'Justice' on Cuomo's refusal to resign, Obama's birthday bash

This is a rush transcript from "Justice with Judge Pirro," August 7, 2021. This copy may not
be in its final form and may be updated.

KATIE PAVLICH, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Hello and welcome to JUSTICE. I'm Katie
Pavlich, in for Judge Jeanine Pirro.

Tonight, hypocrisy lives on Martha's Vineyard where at this very moment, former President
Barack Obama is holding a massive bash to celebrate his 60th birthday.

Earlier this week, the Obama's pledged to scale back the extravaganza to include only
friends and family. That move was allegedly in response to concerns over the delta
coronavirus variant.

So, what does scaled back really look like in the eyes of the 44th President of the United
States? Well, massive tents have taken over a sprawling $12 million Martha's Vineyard
estate and forget about social distancing, hundreds of maskless attendees have descended
onto the island.

Among those so-called close friends and family reportedly include Jay-Z, Beyonce, Steven
Colbert, and many other left-wing celebrities.

So, while you are being asked and told actually to mask up despite your vaccination status,
and while you have been told to cancel birthday celebrations for at least two years, the
Obama's and their liberal pals are playing by different rules.

Meanwhile, all this comes on the very same week that Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that
New York City will soon require vaccine passports in order to enter bars, restaurants, gyms,
and other privately owned establishments. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D), NEW YORK CITY: So, today, I announce a new approach,
which we're calling the key to NYC Pass. This is a miraculous place literally full of wonders.
And if you're vaccinated, all that's going to open up to you. You'll have the key, you can
open the door.

But if you're unvaccinated, unfortunately, you will not be able to participate in many things.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAVLICH: Well, some states are taking steps to prevent vaccine mandates from being
implemented, and that includes Arizona.

Joining me now with more on that battle is Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, as well
as the founder of the Center for American Liberty, Harmeet Dhillon. Thank you both for
being here.
Attorney General, I want to start with you. We have this system of federalism, so what can
states do to push back on mandates from the Federal government or maybe to make sure
that businesses have some rights inside of these liberal cities?

MARK BRNOVICH, ARIZONA ATTORNEY GENERAL: Well, Katie, thank you for having
me on, and I think that as most Americans and in Arizona, I think we're concerned because
we're battling two pandemics right now, one was created in a Chinese lab, and the other
one is being created in the D.C. swamp.

And the Democrats are using this pandemic as an opportunity to concentrate power in
Washington, D.C., which is completely inconsistent with what the framers envisioned.

I think one of the reasons why the 1619 Project is pushing this revision of history, because
they don't want Americans to know that the framers of our Constitution understood that the
states were supposed to be a check on the Federal government, and anytime you get
concentration of power in one entity, it becomes oppressive and our liberties are
undermined, our freedoms are undermined.

And so, the Biden administration has been very inconsistent when it comes to the
pandemic, but they have been very consistent in trying to undermine federalism and
concentrate power in D.C. whether that's tax and spend policy, whether it's nationalizing our
elections, and now whether it's trying to dictate to the states what they can and can't do.

It completely undermines federalism. I'm doing everything I can to keep fighting back
against the Biden administration.

PAVLICH: So Harmeet, you're one of the most important, I think, Civil Rights attorneys in
the country. Take a listen to what Joe Rogan had to say about de Blasio's passport system,
and we'll get your take on the other side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE ROGAN, PODCAST HOST: You can't work anymore unless you do what I say, that's
essentially what a vaccine passport is.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.

ROGAN: You can't do what you want to do, unless you do what I want you to do.

I mean, Don Lemon was talking about that openly on CNN.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

ROGAN: Don't have a vaccine, can't go to a supermarket. Don't have a vaccine, can't go to
work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAVLICH: So Harmeet, there seems to be two arguments here that private businesses can
do what they want and require vaccination of their employees, but this is a different situation
in the sense that the Mayor of New York is mandating that businesses have this system in
place or people can't go to work.

HARMEET DHILLON, LAWYER, CENTER FOR AMERICAN LIBERTY: Well, both of these
things are hugely problematic, Katie. On the private front, we have all kinds of laws that
protect citizens against discrimination by employers and by places of business. These laws
are being ignored with respect to this new vaccine mandate, which we've never had before
for adults in this country, which violates religious liberties and the rights of people of their
conscience, their protection over their own body, as well as medical issues.

