The Pete Quiñones Show - Episode 1164: Never Forget What They Did to Us w/ Tom Woods

Episode Date: January 26, 2025

We had problem with Tom’s audio We did the best we could.51 MinutesSFWTom Woods is a New York Times best-selling author and the host of The Tom Woods Show.Tom joins Pete to talk about his new book: Diary of a Psychosis: How Public Health Disgraced Itself During COVID Mania. They also talk about current eventsDiary of a Psychosis: How Public Health Disgraced Itself During COVID ManiaTom Woods dot comPete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's SubstackPete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

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Get the facts be drinkaware, visit drinkaware. If you want to support the show and get the episodes early and add free, head on over to freeman beyond the wall.com forward slash support. I want to explain something right now if you support me through Substack or Patreon. You have access to an RSS feed that you can plug into any podcatcher, including Apple, and you'll be able to listen to the episodes through there. If you support me through Subscribe Star, Gumroad, or on my website directly, I will send you a link where you can download the file and you can listen to it any way you wish. I really appreciate the support everyone gives me. It keeps the show going. It allows me to basically put out an episode every day now, and I'm not going to

stop. I'm just going to accelerate. I think sometimes you see that I'm putting out two, even three a day. Yeah, can't do it without you. So thank you for the support. Head on over to freeman beyond the wall.com forward slash support and do it there. Thank you. I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekingana show. Old friends return. How are you doing, Tom?

Hey, Pete, good to see you. Cool. Well, we're going to talk about your new book, but let's get some stuff. I mean, this is literally two days after inauguration days. So let's talk about this a little bit. What are your impressions of what you've seen so far? Well, I like a lot of these executive orders, but I haven't actually had a moment,

because I was out of town all last week, so I'm trying to catch up. I haven't had a moment to go through them systematically, but what I've seen in headline form looks pretty good to me. And then, of course, you know, I really was pulling for, you know, a pardon for Ross or a commutation, and we ended up getting way better than that. And on top of that, I thought, see, if I'd been Trump, what I would have done is I would have buried the Ross Ulbrick thing in a big pile of other controversial things so that the media wouldn't have known what to do.

They wouldn't have known where to start. Whereas he singled it out, you know, apart from that initial stack and even put out a big truth social thing calling the people who prosecuted Ross scum. You know, I, because I feel like Ross's story is not really one that Normies are going to go for. So I would want to just, you know, look, I'll shut up the libertarians. I'll quietly do this thing. But I guess Trump just doesn't have it in him to do things quietly. Well, the way I look at it is if some hood gangbanger can get five years for killing two people, Ross has done his time. Yeah, I mean, that's true.

Like, you don't even have to be like some radical libertarian who wants all drugs. legal to think there's something screwy about the sentence. And then to come to find out that the judge who imposed the ridiculous two life sentences plus 40 years with no possibility of parole said that, yes, this is going to be a harsher sentence than a drug dealer in Brooklyn would have gotten because Ross and his arguments are coming from a place of privilege. Well, screw that. Yeah, yeah, that needs to be reverse. And that needs, thankfully Trump did call it out like that. I mean, yeah, I understand bearing it because a lot of Normies, especially on the right, will be like, well, I mean, he was just facilitating the sale of drugs and everything like that.

But still, I mean, it's like, come on. When you look at, you know, maybe people think that he deserves the death penalty. But then, well, I mean, if you believe in the rule of law and you believe that, you know, these trials were supposed to work, all you have to do is look at this trial and know it was a kangaroo court. I mean, there was no. The judge was introducing evidence. I'm having problems with my mic staying connected. So now I'm talking through my camera mic,

but no worries. Oh, that's okay. Because for a moment, it was repeating like a broken record. And I thought, well, I'm going to sit here with a poker face on

and not let him know that I have no idea what's going on. And then I'll wing it when he's done talking. Eh, you know these things happen when you're over 2,000 episodes in. I'm over a thousand episodes. Do what? Every possible thing has happened. You know, by the way, one time I had a guest waiting for me.

I went downstairs to get a glass of water. I came back. I had accidentally locked myself out of the office. And there's no key. There's no key. It's one of those things that you lock it from the inside. There's no key. You have to like get like a bobby pin and screw with the lock.

So that's the least thing. You're fine, Pete. But the, well, what I was going to say is this, this. is a judge who used evidence in the sentencing that wasn't even in the trial. Was like, oh, well, he did this and he did that? It's like, wait a minute, did he get convicted of that? Was that even introduced into evidence? No, it wasn't.

But you're using all of this and then you use, you know, DEI type of language. No, screw that, man. Screw that. No, forget that. Yeah. And the fact is it is impossible. And we'll get off this in a minute because obviously there are other things to talk about, but it's impossible not to admire Ross's mother.

who, I mean, that's her kid. And she's going to defend him come what may. But she did so in a way that was so uncompromising and energetic. But yet, at the same time, she didn't come off as a hysteric. She didn't yell and scream. She just sounded like a grieving mom. And we all got to meet her because she went to everything, because she wanted to reach everybody and talk to everybody.

