'The Ingraham Angle' on Biden's COVID responsibilities

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Biden can't justify federally led pandemic response: Duffy

'Ingraham Angle' guest host Sean Duffy looks back at when Biden promised he would 'shut down' the virus.

This is a rush transcript of "The Ingraham Angle" on December 28, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

SEAN DUFFY, FOX NEWS HOST: Pete Hegseth, thank you very much. And I'm looking forward to New Year's eve as well. I'll be home with the kids as you're hanging out with my wife.

HEGSETH: You got it.

DUFFY: Take good care. All right. I am Sean Duffy in for Laura Ingraham, and this is a special edition of THE INGRAHAM ANGLE.

Tragic news tonight, legendary NFL coach and announcer John Madden passed away at the age of 85. We'll bring you the latest on this sad news later in the hour. Plus, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio claims to love small businesses after crushing them with mandates. One owner is here to respond.

Also in New York, multiple people arrested for protesting the city's vaccine mandate at a Burger King last night. We will speak to two of the protesters. And who's this year's biggest COVID hypocrite. Find out when we award THE INGRAHAM ANGLE'S 2021 superlatives.

But first, let's take a trip down memory lane back to 2020 presidential campaign when then candidate Joe Biden told us this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I'll put in place a plan to deal with this pandemic responsibly. I have already done it. I'm not going to shut down the economy. I'm not going to shut down the country, but I'm going to shut down the virus.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DUFFY: But how will he use to shutdown the virus? His then advisor and current Chief of Staff Ron Klain gave us a bit of a hint.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RON KLAIN, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: But we have a federal government for a reason with this kind of nationwide threat that faces ourselves that the government - the federal government mobilizes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DUFFY: It only took 11 months in a Biden's presidency to scrap that genius plan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: Look, there is no federal solution. This gets solved at state level.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DUFFY: So in other words, they're saying this was actually the right approach all along.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Governors will be empowered to tailor an approach that meets the diverse circumstances of their own states. Every state is very different.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DUFFY: So perhaps Biden has always known this and just spread the convenient lie that the federal government and trillions of dollars in wasteful spending is necessary to extricate us from this pandemic.

Of course, now that even Biden can't justify a federally-led pandemic response, we have to ask, which states are doing the best job? Should we follow the lead of heavy handed pro-mandate states like New York, or pro- freedom states like Florida? If you look at the data, the choice is crystal clear.

New York, with its vaccine passports and crippling restrictions currently has a hospitalization rate nearly three times higher than Florida's. Likewise, New York's death rate over the last 14 days is over four times higher than Florida's. And on top of that, Florida's unemployment rate is only 4.7 percent. New York's 6.6 percent.

All right. Joining me now is New York Congressman Lee Zeldin, who's also running for Governor of New York. Congressman, welcome to THE INGRAHAM ANGLE. So I'm going to give you an easy one. You're the governor of New York. How do you handle COVID moving forward?

REP. LEE ZELDIN (R-NY): Well, first you have to value freedom. You have to respect that people are smart enough to make their own decisions, talking with their own doctors. The left has run out of ideas. So they're talking about mandates, lockdowns, threats, fines firings, instead of talking about early access to advance treatment and therapeutics. Following science as opposed to having the science follow the politics.

As we're getting new information out from Omicron, as we saw in South Africa same thing playing out here. The data, the facts, the science, the truth is telling us that the peak time may be narrower, the hospitalizations are lower, the reactions are milder, Yes. It's contagious, but the reactions might even be more milder than the mild prediction that people are making.

Let's also look at the science behind natural immunity. People have gotten COVID. And there's now research that's out that says that their body has a certain level of immunity to the virus. It's being studied by scientists as to whether or not that level of protection may be more than if you get vaccinated.

So all of the information, whether it's convenient for the narrative or not, you have to just be speaking honestly and transparently. With people smart enough to make their own decisions. They could talk to their doctor, they could talk to their loved ones, just given the tools.

But as far as ideas go, that's the reason why we're talking about PPE with President Trump early - earlier in this virus. That's why we're talking about vaccine development. Now, we should be also talking about more about treatment and therapeutics.

DUFFY: Yes. Lee, I couldn't agree more, because a little bit of freedom, giving people information and letting them make choices for themselves makes all the sense. That's what America is based on. But here you have Biden, who in essence, is saying, Listen, we can't do this in the federal government. We're going to pass this off to the States.

