walensky resigned. Next, Adam revisits his greatest moment of all time where he delivered the ultimate “FU��.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Well, this throwback episode 1721, the ultimate FU, May 18th, 20203. Drew and I talk about the CDC and many other things. So enjoy. Recorded live at Corolla 1 Studios with Adam Carolla and board certified physician and addiction medicine specialist Dr. Drew Pinsky. You're listening to The Adam and Dr. Drew Show. Yeah, get it on. getting on a chip, that's a doctor,

Ruse with the board certified physician, Dix and a specialist. That's right, my friend. So I got, we've been on these interesting historical sidebars, last couple of shows, but I have a bunch of stuff I want to talk to you about. Mm-hmm.

First of all, Wollensky out at the CDC. Nice. And all the misinformation that she presented as sort of being unearthed and presented, sort of uncanny how many false things she said. Why do you think she left? Well, here's an interesting thing.

There, I just found out yesterday. This is not widely distributed yet, and I don't know quite how this is going to play out. But there was some sort of legal action against her for never having signed the affidavit she was supposed to sign declaring that she wasn't receiving any money that would adulterate her opinions. Uh-huh. And in that affidavit, I can't pronounce it. they uh i thought it's affidavit david david v i t oh with a t okay uh and they specifically describe her job as consultant she was never meant to be the director of the cdc apparently which so there's more to be revealed in this story as we move along here i i don't know quite what's

going on i don't even know if that has anything to do with why she left she left coincidentally on the same day the world health organization declared the pandemic over she announced victory and that she's done a great job. Yeah. Right. I'm scaring the fuck out of everyone. Yeah. She, look.

She hadn't been in the job two days before you called her a gypsy woman. That's pretty funny. Well, lookie here. She's actually apparently a well-qualified, excellent physician. But everybody, here's what,

here's the sad news, Drew. Yeah. That's true. We've had plenty of that. It turns out everyone is well qualified until they get pushed into a direction. Yeah. And then they go that direction.

I know. So she's well qualified, but teachers unions in the Biden administration are telling her to shut up about opening schools. So she shuts up. Yes. So you can be well qualified and pushed into a direction. So what do we call that? Do we call that just, you know, sort of pragmatic? Do we call that?

A mercenary. You could call it the ultimate in pragmatism, if you think about it. Yeah. It's almost cold-blooded pragmatism. It's a little more... It's a little... Self-serving. Well, it's survival.

Yeah. I mean, that's what it feels like to them. Now, I would argue quit and go get another job. It's hard. Or quit and go get another job in another field. which is harder. But I wouldn't say just do it. You know what I mean?

Like, look, every hero story out of Hollywood is people that won't just do it. That's, except for all of Hollywood just does it, which makes me wonder why they're obsessed with that. That's the next thing I want to get into. But go ahead. Finish Wolenski. So she had a couple of episodes. And her episodes were like, first things first, whether it was her or Fauci or Barbara Ferrer. When somebody is balanced and neutral and buoyant, by the very definition of them being neutral and buoyant, then you're going to hear news this way and you're going to hear news that way.

You know what I mean? So, you know, Fauci's going to say, well, I don't think large gatherings are good. thing during a pandemic and then someone goes, what about BLM marches? And he goes, no different. You know, that's a large, if it's a large gathering, then I'm against it. Yeah. Well, what if it's for, you know, born again Christians and they want to, they want to protest abortion center against it? Or what if it's for progressive blacks who want to protest systemic racism against it? Because it's a large gathering. Now, that's a consistent thought that I would, that I would, that agree with. But that's not what he did. And she could have done a few of those herself,

but she didn't. She gave her presser in front of the CDC banner talking about opening schools and then got coached up after that into not saying open schools. And then she came back and said, I wasn't speaking as an official capacity. Well, look, hold on. Hold on, bitch. The son up and you're in front of a CDC banner as the head of the CDC. Right. So you're not speaking. Why are you speaking then? Right.

If that's not. Does somebody ask you for your personal opinion? We're not asking for a recipe for gazpacho. We're asking if school should be open. And you said yes. But you had to walk it back. So who made you walk it back? And better yet, why did you walk it back?

So once you do that... I would say that was her bottom. To me, that was the lowest. I mean, she did some very inaccurate vaccine stuff. Once she did that, and once she started talking. talking about her son as a mom and day camp, summer camp. And once you start talking about all that shit, I was like, okay, she's adulterated. Sad.