And maybe by some miracle, she'd make some contact who could make. make this all go away. But boy, it's hard to make two life sentences plus 40 years plus no possibility of parole go away. There are only a handful of people who can make that happen. And it was over 10 years, over 10 years, I mean, 11 plus years that she spent traversing the country and talking and meeting people. And to me, I'm in a way, I'm almost happier for her. It's incredible because I remember thinking of myself, how could you find joy in your life in anything? knowing that your son is rotting in a cage. You know, you can't take pleasure in anything.

You can't have an authentic smile or a laugh without feeling guilty about it. And now she has all that, and she has him back. And it's just, you know, Trump said, you know, famously said that you're going to get tired of winning. You know, I frankly, Pete, I'm tired of losing. I really am. So when there is an unambiguous win like this, I become like much more emotional than I think I would otherwise be because it is so rare to see such an act of justice take place and to see a broken heart mended right in front of your eyes.

I'm having problems with your audio. Your audio's cracking up a little bit. So it seems like we're having problems on and I checked that it's not my earpiece. I checked it on an external speaker and it's it's cracking. So we're having all sorts of trouble with this one. Well, do you want me to change my mic? I can do the ambient mic. Yeah, you want to do that? Go ahead. All right. Let's give that a try.

We're going to use the eye. Which is not as bad. Can you hear me? Yeah, that's fine. It's not as bad as most built-in microphones. It's decent. So, here, I'll move this way. It doesn't matter anymore.

I've known, yeah, I've known Lynn for about 10 years now. And one of the things is, even if you hate Ross, you cannot hate Lynn. Yeah, I mean, once you meet her, it's, you just see in her. her eyes the pain. And one of the joys of my life was introducing people to her who had never met her before and watching these like, like my friend Aaron met her and Aaron's, you know, this tall Navy guy and everything. And he meets her and like as soon as I say, hi, this is Lynn Alberg. He just melts. You know, you just, everybody just knows, you know, what she went through. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, she, I've had her at, you know,

events that I've done and I had my biggest event at the 2000 episode that I did and it was you know 2,500 people there and I had her get up there and talk to them about Ross and at the end she was saying I need my miracle I you know there are miracles in the world she talked about because she was trying to explain it's not pointless because there are people who have been in Ross's situation who have somehow overcome it but they overcame it through a miracle and she said to us I need my miracle. And so when I heard about this, I, you know, I know a lot of people have her phone number. I wasn't going to text her.

But I did send what I hoped was an unobtrusive email. And at the end, I said, you got that miracle that you asked for. Yeah. Yeah. And thank Trump. Yeah. You have to. Yeah, absolutely. And I realized, by the way,

that I was tweeting, you know, about how great this was. But I hadn't thanked, thanked him. I'm not like he's ever going to see it, but it's still you do the right thing whether or not somebody sees it and somebody said to me you know there is a guy who actually did this and I said oh you're right so I said you know hey look let's let's just come out and say it thank you Donald Trump I mean especially because could you imagine a George W. Bush or a John McCain or a Mitt Romney or a Barack Obama or Joe Biden doing this

and the thing is Joe Biden could have taken this away from Trump he could have pardoned him last week Air Grid Operator of Ireland's electricity grid is power up the Northwest. We're planning to upgrade the electricity grid in your area and your input and local knowledge are vital in shaping these plans. Our consultation closes on the 25th of November. Have your say online or in person. So together we can create a more reliable, sustainable electricity supply for your community. Find out more at airgrid.i.4 slash Northwest. with up to 1500 euro and gift cards annually completely tax-free. And even better, you can spread it over five different occasions.

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Savour festive bites from Big Fan Bell, expertly crafted seasonal cocktails, and dance the night away with DJs from love tempo. Brett take infuse, amazing atmosphere, incredible food and drink. My goodness, it's Christmas at the Guinness Storehouse. Book now at giddlestorhouse.com. Get the facts be drink aware, visit drink aware. and taken all the wind out of his sales. But they're so bitter and evil that they couldn't even do that for political advantage. They just couldn't, they couldn't bring themselves and do the right thing.

Why do you think they all showed up to the inauguration? Yeah, that was interesting. I'm not all of them. Like, I think Michelle Obama wasn't there. Yeah, Big Mike wasn't there. I beg your pardon? Big Mike, Michelle. Oh, but I don't know. There might have been a handful missing, but yeah, they all were there. I don't know. I think, I wonder if maybe it's that they thought 2016 was a fluke that they could just ride out and it would go away. But now they've got their heads handed to them and they may realize that this thing is staying here. And by this thing, they mean Trump and beyond. And at one point or another, we're going to have to figure out what to do about it. But we have to face it. I wonder if it's that. Or, um,

I don't know. Do you have a better answer? Well, it seems like none of the ones that showed up had been given pardons. So maybe they were there to bend the knee and say, please don't throw me in jail and put me in jail. Well, did you see, I haven't seen it yet. But did you see that Eric Adams did an interview with Tucker? Yeah. Yeah, I haven't seen it yet either. I wonder what the purpose behind that is.