Is this Joe Biden actually seeing the light that his policies were wrong? Or is he trying to pass the buck like a hot potato and say, I want to make the governors responsible for this failure, not me?

ZELDIN: That's right. So the problem is that they have run out of ideas. So by punting it to the States, it's now in the States if they come up short. The problem is the President has really elevated Dr. Fauci. There's nothing wrong in medicine. We encourage it to seek second opinions. We could certainly use a bunch of new second opinions as it relates to what Dr. Fauci is saying, many Americans want new first opinions.

Now, when you kick it down to the state level, what you're seeing in a bunch of states. New York is one of these examples, where they get rid of elective procedures. They enact a vaccine mandate on health care workers that ends up resulting in a higher staff shortage. You already had a staff shortage inside of hospitals in New York City. NYPD and FDNY stopped receiving paychecks. You referenced the vaccine passports, where people don't want to provide their medical information to non-medical strangers.

But the problem is the President is surrounded by people who are looking punitive. They want punishment. They want jabs in arms, they don't want dialogue. They just want to tell people, get the shot or else.

And the other thing is you have to look at the other impacts. Like, for example, our kids, the developmental, mental, emotional, physical impacts of the policies when they have the lowest rates of any one of all the different generations as it relates to their reaction. Meanwhile, they're the ones who are being denied normalcy the most. They've sacrificed the most.

Now, they hear from Dr. Fauci the possibility of enacting a vaccine mandate in order to have domestic air travel. So I think the President isn't surrounded by the right people, thinking multi-dimensionally enough about the economic impacts to our country, and the health impacts. But also the health impacts not related to COVID.

So I think the problem number one for this president in kicking the can to the States, which in many respects, could be the right way forward. That's what we saw since the beginning of this pandemic in many different respects. Unfortunately, some of these states, like New York and California and elsewhere, are doing the wrong thing with that power. They're infringing on freedoms even more than this president. And the President just getting bad advice from those who are around him.

Americans are caught in the crosshairs, regardless of whether it's President Biden or White House or States.

DUFFY: Yes. And those liberal states aren't getting the results that they would anticipate from these draconian lockdowns and mask mandates. And I got to go.

But next time we talk, I want to talk about the economic impact that these restrictions have had on New York and how you bring that economy back, stop people from going to Florida and keep them in New York. But thank you for joining, congressman. I appreciate it.

All right. They told us it wasn't going to happen again. But schools are shutting down and going virtual amid the rise in the Omicron cases. And that's despite the mounting evidence that COVID even this variant included, isn't much of a threat to kids. A bigger threat to children is the mental health, anguish, shutdowns and flicked on so many of them. It's so bad that even Biden's Surgeon General is sounding the alarm.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VIVEK MURTHY, U.S. SURGEON GENERAL: I bet their lives have been turned upside down. They haven't been able to see friends as often as they would. And that's taken a toll. It's why we've seen anxiety and depression rates go up among kids.

Our children have been struggling for a while. And we have, I believe, a moral obligation to take action to support our kids.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DUFFY: All right. Joining me now is Dr. Houman Hemmati, board certified MD and PhD research scientist; and Dr. Peter McCullough, an epidemiologist based in Dallas, Texas. Gentlemen, thank you for joining me.

So Dr. Hemmati, how is it that some of these parts of the country are resorting to the same policies that didn't work two years ago and have been so damaging to our kids?

HOUMAN HEMMATI, BOARD CERTIFIED MD: Frankly, I think in my opinion as a parent, as a physician, as a scientist, and even as someone who's been a leader of the reopened California schools movement and LA school uprising, which last spring, lobbied successfully to get the schools to reopen this last fall in Los Angeles County.

I can tell you that this makes no sense. And frankly, this is going to be - this is going to hurt children. It's going to be detrimental to them academically, socio-economically, medically. And I'm not referring to COVID, but I'm referring to studies that have been published showing you have tremendously higher rates of diabetes and obesity in children. It was a great study published in Los Angeles by Kaiser Permanente that had access to a ton of medical records.

You've got that anxiety and depression that was talked about, enormous spikes in suicide. And then we're talking about - we need to talk about the learning loss that occurs, right. The kids have missed an entire year of school already.