Now, when the government mandates it, it's a hundred times worse. We have a significant
racial disparity just to make one point about this vaccine situation. Only about 33 or 35
percent of African-Americans in New York City are vaccinated and they are being shut out
from business, from travel, from being able to work out. This is unconstitutional and the
government doesn't have the right and doesn't have the police power for the most part to do
this kind of thing. There isn't even a rational basis for it.

We now know in recent days that vaccination status is not necessarily a proxy for either
safety or for non-communicability.

And so, I think this is a Civil Rights crisis of our time in the United States, and we need
citizens to stand up. I mean, you may make the choice to be vaccinated, most Americans
are doing that. But the fact that people are being forced into it is tyranny. It is contrary to the
very founding of our Constitution in this country.

And if we let it pass for this issue, I guarantee you, the governments -- Federal, State, and
local are going to be imposing further mandates on all kinds of issues and we cannot
tolerate this.

PAVLICH: Well, speaking of mandates and tyranny, of course, we saw this week, President
Joe Biden expanding this attack on private property rights through the C.D.C. by expanding
this eviction moratorium that the Supreme Court said was unconstitutional.

So Attorney General, I mean, we've seen the Federal government overstep in things like
shutting down churches, shutting down businesses. We've seen state governments do that
as well. And now, we're seeing the Federal government through the C.D.C. telling landlords
in places like Arizona, that they are not allowed to collect rent.

BRNOVICH: You know, Katie, it's the Bill of Rights, not the bill of suggestions; and property
rights are so fundamental to our Constitution because once again, the framers understood
the relationship between protecting private property and freedom, especially political
freedom.

You know, we have, as Madison said, rights in our property and property in our rights. And
so we know the Biden administration, even the President himself has talked about the fact
that they think what they're doing is constitutionally suspect, but they want to get out as
much money as possible, because I would submit to you, this is all part of the plan to
undermine the laboratories of democracy, that is the 50 states, concentrate power in
Washington, D.C. and get more and more people dependent on the Federal government.
And that's why it is incumbent on all of us, especially the A.G.s, especially state officials, to
stand up and push back against the Biden administration, whether you're Republican,
Democrat or Independent, because once you cede that power to the Federal government,
you're never getting it back.

As Ronald Reagan used to talk about, there is no more permanent thing that a temporary
government program, and once you transfer that power, we're never getting it get back as
Americans.

PAVLICH: All right. This is turning into a, like you said, a Civil Rights crisis. This is not just
about vaccination and on vaccination, this is about being forced by the Federal government
to do X, Y, or Z. And it seems like the end is never, and when it comes to this attack on
private property, if they can do this on private property rights, what's to say that the C.D.C.
can't go off after issues like gun control for the sake of public health or issues like climate
change for the sake of public health?

Right now, they are doing it under the guise of COVID, but where does that then? And what
is the situation with the President openly saying, "I know this may not pass constitutional
muster," after already being told by the Supreme Court, it's not constitutional, and yet, here
we are with them pushing forward on it.

DHILLON: Oh, this is a huge problem. For one thing, the C.D.C. is not a legislature, the
C.D.C. is not the government, the C.D.C. doesn't have the right to make up crimes, which
they're doing in this recent legislation.

To be very clear, the Federal government has almost no police power over our daily lives,
that's in the States, as the Attorney General stated, and it's at the local level. So, this is
completely farcical.

And this is the type of thing that actually is an impeachable offense, in my opinion, to ignore
a co-equal branch of government, which has clearly stated that this is not constitutional, and
to just go ahead and do it anyway. And if we let this stand, it will be the first of many.

And so yes, we don't want the Federal government telling us who can go to school, under
what circumstances, property rights, all kinds of issues that are local to the state's criminal
sanctions for different types of crimes, the death penalty, all of this.

So this has been a long-standing plan, I think of Democrats. You see, Democratic Congress
people who know that they can't make these types of changes in their own state, so they
are just camping out and making scenes in the Capitol and trying to get things done by fiat
at the Federal level with no consideration of all the families who own property and who are
struggling themselves to make ends meet, who are being broken by these mandates.

So like I said, it may not affect you, you may not be a landlord, you may not care, but this is
the beginning of a very dangerous precedent. And we are going to see I think if this
continues, we're going to see some significant unrest.