Oh, yeah. Thereafter him, believe me. He went against the orthodoxy, that's for sure. Well, let's talk about something that Trump is a little more infamous for and not on the good side. You know, it's not his fault, but you wrote a book recently, and I would hold it up if I didn't lend it. You know how you lend it to someone and you're never going to get it back? I'm never going to get it back. Oh, geez, I got half a library lent out to somebody who's never going to get it back to it.

I got it right here, though. Diary of a Psychosis. What's the subtitle? Subtitle is How Public Health Disgraced itself during COVID-Mania. And if I may say a word about the cover design, it is very stark. But this was my idea. Because I've had some, in fact, one of my books actually won, believe it or not, a National Book Award for how beautiful the cover was. And it won no other awards.

And Pete, I can assure you I had nothing to do whatsoever with the cover. I had only to do with the contents. The contents won nothing. cover. So it's very unusual for me to have a stark cover like this, but that was my idea because I like the idea of like the 1950s typewriter font, really stark, like they're typing out somebody's psychological evaluation or something, because it was, it was kind of like a psychosis. So I felt like that kind of cover fit the subject matter. How is it structured? I mean, it says diary on the cover. Basically, what is it?

I have to say that that title, Diary of a Psychosis, really, is probably one of my better ideas in terms of book titles, because it describes it so well. Because really, it really is like a, if not day by day, it nevertheless is a chronological rendering of the story. Because I was, as you know, writing, I still do write an email newsletter, and I would write that newsletter about all kinds of topics. you know, anything from crime to foreign policy to whatever. But during these years, everybody was hungry for COVID information. So I started writing about that. And so I started observing day by day what was going on. And as the charts and graphs started to come out,

they weren't telling the story that the officials were telling us. And so I started reporting on that. Well, this doesn't seem to correspond with what they're saying. The narrative being that if you're a good person and you obey our rules, you're going to get good results, but if you're a bad person, you're going to get what's coming to you, that kind of thing. That just didn't correspond to anything in reality at all. So I wanted as many people as possible to know this.

And this gave me the biggest jump in subscribers to my newsletter I've ever had, it doubled in a few months because I started giving away things like I had written an e-book that I gave away for free called COVID-charts CNN forgot. So you notice I didn't have to say conservative or libertarian or right-wing or whatever. COVID charts CNN forgot. Everybody knows what that means. Like here's what's actually happening. So I decided to publish the book

kind of arranging these different observations that I had so that you can observe this happening in real time. There are some great books out there, and I have featured their authors, on what happened during those years. But they'll typically be organized like, here's a chapter on the lockdown period, and here's a chapter on masks.

There's nothing wrong with that. But mine's different because you watch it unfolding. And you watch it getting crazier. And you watch my reaction as just a spectator observing events. And I think there's something compelling about that because it spent, well, for example, when younger people get older, there's going to be no way to explain to them what this was like unless you put them in it. And that's what I'm trying to do. It really kind of puts you back in it. And the other benefit of that is that there are a lot of little details that I would write about, you know, on a particular day.

that people might have forgotten three weeks later. But I didn't forget because I've got all these missives that I sent out. So little details. Like Alachua County is where Jacksonville is, where I live in Florida. I don't live in Jacksonville, thank goodness, but I live in Florida. And they put out this rule saying you can have one person per thousand square feet in a retail establishment. And then somebody wanted to know where they, where did you guys ever get that, by the way? Where'd you get that number?

And the answer was, well, we just thought it would be easy math for everybody to do. So there's no, quote, unquote, science behind it. So that's a small detail everybody would have forgotten because it's not that big of a deal. But yet, it does tell you something about the character this whole episode. So my book is filled with, yes, all the big things and all the dumb things they said, but it's also peppered, you know, as with a Dick Cheney rifle with all these little tiny details that have been forgotten that I think collectively kind of tell the story. Because, I mean, Pete, we were all talking to each other about crazy things going on in our area

that nobody else knew about in any other area. I got all those. By the way, was the first, not quite the first restaurant meal I had. That first one was with Jenna in Georgia at the, at Morton Steakhouse shortly after they reopened. But while we were up there, we had lunch with you. We had lunch on May 1st of 2020 at, at, at the, what is it called? It's, it wasn't a, season 52, seasons 52, which is a great, I mean, as chains go, that's a great one. Yeah, my buddy, marvelous, Mark Walker came over from Birmingham, and we all sat there while the, the whole crew was masked, and we sat there, and we ate and we drank, and we stayed there for a couple hours.

and we took a picture, posted it on, I took a picture and posted it on Facebook, and people were freaking out. Like, where are you guys out eating at? Yeah. Oh, can I tell you a quick story? So on that trip, the reason we went up there was that at the time, Florida still, you still couldn't dine in, even in Florida. But Georgia, Governor Kemp, opened a little bit, so we thought, we're going stir crazy, we're going up there. We're going up there. We're going to be like normal people.