And guess what, those kids who can't afford to pay for private tutors, which is about 98 percent of them, they're the ones who really suffer. The ones whose parents can afford private education, tutors, et cetera, they're fine. And then we had to look at the lunacy of the whole concept of locking down schools.

Children, as you've pointed out, right, are the ones who are the least likely to become severely infected or die. We know this. Now, it's absolute fact. Back then in March of 2020, we didn't know who would get infected the most, who would die. We didn't know how it spread. We had no vaccines, we had no major studies, we had no good treatments. Now, we have all that. Schools are testing kids left and right. They're masking them indoors and outdoors and all this.

And even despite that, they're saying they may have to go back to these failed policies of the past. Again, if they do that, I think this is going to be one of the most criminal actions imaginable on the part of the school districts.

DUFFY: It's criminal and cruel. And so Dr. McCullough, what concerns me on this is, two years ago this might have made sense when we first started the pandemic. But we're two years in and we've seen how horrible this is for kids. The screen time that they have, and as we just mentioned, the weight gain, the depression, the loneliness, the increased suicides.

And we have a group of people who are liberals, who say, we follow the science. Well, when did science say, it's safer to keep kids in school than to send them back at home and put them on their screens?

PETER MCCULLOUGH, MD, MPH, INTERNIST: The scientific data now are really dominated by the Omicron outbreak. And this is a very tall but narrow peak. Now, Omicron has actually broken through all forms of immunity, including natural immunity, the prior SARS-CoV-2 variants. And it's breaking through the vaccines easily, as well as those who are susceptible.

Now, the good news is, and I'm seeing this firsthand in my practice, it is a very brief and mild syndrome. And the children, if they get it, it can be less than a day of being a little bit warm with a fever, and it's over with. It's the mildest of all the SARS-CoV-2 syndromes. There's clearly been a shift. This is great news.

Recent data suggests now that the Omicron will become the dominant variant, because it's replicating 70 times faster than Delta. But it's providing back immunity against Delta infection. So in fact, Delta is going to have nowhere to go. We had the kids back at school during the Delta outbreak, which is far more serious than Omicron.

Omicron is going to be so brief. It could be almost over with by the end of the Christmas break here. But the bottom line is the children need to be in school learning. A large fraction of them now are actually through it. And we simply just need to take prudent measures. Sick children should stay at home. If they become sick at school, the parents need to pick them up, take this reasonable 1950s, 1960s common sense approach. And we can get through this together.

DUFFY: Gentlemen, I have nine kids. And I see my young ones get masked up. I've seen the effort to keep them at home and try to have them learn online. And it is tragic, the impact this has on kids and I appreciate you guys' expertise and insight on this matter. And thanks for joining me on the 'Angle' tonight.

All right. THE INGRAHAM ANGLE has long been at the forefront of exposing far-left prosecutors, who put criminals ahead of law-abiding innocent citizens. So tonight, we bring you the troubling case of Baltimore city state's attorney, Marilyn Mosby. Yes, that Marilyn Mosby, the one who bought the Freddie Gray case.

Now, she's apparently given up on prosecuting certain crimes all together, and working hard to get criminals out of prison. Take the case of Luther Moody Trent, who lit his ex girlfriend's house on fire, while she and her two roommates were asleep inside. He was charged with 18 felonies. That's a good thing, including three attempted murders. That's also really good.

But thanks to Mosby's office. He got a plea deal and served less than six months in prison. So joining me now is someone trying to unseat Mosby, Roya Hanna candidate for Baltimore city state's attorney's office.

Roya, thanks for joining me. So, I should be straight here. So you are in here as a Democrat, this is going to be a primary. What kind of platform are you running on to unseat Mosby?

ROYA HANNA, BALTIMORE STATE ATTORNEY CANDIDATE: Well, I mean, I'm running on the platform that prosecutor should prosecute crime. What we've seen with the Mosby administration is her refusal to prosecute crimes such as attempted car theft and distribution of narcotics, those type of things affect each and every one of us. It affects our safety in the neighborhood. It affects the ability of our children to go to school without seeing the remnants of drug distribution and prostitution in the streets.

Sean, this has to stop. We need a prosecutor who would actually prosecute crime. The business of prosecution is too important for politics. It requires all of us to get out of our silos and to support good prosecutors.