I guess she's done. She's on my list of people. She successfully made it onto my list of people not to listen to. Now, here's the whole thing. You're not born onto that list. You have to earn your way onto that list. You know what I mean? Yes.

It's the second, the news anchor, the politician, or Fauci or whatever started saying, you know, there's no way that virus could have emanated from a lab. I'm like, okay, now you're on the list. Right. The second you said, there's no way the Hunter Biden laptop could be real. That's Russian. Oh, now you're on that list.

The reason you're on that list is not because I know where the virus emanated from or I know that the Hunter Biden laptop isn't Russian collusion. I don't know. Right. But somehow you know. Right. And you don't have access to that information. Right.

So now you've made your way onto my list. Right. So certain. And hubris were the big problems and a lot of what people said this time. Yeah. You made it on to the list. Anyone who says, uh, I don't know where that virus came from because how would I know that China's not sharing any of their data with us?

Right. Uh, it makes sense that it came from a lab since it was, in the neighborhood. I'm even open to working on the viruses, but I can't say for certain that you're off the list now. And I don't know what that Hunter Biden's laptop is. I haven't examined it. How would I know? Okay.

Now you're off the list. Yeah. But you don't do that. You know something that's not knowable or that you don't know. So now you're on the list. Yeah. Oh, we have a Linsky clip. I have the summer camp.

Oh, you have the original one. The summer camp was the one we really started. going down the road with her on. I love her on us. Oh, yeah. She's precious. She'll be missed. With regard to camp, I have a 16-year-old. Every year, he comes home from camp,

and he writes the number of days until he returns to camp. With severe autism. This year, it got to zero, and I told him he wasn't going. I want our kids back in camp. You do. We now have 38,000 new infections on average per day. Last May 11th, it was 24,000. and we sent a lot of kids home and camps were closed.

The camp guidance is intended to get our kids to camp and allow them to stay there. What? What was the camp guidance? Well, why'd you keep your kid out of camp? Yeah. Yeah. Because she's not going to vaccinate them. That's why.

I told you that was the reason. Yeah. I know, I know for sure. I have no direct knowledge, but I felt that way about her from the beginning. Well, she never said her kid was actually. She kept talking about her kids needing to get vaccinated. Right. As I remember, the camp guidance was you have to get vaccinated before you go to camp.

We have the CDC logo background clip, too, for this angel. We'll be missed. Angel mercy. When I first started at CDC about two months ago, I made a promise to you. I would tell you the truth, even if it was not the news, we wanted to hear. Now is one of those times when I have to share the truth and I have to hope and trust you will listen. Okay. I'm going to pause here.

I'm going to lose the script. and I'm going to reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending view. Oh, this is that. We have so much to look forward to. God, does she have bad judgment? So much promise and potential of where we are and so much reason for hope. But right now, I'm scared. How do you have hope and impending due?

I know what it's like as a physician to stand in that patient room. All right. She has a feeling of impending doom. That's a great thing to tell public. That's a wonderful, wonderful spokesperson. Yeah. Gets everybody. She has a feeling of impending due.

It gets everybody, you know, lined up. Oh, God, the greatest gift of all is not to listen to any of these people ever, ever. You know how much I modified my life for COVID? Personally. You didn't make any modifications. Modifications were brought to you. You ended up eating at Tin Horn Flats. You might not have been there if there hadn't been COVID.

That's right. I wouldn't have taken my son to go to Tin Horn Flats in protest. if you're right. I did modify. I did go to Tin Horn Flats. You didn't modify. You just did things that was presented to you kind of thing. You know, things as they, as was, as things were done.

I probably walked. I probably used the horse trail more when they closed the horse trail. Well, I was thinking about that. I was trying to figure out how to, you certainly had to address the yellow tape and the tank, the tank barriers and things more than you would have. And by the way, deal with this with sanctimonious shitheads on the trail. then you have to deal with that a little bit? You know, people often say to me, like, what are, what are your most proud of?

Or what are your achievements or whatever it is? And, you know, winning a car race feels pretty good or maybe having kids. But it's telling people to fuck off in real time. Yeah. That's my crowning achievement. You know, that guy got out of his car, started walking toward me in purpose. Like, hey, you're in trouble, Bob. and I was like, fuck right off.

Go back to your car, go get your mask. Where's your masks? And I want you know. It was the greatest moment ever. I agree. I'll never forget it. I was on the phone with him. He goes, oh, here comes over with these guys getting out of his car.