We're going to eat in a restaurant, Doug. So we did that. And so that's when we met with you. But one of the days we went for lunch and had a sandwich somewhere. And I posted that sandwich on Twitter, just a picture of a sandwich, Pete. And I think at least at that time, that was by far the biggest Twitter post I had ever had. The damn sandwich. Because the sandwich was a symbol of normality.

And then in June, we visited Tom D. Lorenzo in Delray Beach, Florida. Now, now things had started to open up a little bit in Florida. So we visited Tom there, and there was an open-air bar that had live music. And we got a picture of the four of us and posted that and realized that the number of people anywhere in the world enjoying live music in June 2020 must have been vanishingly small. But we were part of it. That was kind of how I was the whole time. In fact, by the fall, it was still forbidden in many states.

to have more than a certain number of people at your home or anywhere else for that matter for a gathering. Maybe it was 50 or whatever, depended on the state. But I decided, and you've come to them, but I decided to start having house parties at my house. I was there. I was at the first one. Yeah, the first one for supporters of the Tom Woods show. And so we put a little sign that was right next to the name tag table that said, welcome to the old normal. You know, because there's all this new normal just dystopian crap.

And people were like thanking me like you wouldn't believe. We haven't done anything in six months. And I lived in a state where I could do this and not be raided. But then the next month I went and did something in a state where I could have been raided. I went to here I am little mild-mannered Tom Woods, but I actually, in February of 2021,

I went out to California. and I did an event with Mark Scousen. And Mark Scousen, you know, has one foot in libertarianism and one foot kind of in the establishment. So I really respected that he put on a speakeasy event. We were absolutely not allowed to have this event. This was a venue that had been shut down because of the, you know, because of the restrictions, but also it had its liquor license revoked because it stayed open too long. Well, it was open and serving alcohol.

Airgrid, operator of Ireland's electricity grid, is powering up the Northwest. We're planning to upgrade the electricity grid in your area, and your input and local knowledge are vital in shaping these plans. Our consultation closes on the 25th of November. Have your say, online or in person. So together, we can create a more reliable, sustainable electricity supply for your community. Find out more at airgrid.i.4.Northwest. Employers, rewarding your staff?

Why choose between a shop voucher or a spend anywhere card when with Options Card, you can have both. With Options Card, your team gets the best of both worlds. They can spend with Ireland's favourite retailers or choose a Spend Anywhere card. It's simple to buy and easy to manage. There are no hidden fees, it's easy to use and totally flexible. They can even re-gift or donate to a good cause.

Make your awards more rewarding. Visit OptionsCard.I.E. On the many nights of Christmas, the Guinness Storehouse brings to thee Christmas nights at gravity. This Christmas, enjoy a truly unique night out at the Gravity Bar. Savour festive bites from Big Fan Bell, expertly crafted seasonal cocktails, and dance the night away with DJs from love tempo. Brett take infuse, amazing atmosphere, incredible food and drink. My goodness, it's Christmas at the Guinness Storehouse. Book now at giddlestorhouse.com.

Get the facts be drink aware, visit drink aware. that day and we had hundreds of people there in complete defiance of this and as I walked around and introduced myself to these people it was the craziest that they were all thanking me i mean like thanks like i've never received for just coming out there and putting on an event i remember the um the ron paul event that he normally has in uh in lake jackson in november that year you you gave a speech. Well, what I remember most about that event was, well, two things. While we were sitting there, they announced it was a Saturday. It was a Saturday after the election. The election was Tuesday. Saturday was the election. Saturday they announced that Joe Biden won while we were sitting there.

And the other thing I remember about that was it was a facility that Dr. Paul had never used before, and he could only use it because the normal facility wouldn't have them and like everyone there who was working there was masked up but by the end of it everyone was taking off their masks and it didn't you know it was it was it was almost like people needed to be given permission to act normal yeah that's exactly what it's that is such an interesting phenomenon peter that goes beyond COVID like Ron gave them permission Ron and Pap Buchanan gave

conservatives permission to have a different opinion on Israel, for example, you know, which they didn't even, some of them didn't even think about it one way or the other. They just accepted the default. But also, you know, on, so on war itself, there were a lot of people who were uneasy about it, but they didn't want to, you know, that that would put me on the wrong team or something. Well, likewise with the masking, what I felt like would happen, and it turns out, on this I was right, I wasn't right about everything, but on this I was right, that once a certain critical mass of people start taking the masks off, they're all going to come off, with the exception of a handful of psychos. And that's more or less what's happened. So yeah,

that event, it was incredible. It was November 2020. We had this thing where we were all unmasked. As you say, even the staff started taking them off. And I gave a speech called the COVID cult. And this was one of these Mezes Institute events where it's a one-day event and they do really short talk. So it was like 20 minutes. And this talk went absolutely berserk on YouTube and on Facebook where it was embedded. And it had about a million and a half views before both platforms took it down. And then we got the inevitable fact check. So I did an episode of my podcast about the fact check. And the fact check was stupid.

