MARTHA MACCALLUM (HOST): You know, there have been a lot of us who have just wanted to question some of these policies as they went through. And we played a sound bite earlier from President Trump who clearly bristled against locking the economy down, but ended up doing it because he felt it was the best medical advice that he was getting in order to how to treat this thing in the early stages. But it is pretty stunning to read the outcome of this study.
WILL CAIN (GUEST): It's -- I don't know. Is it stunning, Martha? Before the commercial break you said, you if you suspected that the cost of the lockdown outweighed the benefit, now the scientific data is there to back you up. My point is, for most of America I doubt this is stunning because it confirms something, as you pointed out, they suspected, Martha. And in fact, I'm a little bit unsympathetic to the movement of "science" and definitely "experts."
Over the recent months towards reviewing not just their anti-science positions, but their authoritarian approach to anyone that dares disagree. I'm not -- I want sunlight to break through the darkness of lies. I want Bari Weiss to go on Bill Maher and say, "I'm done with COVID. But, I have to note that you're a little late to the game, and there's been real cost." I think, Martha, this is probably the biggest domestic policy blunder in half a century -- the cost of which will come in for decades to come. Generations to come.
And, you know, if in the beginning -- you pointed out President Trump -- if in the beginning, this is a virus, we're all trying to learn, you make mistakes -- that's understandable. And even if you continue that midway through the pandemic, Martha, you can say, "Well, maybe there's some cost fallacy." Like people like Fauci are hanging on to the original idea. But at this point, it's hard to look at it any way but malevolent and conspiratorial. Why have you shutout all other voices? Why have you asked "misinformation" to be censored? Why have you refused to pivot your position? And it's hard to think that that is backed in any way by science, but instead motivated solely by power.