And I hear this. Hey, where's your mask? That's what I hear. And he goes, you walking on that trail? I go, where's your mask? You're not supposed to be on that trail. I go, go back to your car and get your mask. And then we can talk.

Wait, then you say. You know what you said next? told him to put tank traps up like they used the the Germans used on Normandy on Omaha Beach to keep people from going on the trail because obviously your fucking plastic tape is just causing me and Margaros to walk around the plastic tape and continue down the trail he went at it with earnestness like why didn't you put the tank traps down here that's going to keep people off don't you think and I think at the end you watched where he sort of said fuck off and you said some you some sort of

of not greeting, but you terminated the conversation with a little get the fuck out of here. Yes, that's my greatest achievement. It was. It was great. I'm so glad I witnessed it. I'll never forget it. You would have thought I was exaggerating if you, if you didn't, if you weren't on the phone with me. It had a quality that almost can't be reproduced. You know what I mean?

Because it's funny when you tell it, but there was a quality of with the guys, and you're like, yeah, what I don't. He couldn't deal with it. Yes. It's hard to reproduce that quality. My greatest moment. Yep. Yeah. So everyone needed to do what I did, but they wouldn't do it because they were worried about

getting into trouble more than they were worried about germs, I guess. I don't know. Look, it was a weird, weird, weird experience. People don't, I don't know if people have, back to the paradigm stuff we were talking about. I think the last episode, you got to step outside the paradigm and really look at how freaking weird this was. Yeah. So I figured out that they were trying to scare us early.

And so once I figured out they were trying to scare us, I thought, well, you don't really try to scare people when things are statistically relevant and dangerous, you know. They figured out for themselves. It kind of is what it is. You just tell them what's going to be. Yeah. They kept sort of padding. things.

An asteroid were approaching, you would go. They sensationalized things. And then I knew what they were doing. The words? Yeah. Well, she has the impending doom. They were way into the, what was it? It was grave.

Yeah. Okay. So, you know. Staggering. She stepped down. She did a fucking piss poor job. You guys can defend her. You can defend Fouch.

You can defend Barbara Farrar. You can defend all the panic merchants out there. But you're never going to. convince me they didn't do a piss poor job at this and they heard a lot of people and they put a lot of kids behind that ruined a lot of businesses all right fine uh they need to go she's gonna move on to working for some pharmaceutical company and that'll that'll that'll be that and then she'll start getting paid more or whatever from them talking about that's what he's concerned about that cozy relationship rfk junior oh yeah right he was one that really described that to me the first time and i was

like oh shit he's right yeah it's too cozy it's too cozy yeah Right. So you leave your position in government and you go on and become a consultant. Government regulators who regulate the industry and become a part of the industry. Yes. And yes, you become a consultant and a, what do they call it? Lobbyist. Lobbyist for whatever the company is.

It even gets closer. They go into the executive structure. Yeah. All right. So that's what she'll do. So this goes back to this dovetails a bit into the other thing I wanted to bring up, which is something we talked about, I think, Monday, about people that want to burn things down.

And you were saying you were, and I was saying, you say you've been around these people a bit. And I said, you're around the people adjacent to the ones that want to burn things down. They're going along because they want to be a cool kid. No, I understand the fantasy of it because that was,

every loser's fantasy is burn it down. They don't. Grievance. When you have a grievance, you want to burn everything down? No, it's, It's basically this. We're playing a high school football game.

I'm looking up at the scoreboard. We're getting beat 34 to nothing. There's four minutes left in the game. And I would like a small aircraft to crash into the scoreboard. Yeah. And take it down. I don't want to see that score anymore. If I'm on the team that's up 34-0, I like what I see.

So if you're successful, gainfully employed, happy, and taking care of business, then you like what you see in that scoreboard. But if you don't like what you see in that scoreboard, you like a Cessna to hit it. Now, in days of your, the way it worked is they said, you don't like what you see at that scoreboard. You better start working harder practice. Right. But those days are over. You see? The solution to changing the scoreboard was you guys had to work harder in the offseason. Now you just get rid of the scoreboard.