I mean, I kid you know, one of the facts that was checked was I was arguing that lockdowns were obviously overwhelmingly a net minus. And the fact check was, well, some people disagree. Okay. That doesn't mean you take the thing down. It was crazy. So it wound up on rumble. and bitch shoot and everywhere else people could still watch it. But it was crazy and it meant that from that point on,

it was no longer possible for me to build a mailing list by offering on YouTube to give away a free bit of information because that video would never stay. So it really made me think that I'm now living in a place that I don't recognize. I mean, it's younger people won't remember this. But Pete, you remember 15 years ago you could put anything on YouTube. You know, almost nothing was taken off YouTube. Everybody you and I know were on YouTube, you know?

And so suddenly that just wasn't the case anymore. Then the following year, the Beas Institute did an event, I forget what Florida City it was, but a very, very nice hotel. And doggone, the staff is still masked. Nobody in the dining room was masked. And so I was one of the years. That was October, 2021. Oh, so you remember this. Okay. I was one of the dinner speakers, and Pete, this was like, you know, if I can't be president of the United States, if I can't have a Ronald Reagan tear down this wall moment, my second best was I made a nice thing. I said the staff here at the Don Cesar has been very, very accommodating and charming and friendly and welcoming, and we're very grateful for the hospitality we've received. However, I do have one request from all the.

people in here and that is unmask these employees is what i said and there's a huge cheer and the employees some of them are waving at me i mean what a what a what a just an unbelievable nut house and then there's nothing there's no you know at the beginning i again i'm i'm not i don't come into this as a guy who had read the literature on masks you know who would you know unless you're a specialist in this why would you so i didn't know anything about that so at the very beginning I even thought, well, I don't know, maybe masks will help a little bit to get us transitioning back to normal. I didn't know. I never said that publicly, but I was thinking it.

So I waited on the masks. And then they obviously have no effect. And you can just look at, you look at demographically identical populations right next to each other, different masking regimens, but the same results. Well, that means the masks don't do anything. That's what that means. And especially when it's repeated over and over and over again. Well, it turns out that the literature on this is just a. overwhelming. I mean, it's absolutely overwhelming. If you're going to find anything that says masks work,

it's always some dumb mannequin study, or if they're extrapolating, or they're doing something. Or, for example, this is a great example. The CDC even touted this study, and it involved a couple of counties in Kansas, one masked, one unmasked. And they said, look, the masked county has much better health results, and they showed it on the chart. And then they arbitrarily cut off the chart. You wonder, oh, I wonder what the phenomenon was after the chart. How did those, lines keep going. Well, after the chart, and for much longer, exactly the opposite result occurs, but there's no clarification, there's no correction, there's no apology. This was how the so-called literature on masking went. So there's nothing to it at all. So today, the people you see on a daily

basis who still wear them, I just, my wife has to restrain me because I want to go up to them and say, what do you think that's accomplishing? Like what study have you seen that says, people like you are healthier than people like me. And she just, you know, she's trying to let me know there's nothing you can say to get through to somebody like this. Don't disturb your own tranquility. There are enough things in ordinary life doing that already. Well, one of the things I remember most about that year was some of us were podcasting on

it very early. I think my earliest podcast was in the middle of February talking about this. But I even had you and Michael Bolden on early in like March. when they were starting to talk about lockdowns and doing certain things. And, you know, we talked about nullification and we talked about federalism. And, you know, it was funny because I think the joke was we were making was, if anyone would have told us in January of 2020 that federalism would have been a national debate, we would have like, we would have told you you were nuts.

Right. Yeah. Yeah, no, absolutely we would have. And I admitted also that I had been wrong about how, how somewhat, what robust American federalism still is, if only we decide we want it. Because, you know, believe me, I am well aware of the problems with Ron DeSantis. But at the same time, I would be an idiot not to acknowledge that my kids had mostly normal lives thanks to him. And I, you know, I'm glad. I'm glad for that.

So, yeah, so all that's true. I remember those early days. We were all trying to figure out where this was all going, what the end point was going to be. eventually last year I had an opportunity because I had written this book and by the way the website for the book I am so proud of

it's diary of COVID.com there's like a two minute video on there and it blows me away every time I watch it I could never make a video like that if I had 12 lifetimes but it it summarizes the insanity in about two minutes diary of COVID.com

anyway I had a chance to do a debate because our friend Gene Epstein is on my case to do debates because he runs a debate society. And he finally thought, well, now I got Woods. I know he wants to promote his book. I'll get him to debate. So sure enough, we did that. And his thought was, and I think that this is true,

if he has a, let's say, a medical guy debating, he looks for a medically trained debate partner. If it's a layman debating, he looks for another layman. So that was how we did it. So he found somebody named Brent Orell from the American Enterprise Institute. who was going to argue that lockdowns had been a good idea, lockdowns and masking and the whole thing. And so I said, yeah, I'll debate that guy.

And I spent, I mean, I put a lot of work into my opening statement, which I'm very proud of. I published it in my, I have a print newsletter for supporters. I was very proud of that thing. And there is a video of it. It turned out that the debate didn't happen because his granddaughter, like four-year-old granddaughter, died like two days beforehand. And it was like a horrible tragedy.