Hundreds or thousands of people have contacted me about these vaccine mandates. They
are absolutely desperate to be able to control their own bodies and their own lives, and the
government is taking that away from them. We can't let this proceed.
PAVLICH: Absolutely. As you said, it's a battle and certainly, we will continue to follow it.
Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich and Harmeet Dhillon, thank you both so much for
your expertise and insight. We appreciate it.

Well another major story we are following tonight is all of the mixed messaging on
mandates amid this delta COVID surge, and this week, the mixed messaging took a bizarre
turn.

Take a listen to what the N.I.H. Director said on Tuesday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. FRANCIS COLLINS, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: The

recommendations are for kids under 12, that they avoid being in places where they might
get infected, which means recommendations of mask wearing in schools, and that at home.
Parents of unvaccinated kids should be thoughtful about this, and the recommendation is to
wear masks there as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAVLICH: Well, not surprisingly, he has since walked back those comments, tweeting that
he needed to clarify the message that he garbled and that there was no need to mask at
home. But the mixed messaging and confusion on every level is pretty terrifying and
frustrating.

Here with reaction to that and much more, author of "COVID: The Politics of Fear and the
Power of Science," FOX News medical analyst, Dr. Marc Siegel joins me now.

Dr. Siegel, I just want you to react to what the N.I.H. Director said and the cleanup he tried
to do and where that leads people just trying to get good information so they can do the
best they can to mitigate the situation?

DR. MARC SIEGEL, FOX NEWS CHANNEL MEDICAL CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I think it's
good that he walked it back, because I think that people at home where parents have been
vaccinated, you know, you can't be masking all the time. So, I'm glad that that happened

But your idea, but the mixed messaging, you know what that does? That cedes distrust and
non-compliance with the vaccine, which is what we need right now. We need people to look
at the vaccine from a public health point of view, Katie, to say, I'm not just protecting myself,
I'm protecting my family, my community. That's a patriotic thing to do.

It doesn't need to be forced on you, though by the government who acts as though they
know better than you do. That's the problem.

And the more mixed messaging when you talk about former President Obama having a
huge party, a maskless party, people gathering, by the way, you can spread this outdoors if
you huddle together in a tent somewhere on President Obama's property. So, I think you
need clean messaging.
And masking confuses the messaging because the vaccine works a lot better at decreasing
the spread of this variant and at protecting you from severe illness and those around you
from this variant.

The masking, I think really we're looking at -- for masks to really work against a variant
properly, it's probably a mask like a KN95 or an N95. It's less proven -- it's certainly not
proven that lesser masks like cloth masks do what we think they are doing.

So, the problem with the government is, they keep with the stick all the time. Mask,
mandate, those words scare people and that's why you just had a discussion about civil
liberties.

Don't use the word mandate to cover something you don't have the science on.

PAVLICH: So Dr. Siegel, you're telling us tonight that the cloth masks aren't effective
against the most recent variant we have of this disease. And yet we have teachers unions
demanding that kids be masked up at school all day, which of course has a number of
devastating effects on children's development, both socially and in other areas of their
health.

And so, why are we recommending that people wear cloth masks or paper masks that you
get at the grocery store, especially considering Dr. Anthony Fauci a year ago in February
2020 wrote that they don't stop the virus from spreading because the particles are too small.
You had one of President Biden's former COVID advisers, Dr. Michael Osterholm, who is
an epidemiologist saying what you just said that cloth masks don't work.

So why are we suggesting the children, and quite frankly, all the adults wearing these
coverings if they don't actually work?

SIEGEL: Well, first of all, I don't know if they don't actually work, they haven't been studied
is what I'm saying and I want them to be studied against the delta variant. We know -- and
this is the most important thing -- that in three studies in North Carolina, in Utah, and in
Nebraska, that there was less than one percent spread within schools.

We know, Katie, that if you throw kids out of schools, they spread it a lot more in the
community than they are ever going to do in a school. So, we need not to give the teachers
union an excuse to say that schools need to close again with all of that damage that you
just talked about, the socialization damage.

I'm saying that I am suspicious that a cloth mask which is ill-fitting when we just had a study
at the C.D.C. that you actually need two masks, I'm suspicious that a three-year-old might
not be able to properly mask up with what I would want them to use, which is a stronger
mask like a KN95.

PAVLICH: Right.

SIEGEL: So, that's why I'm using words like "recommend" here. Recommend is the best
word. I think masks help. But I'm suspicious that cloth masks don't do what people are
saying they are going to do, like it's some kind of religion that you have to follow.