CLAY: There is an internal civil war that may be developing in the Democratic Party over vaccine passports. Boston’s mayor is Kim Janey. She is a black woman who is the Democratic leader right now of the city of Boston. In the city we’re in right now, New York, they now are saying, “Hey, we need vaccine passports. As we pointed out, vaccine passports would overwhelmingly impact black and Hispanic residents of the city of New York ’cause they have the lowest vaccination rates. Listen to what Boston’s mayor said about the idea of vaccine passports. This may blow your mind. Listen.
JANEY: Uh, when it comes to what, uh, businesses may choose to do, uh, we know that those types of things are difficult to enforce when it comes to vaccine. There’s a long history in this country of people needing to show their papers, whether we’re talking about, uh, this from the standpoint of, uh… You know, as a way, uh, to — after… during slavery, post-slavery, uh, as recent as, you know, what, uh, immigrant population has to go through here. Uh, we heard Trump with the birth certificate nonsense. Here we want to make sure that we are not doing anything that would further create a barrier for residents of Boston.
BUCK: Well, here’s the thing, ’cause we know the numbers, Clay. It’s the same in Boston; it’s the same in every major city. You have more than half of African-Americans in New York City right now — my fellow New Yorkers who are African-American in New York City, more than half of them — in a few weeks will be given a stiff arm at the door of any restaurant, any movie theater, any public accommodation —
CLAY: Bar, gym.
BUCK: — and be told, “Sorry. You’re not allowed in here.” Now, the Democrats could fall back on, well, this is a universally applicable rule for everybody. It’s not discriminatory. But that’s not their logic about voter ID. That’s not their logic about a whole bunch of other issues. But on this one, all the sudden, they’re willing to have their covid anxiety undo some of their primary arguments on other areas of public policy.
CLAY: But only in New York! Boston is just up the road a little bit, and this black mayor of Boston is saying, “Wait a minute. We don’t want vaccine passports necessarily here.” So that is, to me, kind of a fascinating dynamic for Democrats to have to reconcile because if their racial dynamic goes public in an aggressive way, all of a sudden de Blasio may be backpedaling.
I just think these quotes, again, aggressive quotes from Boston’s mayor, but I think they demonstrate that even the idea of the vaccine passports with the wokest of the woke, the most Corona Bro of the Corona Bro community would be in favor of actually blow up on application when you look at the Democratic voting base and what their positions are on vaccines as well.
BUCK: We’re gonna see if de Blasio specifically ends up, as the mayor of New York, walking this back, ’cause there’s the legal challenge aspect, which you really focused on yesterday which could happen.
CLAY: Yes.
BUCK: But beyond the legal challenge, which would take more time, a faster fix to this would be massive political blowback, the kind that would have de Blasio going (impression), “Oh, I’m sorry. I guess maybe I shouldn’t have done it.” That’s the way that this thing goes away. So I don’t know. Maybe I gotta give it a few weeks before I even consider getting the shot.
CLAY: I think you ought to wait. And, by the way, I love the way Boston’s mayor has to have a ritual attack on Trump in order to make her point. “Hey, Trump sucks, but on the vaccine passport…”
BUCK: That’s a great move to pull on CNN and MSNBC, too. Just throw in how bad Trump is.
CLAY: You can get away with anything.