It was horrible. Yeah. So what ended up happening was he had written out his opening remarks. So Gene just read his opening remarks. And then I read mine. And then we just had a Q&A with the audience. So, you know, okay. But I remember as I was prepping for this thinking,

I've been on top of this for years now. I mean, at this point, I kind of know everything there is to know. And I'm not saying that to brag. It's just that I thought about. And so I wrote about for like three, four years. And so for the life of me, I could not anticipate what could his arguments possibly be. So I remember actually saying to Jenna, as we were sitting there, watching Gene give the remarks, I was thinking, I said to her, I'm going to take notes, but I'm a little nervous. I mean, maybe he's got some things that I've never seen before.

Pete, you can look at the video for yourself. It was the lamest opening statement. You can imagine it was all hot air. there was one chart that was slightly challenging, but it didn't take that much to bat it down. But the rest of it was awful. It was like nothing. By the time I looked down at my notes, I hadn't written a thing. And I turned to her and said, I can take care of this.

And I went up and gave my thing. And I had a ton of charts. And I'm not usually the visual aid type. I want to keep people spellbound on the strength of my speaking skill alone. I don't want to have a PowerPoint presentation, but for this you have to, because these charts are just devastating. They are like a stake

through the heart of Dracula, you know, really. And so I've got this chart. I said, okay, one of these lines is the 25 most locked down states, and the other one is the most lenient states, which is which. I mean, we should all be able to tell,

right, if this was, worth destroying people's lives and hopes and dreams and jobs and businesses and life savings and surgeries and health and mental health for surely we ought to be able to tell the difference and you can't and so the presentation was just merciless like drawing drawing from this just drawing from this over and over and over merciless hammering away at this so i feel like i i wish i hadn't been deprived i mean obviously it's a terrible tragedy what happened to him but i wish we'd have been able to actually have the debate because, and what I also don't understand is he knew I had written a book. He even quoted me at one point in his opening statement. So he has to know

what my arguments are going to be, and he anticipated none of them. And it made me think, because, you know, sometimes even I, who spent so much time and wrote, I don't know, maybe a million words, I don't know how many words I wrote on this. Even I think, well, you know, I can't read everything. maybe I missed something. Maybe the people in charge, if they were debating me, maybe they would bring up arguments that I never even dreamed of. You doubt yourself sometimes. And then I saw this and I realized, nope, I never had any reason to fear that.

Well, let's talk about this. The book, I think that if you, where is it that you go to the book? You can buy the book and then you can also get a bonus. What is the... Oh, yeah. So at Diaryofcovid.com, I mean, you can get the book anywhere you want.

You can also get it at Diaryofcovid.com. And there I sell it for cost plus shipping. There's no profit in there. It's just cost plus shipping. I'm not going to ship it as fast as Amazon will,

but it'll be a little cheaper. But whether or not you get it from me, you can get it on any other place, you can still go to Diaryofcovid.com and claim a couple of bonuses. And the more significant of the two bonuses that you get

is a second volume, an electronic version, and it's called collateral damage. Victims of the lockdown regime tell their stories. So you can read that on an e-reader or whatever, but what I did there was I recalled some of the stories that people were writing to me. People were writing to me because they were getting my email newsletter, and their families thought they were crazy, and they had nobody to talk to, but they had some awful, awful tragedy.

to them because of this lockdown regime and they just needed to talk to somebody and so I was the person and they would tell me these stories now some of these stories you know have triumphant endings some of them don't but either way they just wanted somebody to listen to them you know somebody who wasn't going to say how dare you complain about what our wise overlords are doing what do you want to have your grandmother die I mean you remember we couldn't even talk about suffering that people had because of these measures. So I then approached all these people and said, I'm putting together a collection of these stories

because as far as I know, there is no such collection anywhere. And I'm pretty sure that's still true. Four years into this, almost five years, there's no book of stories of people who suffered from what Fauci did. That's insane. So I put it together and you get it as a free bonus at Diaryofcovid.com. You know, I was, as Trump is pardoning the J6, January 6th prisoners, someone put out a tweet that was, you know, heart wrenching, said Trump pardoned posthumously these four men who committed suicide while they were jailed. And that's on the scale of 1,500.

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what the vaccine is done. And I remember you and I, you and I were having, having a back and forth. I think it was in June of 2020. And the question, the subject was, how is there any podcaster,

doesn't have to be libertarian, could be anyone, not talking about this. Yeah. How is this? not the only thing the only thing. This is absolutely the worst thing.

Well, first of all, you and I, I won't say the name, but you and I have a friend who lost his son because of this. His son just couldn't go on in this dystopian world. I mean, I just absolutely devastating.

I just got a card from them the other day. Oh. Well, I started to doubt myself after a while. Like by, I don't know what the date was, but I started to wonder, should I be talking about other things now?