Sean, I know that if each and every one of your viewers went to royahanna.com, and gave just $10 or $20, we would have the resources that we need to unseat Marilyn Mosby. And then we would be able to actually prosecute crime into the city and to end the unconstitutional overreaching of her office.

DUFFY: So Roya, you're running for an elected position. I was a prosecutor for 10 years, elected as well. And I ran on a platform of being fair, but also really firm with bad people. And I think that's what the citizens want. They want you to be a good use of character and judgment in this office.

And so, where are the citizens of Baltimore? Do they want a tough prosecutor? Do they want people to put bad people behind bars? Is that where they're at? Will that message of tough on crime work with the community, or do they want Mosby who's just light and letting everybody out?

HANNA: I think what the citizens of Baltimore want is a prosecutor who's going to actually do the job, but also understands that we can't just incarcerate everyone, right? They want somebody who's going to offer actual common sense, practical solutions. Some of my programs are very progressive. I have a women's empowerment court to give women the tools that they need, to not reoffend.

But at the same time, I understand that we need to work with the police. I was a prosecutor for 12 years, nine of those I just tried murders and shootings. I never lost a homicide, because I worked with the Police to make sure that those cases were strong. And that is what we need. We need somebody who's going to be fair and reasonable. And also who's going to enforce the law.

DUFFY: Roya, I hope that the citizens look at this and say, I do want someone who's compassionate, someone who will try to divert people and rehabilitate people who deserve it. But there are some people who don't deserve to be rehabilitated. They don't deserve a second chance. They should be behind bars because it keeps the community safe.

I think that's what Baltimore needs. That's what Chicago needs, LA needs, San Francisco needs, is people who are compassionate, but really tough on the bad people. Hopefully, you'll have a great race. And if you win, that's the kind of prosecutor you will be. Thank you for joining me tonight on the 'Angle'.

HANNA: Thank you so much.

DUFFY: All right. After imposing crippling COVID mandates, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio wants us to believe he really cares about small businesses. In moments, we'll hear from one owner who's not buying de Blasio's act.

Then multiple patrons were thrown out of a Burger King for not flashing their vaccine passports. We will speak to two of them. So stay right there. We're coming back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DUFFY: When New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio imposed one of the strictest vaccine mandates in the country, he did it despite concerns of small businesses. They feared and rightfully so that they will lose customers and employees because of it. But have no fear. The lame duck mayor now says, it's all because he cares.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL DE BLASIO, NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: I obviously care deeply about the small businesses. They've been through a lot. But I'm also convinced that the most important thing to do for small business is to end the COVID era. Get us out of this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DUFFY: Joining me now is Mary Josephine Generoso, owner of Rocco's pastry shop with locations in Manhattan and Brooklyn. So, Mary Josephine, do you feel better now that Bill de Blasio actually cares about you and small businesses?

MARY JOSEPHINE GENEROSO, PASTICCERIA ROCCO OWNER: Sean, if he actually cared about small business, the last thing that he would be doing is imposing a mandate that he's imposed on both the private sector, and first with the restaurant bars and event spaces and movie theaters.

I mean, what he's essentially done is locked people out of New York City. I've said this before. But what's more egregious now is that not only has he come after the adults, he's come after children, who now can't go enjoy a movie, go to a restaurant with their parents who have been vaccinated. It's absolutely disgusting.

But, like you said, he's lame duck, and we have to set our sights now on Eric Adams. I implore Eric Adams now to do the right thing.

DUFFY: Right. So starting tomorrow, if you're five years old or older, you have to be vaccinated to go into any building in New York City. And I think this is important, because what happens in New York City, say, the bad things that happen there, we bring it up, because it seems to dissipate throughout the country. Bad ideas go everywhere. So that's why we talk about it.

But what impact have the vaccine mandates had on your business and the ability to make money and keep employees?

GENEROSO: I mean, New York City's service industry right now, it's decimated. It's impossible to find employees without the mandate. Now we're tackling on top of that, that employees need to be vaccinated in order to work. I mean, it's ridiculous.

I mean, unfortunately, we see that Omicron - I mean, your last guest, Peter McCullough was just on saying that it spreads regardless of a vaccine. So I don't see what the vaccine mandate is actually doing other than shutting out people from coming into businesses and children, especially.

