The Highwire with Del Bigtree - THE MASK MANDATE MELEE

Episode Date: May 1, 2022

A federal court struck down the Biden Administration’s travel mask mandate. As America rejoiced with uncovered faces, a curveball was thrown less than 48 hours later.#BidenMaskMandateBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-highwire-with-del-bigtree--3620606/support.

One of the biggest stories in the United States this week, we have one of the major pillars of the lockdown restrictions. It has been vacated. It has been ended by a federal district court in Florida. What am I talking about? I'm talking about the mask mandate for travelers. This is how the news reported on it. Take a look. Out of Florida, where a federal judge has just overturned the CDC's national mask mandate for planes and other forms of public transportation. A U.S. District Judge said the court accepts the CDC's argument that masks will limit COVID-19 transmission, but that alone was not sufficient to exceed the agency's authority. That means the TSA will not enforce the rule at airports and other transportation hubs.

The CDC, for the record, still recommends wearing one if you're on a train or on a bus or at the airport or on a plane. This is obviously a disappointing decision. The CDC continues recommending wearing a mask in public transit. Basically, get out of jail free card for people who want to get off the masks. I have actually passenger, a lot of passengers I'm hearing from this morning who are begging us even go on strike to stop this. People are really upset about it. You should wear the best filtration mask you can, an N95 or KN95 mask. So in my case, I'll still do that.

I'm going to get on a plane in about an hour. Thankfully, I'm vaccinated and boosted and have a good quality mask, so she'll feel reasonable. I think when it comes to mask mandates, they're there because people just aren't great people. And that's just the bottom line. Americans just aren't aren't great to each other. We just aren't. And so when it comes to things like flying, I don't want to get on a plane with super spreaders. I don't want to get on a plane with 214 other people that are going to be breathing on me with their COVID breath. I don't want it. I don't want it. I want the masks. Well, you can keep wearing it because then we'll know you're a hypochondriac.

I mean, that's really what it comes down to, right? I guess she's going to keep wearing it on the planes. I mean, that's what's so amazing about this, right? I mean, I almost, Jeffrey, almost booked the ticket, you know, to get on a plane the day that this all broke. Just because I fly so much, I thought, what's one more trip to Denver and back really quick? Just so I can hear them have to announce it. But it was, you know, it's just amazing how the news makes it like it's like the end of the world. You better keep wearing it, though.

I mean, you're not going to trust this, are you? I mean, this is a dangerous decision. crazy. Right. They try to float a narrative there, but let's take a look. We have tons of video here of what that historic moment look like when it broke in air cabins across America for airlines. Take a look. April 18, the Biden administration announced that the Transportation Security Administration will no longer enforce a federal mandate requiring masks in all U.S. airports and on foreign aircraft. Your masks are now optional.

Oh, yeah. Celebrate that's ever happened on planes at the same time all around the country. Amazing. And you don't see a lot of people standing up and screaming and certainly doesn't look like the majority are against that, which gives us a sense of really where we're at in this country, I think. Anyone that thinks that we are not the majority, look at those planes. Everybody's excited about it, meaning all those people were just going along with it because they were being forced to. They didn't believe in it. They weren't afraid of this disease. And with the CDC still recommending it, Sanjay Gupta, still recommending it. It looks like people know who they're going to listen to. They're going to listen to their own intuition. We're in a whole new world now, baby. Absolutely. And this is what the headline looked like over at the highwire.com news page when it broke. U.S. federal judge declared CDC's mask travel mandate for planes and trains unlawful. Now, looking at this court decision is fascinating.

What the CDC decided to rest their case upon was a public health code, 42 U.S.C. Subsection 264 paragraph A. And basically the CDC's claim of authority under this article here does not take into account its limited language found in that subsection. And this is what it has to say. For purposes of carrying out and enforcing such regulations, the surgeon general may provide for such inspection, fumigation, disinfection, sanitation, pest extermination, destruction of animals or articles found to be so infected or contaminated as to be sources of

dangerous infection the CDC relied on one word there sanitation above all and if you notice in that section it's basically doing something to an object doing something to something else it's not talking about what we can do to humans not talking about detaining humans anything like that and so they focused on sanitation and interestingly enough uh i can's uh excellent attorneys on March 8th we covered this on the show we put a lawsuit or I should say you put a lawsuit to Rochelle Linsky. Yep Aaron Siri we put a lawsuit out because I told you I was over this airplane mask mandate and guess what I think as you're about to point out that was our argument too is all based on the fact that that just does not hold water we are not sanitation we're human

beings you might be able to euthanize an animal and for those of you that work for PETA I guess that's really upsetting, but it was only about what you could do to animals or objects, not what you can do to human beings. And so what did the judge rule on that? Yeah, absolutely the same ground. So looking at this latest call in Florida, this was against Joe Biden. This was Health Freedom Defense Fund versus Joseph R. Biden. And they found this, among other things in this ruling, since the mass mandate regulates an individual's behavior wearing a mask, it imposes directly on liberty interests, not the property interest, contemplated in subsection a therefore it was vacated by this judge so after that happened directly

after that happened the everyone was kind of wide-eyed because the airlines themselves individual companies can still impose these mandates so people were looking around at the airlines wondering are they going to all work in concert here and slam this thing back shut so just to remind people back in march when when this mask order was re-upped 10 major airlines and the CEOs for them sent this This is the headline CEOs of 10 major airlines and cargo operators, including American Southwest, JetBlue, and FedEx, tell Biden a drop outdated mass mandate and test for travelers. And this letter was sent through what's called the Airlines for America. This is a trade union for all of those airlines and more. And their letter had some interesting language in there, some harsh language, some strong language. It looked like this.