Like, have I, is this all worn out? Should I, in my newsletter, should I talk about other things? And every time I would start to, some other crazy BS would come up. And I'd, you know, just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in kind of thing. That just kept on happening. And I felt like even after the whole thing is, you know, quote unquote, sort of over, it's not really over if we haven't learned the right lessons from it. Because what keeps happening in, I guess in all of history, but U.S. history in particular, is that we have some terrible crisis.

Everybody draws the wrong lessons from it. The crisis ends. Another similar crisis occurs, and they try to apply the wrong lessons to that one. And, like, if the lesson we're going to draw from this is that wise public servants tried to navigate this terrible pandemic, but a bunch of stupid heads got in the way because they hate science, and next time we better listen to them even harder, then I'm sorry I have to keep talking about it, you know, until we get this right. So I do still, from time to time,

even now we have to talk about it because now they're talking about bird flu, whatever the hell else it is. But I do think at least this time, if they ever tried something like this, there would at least be a remnant. Maybe that's the term of people who just from the start are just not complying.

But yeah, but there's an organization in the UK called the Institute of Economic Affairs. And I used to kind of like them. They actually published a book on Catholic social teaching that I contributed to on the Just Wage. And so I kind of liked them, and they kind of liked me. And then during this, I remember one day I checked their Twitter feed. I don't know why.

And they were talking about like some kind of trade agreement between the UK and Australia, some kind of like obscure thing. And this was like, and I was going back and back. and look at their and it was all about this or you know or about ticket prices on the train or some kind of thing like that and i thought well you know if the ticket prices are too high i guess it's legit to complain about that but it seems like an odd time to to do that and then you started to notice a pattern like the the libertarian party in the u.s you would find them tweeting about civil asset forfeiture now pete you and i yield to no one in our agreement that civil asset

forfeiture can be abused you know and it's a problem. But that is not what I'm talking about in 2020. You know, it was, it was really odd. Or they would be annoyed with you. They would say, it would be like, well, I guess if you must, then yes, they shouldn't force masks on you, but you should wear them. Like that was, that was the boldness we got from those people. And yes, so people who couldn't figure out, as we now say, what time it was, were like some of the most frustrating ones of all. What do you think RFK has planned? Oh, I wish I, Duggan, I wish I knew. I have to say, so it's looking like he's going to, he's going to get confirmed.

And I have a, I have kind of a source who, we were talking about this. And I said, and they were talking about the future of health in the U.S. And I said, well, this all assumes that RFK is going to get, approved by the Senate.

And this person said to me, oh, he's going to get approved. You don't have to worry about that. And I thought, oh, I wish I had, I wish I knew how you knew that. But sure enough, it does look that way. I don't know. There's all kinds of speculation.

I mean, right now, I don't know what this measure by Trump is all about. Do you about, he put a halt to external communications from U.S. health agencies, so they can't issue press releases or reports or anything until further notice. Did you hear about that? That's, yeah, I mean, I guess if anything to me, you know, if I was taking the white pill position would be that he's, they're going to be audited.

It would be a heavy audit and they don't want anything being leaked out. Yeah. Yeah, I think so because I don't know what else to conclude from that or it's, you know, it's, it's, it's, um, because. I think there's just going to be a whole new kind of messaging going on, and they probably want to start with a clean slate, but that was such a wild decision. And it's so out of the blue, I wasn't expecting. But as far as RFK, I mean, I don't know if he's going to go after high fructose corn syrup or not, but I feel like maybe the emphasis on that, and I'm, you know, I, who am I? I'm not even qualified talking about this, but might be misplaced in that it's not like sugar is that much better, you know, like we probably should be focused. on the whole, you know, sweetener problem. But at the very least, even if all he did, although I think he's going to go further, even if all he did was change the messaging about what you should eat, what you shouldn't eat, and it's just absolutely the opposite of what we've been told.

That's a huge step forward. I mean, the bully pulpit role of the president, I think I could imagine an RFK being the most public. visible HHS secretary maybe we've ever had. Because you're not going to shut that guy up. He's going to be everywhere speaking at every opportunity. So certainly for one thing, we're going to get that. But I want, oh, and by the way, did you notice that I don't particularly care for it, but the steak and shake fast food chain announced they're going to use beef tallow for their fries? I didn't see that.

Yeah. No, that didn't happen at random, you know. make America healthy again, right? So I think even just by example, some things will change. He'll probably try to ban some things, but it wouldn't surprise me if he was trying to push, he's not trying to influence the research, but encourage research into forbidden questions. He may say what he needs to say to get in there about vaccination,

but I wonder what he'll encourage research, researchers to look into. Who wrote the forward of your book and what is his position in the new administration? Oh, this is like, Pete, you know, I'm supposed to be like the obscure guy that everybody keeps in arms length. So I don't know what to do about this, but Jay Batacharya wrote the forward to Diary of a Psychosis. And he was smeared by Fauci and by Francis Collins. they wrote privately about him and what needed to be done about him for dissenting on the COVID response

and he was named by name by the White House as somebody they wanted whose voice they wanted suppressed on social media that was how much they didn't like him and at his home university of Stanford he was treated absurdly by a faculty he had been quite congenial with for many years before COVID came along

he had never so much as written an op-ed for a newspaper He had never been on television. He'd never done any of this. He didn't want to. It's just a quiet guy doing research. And then he said, what you're doing is barbaric and inhuman, and you should do it, and just all hell broke loose. So for him to go from that position to now being the nominee for the National Institutes of Health, the very institution whose head smeared him is one of the most amazing turnarounds ever. I mean, it's like Ross going free. It's one of the most unlikely outcomes imaginable. And he is a very good and decent guy.