Now we get rid of the scoreboard because I don't like what it says. And the group that doesn't like what it says is larger than the group that likes what it says. And then the policies start coming in because those groups vote. That sounds dangerous. Oh, it's totally dangerous. why then, this is the part that really confused me, and maybe it follows from this kind of perspective, why the guys that we grew up with

that were pushing against the man, why are they so interested in telling other people how to live their life? That to me is the weirdest shift to go from, hey, leave me alone, you're not the boss of me, to I'm the boss of everybody. I guess it's just flip side of the same thing,

as humans sometimes do. It's still such a strange thing. And to me, embedded in it is a deep denial about being elite. They don't want to be the elite. They are it, but they don't. No, no, no, no, no. Don't look here. It's not us.

Right. You know what I mean? No, no, no. We're for everybody. We're for everybody. We're here. We fought the man for everybody. And then they're going to tell everybody how to live, which is just such a, I can't.

It's just a weird shift for me. I don't get it. Isn't that weird? Yeah, I don't like it macro or micro. Like, I don't like getting, now, people would say to me probably if I said, I don't like telling people what to do or how to do it or what, you know, bossing people around or something. Most people would laugh and they would go, oh, come on, it's all you do. You know what I mean?

See, that's the part that's weird to me. See, I got the same thing. Like, you're telling people not to do drugs. No, no, no, no. I want people to live, go do what they want. But if they need help, I'm here to help. Yeah, so what I do is I tell people, rinse your coffee mug so it doesn't get the brown stain at the bottom that you can't get to with the sponge or whatever. But I'm not, and that may fall under the heading of telling you what to do.

But I'm really just going, I come from a world where all I did is for a professional. profession as a carpenter is have guys go, hey, you're going to cut that three-quarter-inch good one-side finish birch with your circular saw, draw a line and then score it. Score it with your utility knife. You score it with your utility knife. It won't kick up in splinter. You'll get a cleaner edge. You'll get a much cleaner edge.

You'll just score it. So I'll go, okay. Just do it. And then sometimes they'd go, you know, you're using a 32-tooth carbide tip 7, a quarter inch circular saw blade. You're cutting melamine or cortron or something that's got a vinyl coating on it. And they go, you know, the underside is a cleaner cut. So flip it over, cut the side you're going to put down. It'll chip out more, but the bottom side's a cleaner.

Cut. I'd go, there you go. And that's all it was. Now, that those guys like telling me what to do? I don't know. It's just that's the way humans work, you know? They burned calories helping you. You appreciated that.

I did, yeah. I got to be a better carpenter. And it's the only way I became a carpenter. And it's everything I learned and knew. You know, it's this weird. I had this weird thought the other day. It's not even weird, but. funny, you tell me.

I went out, there's a couple of guys. You know, when I worked as a carpenter, there was always like a kind of weird groups you'd get paired up with. There'd be sort of the Mexican guys over there, and then it'd be this guy, the plumber, and that guy, the electrician or something. And look, you have these little groups. And there's these two guys. I think the name was like Phil and Russ or something.

They were older guys. When I say older, they were 29, you know, and I was 21, you know, or whatever. But they seemed older. You know what I mean? And they were like nice guys. And once in a while you'd run into guys like a sense of humor and stuff. So I was standing over my sink a couple days ago. And I was putting the lid or the cap or screwing a lid onto something.

I don't know, pickle jar or something. Yeah. And I'm left-handed. So I usually hold it in my right hand and I take them to the left. And I, you know, everything screws on clockwise. Yeah. But I do quarter turn counterclockwise and then clockwise. And I was thinking about that.

Like I didn't do that from the beginning part of my life. I would just start. And I don't know. Do you guys do that? Does anyone know that? Is that a thing? Like if I was putting, if I was screwing this cap back on to this glass cleaner, I put it down. I'd go counter and then I go clockwise.

Does everyone do that? I do that a lot of the time. Yeah, but not religiously because sometimes it kind of falls off. It doesn't really catch. But you do it, I mean. Yeah. You go counter. Yeah.

Then that way. Yeah. I try to tell myself, oh, that's right. Would you go the wrong way first or are you doing it intentionally? For some reason I go the wrong way. Oh. But it's not intentional. No, it's not.

Yeah, that's what I, that's why I was digging around. I intentionally go to catch. I literally do the lefty, righty, righty, type of that stuff. What's Ben there? Does Ben go the other way? I don't know. All right. The point is this.

Now Drew is looking at his phone. I just got to miss the message. I would work with guys, different guys, fun guys, white guys, Mexican guys. You know, some were fucking shitheads and the other with kind of goofy and funny and whatever. And there. A couple of guys. I think Phil was one of the guys. And those guys had mustaches and stuff, you know.