It makes no sense that people are still required to wear masks on airplanes yet are allowed to congregate in crowded restaurants, schools, and at sporting events without mass. despite none of these venues having the protective air filtration system that aircrafts do. Then it goes on. It ends with this. It is critical to recognize that the burden of enforcing both the mask and pre-departure testing requirements has fallen on our employees for two years now. This is not a function. They are trained to perform and subjects them to daily challenges by frustrated customers. This in turn takes a toll on their own well-being. And so what happened right after this mandate was vacated by that federal judge in Florida, all the airlines sent up their kind of

their bat signal to let the public know, we are not going to do this. So let's run through these real fast here, American airlines. Update on federal mass mandate. This is what they had to say, face masks will no longer be required for our customers and team members at U.S. airports and on domestic flights. Alaska Air, same thing. FacePass are now optional. Southwest. Federal face mask mandate lifted. And then United, this was through the Association of Flight Attendance, United Informs employees, our airlines no longer enforcing these mass mandate. So that angle was done. Now the next angle I saw the media attacking was, well, this is a Trump appointed judge.

So clearly this person has no expertise, but just a reminder, putting the politics aside for a second, there was some unity on this issue during a Senate vote in March. This was the headline out of Reuters, U.S. Senate votes to overturn transit mass mandate, Biden vows veto. was a 57 to 40 vote to overturn this mass mandate. Eight Democrats in the Senate voted for this resolution. So we saw this bipartisan unity here on this mass mandate to just kill this thing. Of course, it was kind of vestigial. It was just symbolic because it would have been vetoed by Biden and the House would have given it a run for its money too. But let's look at this disconnect between the agencies. Here is HHS secretary, the leader of the Health and Human Services, Javier Bacera. He was caught during an interview. Someone asked him about it. And this is what he had to

say. Take a look. We are right now in the process of deciding and we likely will appeal that ruling, but stay tuned. It just goes to show you have the CDC looking at it. Department of Justice doesn't know. He thinks they're appealing. Then look at President Biden. This is what he had to say in two separate time frames, basically an hour apart right before Becerra made that comment. Take a look. Do you continue to wear masks on planes? That's up to that. I've not gotten any grief from the CDC. I don't know. What will you talk to the CDC?

I mean, talk about flip-flopping. I mean, it's like, you know, you have freedom of choice. It's your choice. And then hours later, oh, no, sorry, I think we might take that choice away from you. I mean, if they did take that choice, let's political suicide, is it not? Yeah.

And just yesterday, the breaking news was it looks like they decided to pull that trigger. This is the New York Post, CDC. asked DOJ to appeal ruling to bring back mask mandates on planes and trains. I can't believe I'm reading this. The CDC is saying that this order is necessary for public health. They're also saying in a statement that they believe that they're well within their legal bounds to make this order, even though the judge didn't think that way. So the appeal is now, they've tapped the DOJ to push this appeal. And these are some of the headlines coming out. And what's interesting is, You see the shift now from the talking point was everyone was kind of attacking the Trump

appointed judge. It'll be interesting to see who pushes back against the CDC on this. If you think about it too, I mean, I think there's a lot of things at play here as I think about it just on the fly is that there's two things, right? Number one, if they don't appeal it, then did their health ruling actually matter? You know, they're just walking away from the health issue. But I think the bigger issue is sort of what they stated there, right? If they allow this to slide, that sets precedent.

That means we've allowed and accepted the fact that this judge says we don't have the authority. And by God, the WHO is, you know, everyone wants this authority. They want to give us this authority so we can't let it glow. And you're right. I mean, I think there's, I mean, not to be political about it, but I think this really all backpires on them. Because as they try to make it the bad guy in the news, right, well, is a Trump appointed judge that made this decision? I'm sorry. That Trump appointed judge, if that's what.

but decided this, it looks like 95% of every airplane out there that heard the news is citing with the Trump appointed judge. Does this make these people think I must be more aligned with Trump and their appointed and his appointed judges than I certainly am with an administration that wants to take this joy, this celebration away from me? This is crazy. And they're really splitting hairs here because it was only two weeks they extended this thing for. So they could have let it just go out with not a lot of fanfare.

This puts them in the, a seat that puts a ton of focus on them. Now they're going to have to come up with some, really some real science. Hopefully they will. I don't know where they're going to find it, but some real science to back this up. And a lot of people are going to be watching them, trying to find that. Well, just remember, everybody, your health department, the CDC, wants to have control over us. That's what this is about. They can't let the precedents be set, that they don't have that control. We didn't elect them. We have no control of them, but they want to control us. This is why we have so much work.

to do. That's just outrageous that they're heading in that direction.