Like, maybe too good and decent in some ways. But, you know, I wondered, Jay's not the sort to say, well, I'm overseeing $40 billion in medical research money, and I'm going to make sure my enemies don't get any of it. He's not that sort. But I do believe he will be the sort to say, say, I'm overseeing $40 billion in medical research money. And if any campus treats a faculty member the way Stanford treated me, you can kiss that money

goodbye. And, you know, I'll take that. I will take that as a middle of the road position. But so I, so when I asked him to write the forward of this book, this was well before he was, you know, we even, nobody even knew if Trump was going to win, much less that he would be nominated. But he was a distinguished, very well. liked professor at Stanford. In fact, the current professor of Harvard issued a nice statement about him when the nomination

of when he came out named to be the nominee for this, because the two of them have done a number of papers together. And so, Professor Alan Garber at Harvard said good things, and he said, I'm sure he will serve with distinction. Okay, nice.

But I said to Jay, look, you and I have very different styles. You know, I'm over the top bombastic. in your face, very tough, and you are the mild-mannered scholarly type. And so I realize that if you put your name on my book, you know,

it's going to cost you a lot, and it's going to gain me, but it's going to cost you. And I was listing all, I listed all the reasons he shouldn't do it. And I said, so I have now given you all the reasons you need to tell me no. But if you do it,

I'll pay you X dollars and I'll be in your debt. And he wrote back to me within minutes. and said, not only would it be my pleasure to write this forward for you, but I refuse to accept one cent for doing it. That's a good guy. That's just flat out a good guy. Let's talk about the other guy because he was given a pardon for what? What did Fauci need to be pardoned?

Oh, geez. You know, there were rumors that this might happen, and I remember thinking, I don't know, maybe, maybe not. You can't put anything past these people. but some of it could be that he could have lied about gain of function research some of it could have to do with that very research

I mean I think it could go I don't exactly know what the nature of the charges themselves would have to be but to my mind the issue would be because I mean I don't know you can put him in jail for it but he was pushing vaccine mandates in fact he wanted it

harsher than Biden because Biden's thing was you could get tested every week. And Fauci said we shouldn't have even given them that out. It should have been you get the shot or you lose your job. So there was that. I bet if I looked, I would find him to have been misleading about the dangers involved in the shots. The advice that young children or pregnant women should get the shots. When the information on that was not what he was saying it was, or was at the very least indeterminate at the time that he said it.

You know, the masking, the child masking. So there are a lot of things in the closed schools. So there are a lot of things he did that he ought to be punished for. But in terms of what the legal punishment could be, well, some of it could be, you know, lying under oath, I suppose. But I'm not exactly sure what you would bring against him in terms of a legal point of you. But morally, and from the cause of truth, he was just all, he was just all. wrong consistently through the whole thing. And half the time he's contradicting things he had said a

couple years earlier, or even months earlier. He said at the very beginning, nobody should be walking around wearing a mask. And then it was masks are protective, you know, any kind of mask. Even the piece of paper, basically, masks that people were wearing. That later everybody admitted don't do anything. To the very end, he claimed that they were. So you couldn't rely on a single thing the guy said. And he went from having an over 90% approval rating at the very beginning, because people looked at him, he was a sure voice, right? He's this old man, he's been around forever. So they liked him. But I forget how far into it was, but eventually there was a poll showing it was like 44 to 42% negative. And ABC wasn't posing him in a negative light.

The New York Times wasn't. That showed the power of independent media. How else did people get a negative view of Fauci? I think some of it might have to do with the fact, too, that Bobby Kennedy wrote a book that not only talked about what he did during COVID, but... Oh, in before COVID. And, like, the involuntary experiments on orphans that they were doing in the... Yes, I think, unfortunately, the statute of limitations probably passed on that, so in terms of getting him in trouble for it, but he should be shamed for the rest of his life for it.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I know we both have hard outs now, so this is the... time when Tom Woods promotes what he wants to. Well, you know, the marketing gods say you should promote only one link, and I'm going to, I'm going to be a heretic today, and instead promote two things. So one of them is Diaryofcovid.com. That's where you can get the book. You can get the book anywhere, but you can get it there for the cheapest. And no matter where you get it, at diary ofcovid.com, you can also get the bonuses.

But the other thing is just tomwoods.com, because if you look down there, it's like everything I do, everything I do. I do a lot of different things, and maybe you'll be. interested in one or two of them. So tomwoods.com. Appreciate it, Tom. Always. Can't wait to see you next time. Thanks, a million p.