And it kind of took me under their wing and then helped me learn finish and kind of brought me out of the, from digging ditches into the house where we could put some baseball down. It was very exciting for me. I can learn something. We could do something. And there were most everyone I worked with completely ignored whatever sense of humor, personality, observations, whatever I had, which I had. which I had. Then it was like, shut up,

you know, get back to work or whatever. But sometimes there'd be a guy, and they'd be like, eh, it's funny. You're, you know, you're fun guy to knock around with,

you know, maybe we'll have a beer after work or something, you know. Yeah. And so we ended up, we'd go out to the desert and go like motorcycle riding,

you know, on some weekend or something. Yeah, who were 28. Oh, right, right. I was 21 or 20 or something, you know. Maybe there were 31,

but they were old to me, you know. And, you know, we headed out. And these are good guys. And they're very capable. You know, they could build a house, but they could also work on a motorcycle in the desert with limited tools and get the throttle cable back working and stuff like that. I had this old kind of beater motor, you know, dirt bike and stuff. And it's constantly having to work on it.

And I was trying to fix something and, like, thread something. And I was 21, 20, 21, something like that. And I was trying to get this nut back on. And Phil said to me, listen, put the nut on, turn it counterclockwise for about half a turn, then turn it clockwise. It won't cross thread that way. When you put stuff on, you just start turning it, it'll get cross-threaded. Right. You can set it on and it'll be a little uneven.

You start turning and you start cross-threading. So turn... This is your public service announcement for the day. Yeah. just half a turn, quarter turn, back the other direction, then thread it on. And I was like, oh, okay, thanks. Not, you're not the boss of me, old 29 year old man. But I found myself at age 58 standing in front of my sink the other day, putting this lid on, going counter, and then going the way.

And I thought, oh, Phil. Yeah. 35 years ago. 40 years ago, Phil was... 30 years ago, yeah. Well, no, 35, 38, whatever. This is stuck from Phil telling me, I never did it that way, I never thought about it,

I didn't have any motivation. My dad didn't tell me or no one taught me, but Phil said it. Said it once in the desert. Just sitting in the desert, and that's what he said. And I was like, hats off to Phil.

This shall no longer have to be spoken to me ever again in a world. Now, when I get with people, I want to tell them what Phil told me. And then people say, oh, so you just sit around like telling everyone everything and what to do all the time. And I'm like, I'm passing along information that worked for me that I didn't invent. This is somebody else's idea, but I use it and it's been effective. now you could say, you could laugh at me. You know, if bald Brian was sitting in this room and I said, I don't like telling people what to do or controlling people's lives or running right, he would start laughing.

But the information is stuff that is actually useful that most people push back against or reject, but I don't know. So it is technically me telling people what to do. Put that how to live. No, not how to live. It's just better if you rinse your coffee muck. Yes. That's all, and it's better if you go counterclockwise for half a time.

To be fair, by the way, you're always saying that kind of stuff in an environment where you happen to own everything. It's all your stuff you're talking about. Yes, I don't care what you do at home with your coffee mug. You would advise them to, you know, act accordingly, but whatever. Yeah, whatever. It's your house. It's your mug. It's your sponge.

But that is how I would do it. And I have no idea. I think ownership is under attack too. Why that is met with such resistance. And I'll tell you, I think women push back much harder than men do in the here's a tip department. Not sure why that's woven into the DNA. It's weird because they are much better exchanging cultural information and when it comes to child ering stuff, things like that.

But I think the mechanical or the, I don't know, there's something. practical practical stuff. Not mechanical. Yeah, the more practical stuff they push. I don't know. But think about it. That's weird. I agree with you.

Maybe they just don't like taking direction from men. Maybe they're more open to it from women. Well, then you get into this space where people kind of watch you do it wrong and leave you alone, which is never where you want to be. No. But unfortunately, I've cast many people off into that island. That is a big trend in society right now. Watching people do stuff wrong and just leave one alone. That's all we do.

Right. Just look out on the streets. Yeah. That's all wrong. Yeah, you don't want to get to that part. And then all the people I know that are smart, never stop asking for tips and directions. Of course. And they want to have ideas.

Mentors. So important. They want you to challenge their ideas constantly. Yes. That's how we grow. Yeah. Look, exposure. Exposure is a fundamental feature of improving mental health.

and cognition and growth. Exposure, not safe places. So, until next time, Adam Crow for Dr. Drew saying, Mahalo.