I mean, there was a video circulating online on social media, where a little boy was being ushered out of a restaurant because he wasn't vaccinated. I mean, it's inhumane what we're doing. It's disgusting what we're doing to children. And the fact that the police officers stood there and didn't support the most vulnerable is unbelievable to me.

And I feel that Mayor de Blasio has a hand in this. And, like I said before, we have to look to Eric Adams now. I'm hoping that Adams - he has a chance now to probably be the most successful mayor in history. If he were to look at these mandates, and go - do away with them, and really encourage businesses to flourish again, encourage New York to wake up again, invite people from across the country, throughout the world to come back into New York City, and have everything it has to offer.

I'm a lifelong New Yorker, I really hope that Adams can save us. I really pray that he can take a look at the city, fix it. He was - you know, he was a police officer. We need to really bring New York back, and he has the greatest chance to do that as soon as de Blasio's term is over.

DUFFY: You know, Mary Josephine, I hope you're right. But Eric Adams hasn't really said anything about these vaccine mandates. So I hope he listens to you tonight and he actually changes course and brings freedom back to the city, and the ability for small business owners to actually run their businesses and make a living. Thank you for joining me tonight. I appreciate it, Mary Josephine.

All right. Speaking of New York City, it's now a place where you can riot, you can loot with little to no consequences. But if you walk into a restaurant without a vaccine passport, you're treated like a criminal. This is what happened in Brooklyn last night when unvaccinated Americans tried walking into a Burger King.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL ANTHONY, ARRESTED AT BURGER KING: I'm a U.S. Army officer. I fought for this country. I've seen blood been shed. I should be able to eat. I should be able to eat.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DUFFY: Joining me now are two of those protestors, Jo Rose, and Michael Anthony, who was actually arrested last night. So Michael, is this really where we're at in America? Arresting people for not showing the right papers to go into a Burger King?

MICHAEL ANTHONY, ARRESTED AT BURGER KING: I can't believe that we're at this point in history. I thought that we had a better memory. But unfortunately, it seems like New Yorkers have forgotten their history. Under no circumstances is it ok for a government to control our lives this way. We were born free. And I'm infuriated by all this.

DUFFY: Yes. We were born free. That's right. And to think that, we're going to go to an old communist style, show your papers, to go have a burger and a milkshake is outrageous.

So Jo, you've been part of these protests. What do you guys hope to accomplish by going to Eric Adams' office and protesting, and then trying to go into restaurants and say, I want to eat like a free human being?

JO ROSE, PROTESTED AT BURGER KING: Well, I think first and foremost, I feel like I shouldn't even have to be protesting. These elected officials, they know that they're supposed to work for the people. We, the people, in the Constitution means, us, the public, right? And their job is to abide by the Constitution, and protect our God given rights.

Our rights do not come from any man, or any given institution whatsoever. I feel like they know exactly what they're doing. They know that this is wrong. They're ostracizing us from society. Now, five years here, I have to show papers in order to go to the movie theaters, in order to go to restaurants. It's a complete - it's an abomination. It's wrong, and is immoral.

And by me going inside these restaurants with other fellow New Yorkers that are fighting for our God given freedom, is to set a message that we're not going to take it. I was born free, like Michael Anthony said, and there's no reason why that should be happening in 2021. We already eradicated Jim Crow law, which was being done, segregation by race.

Now, it's not being done by race, It's back again. But it's now based on vaccination status, and it's immoral and it needs to be stopped.

DUFFY: Jo, thank you for bringing up that very important point that our rights actually don't come from man, don't come from government. Our rights come from God. And our founders have been trying that in our constitution. We can never forget that.

Michael, what kind of response are you getting from other New Yorkers? Is this movement growing? Do you have more people joining the protest to push back and show the dislike for these mandates?

ANTHONY: Honestly, I wish it were growing more. But we do have people still coming to join us. We have a very diverse group of freedom-loving Americans. We come from all backgrounds, sociological, economic, racial, religious. And I do have hope for the future, but we don't have enough New Yorkers standing up, and it's getting out of hand. And we do have a lot of, I guess, hecklers who -- and I don't understand. There is such a lack of compassion on the other side. And I think that's very telling, that we're being cursed at, people flip us off. And these are older people, older liberals, and I would expect more of these adults.

DUFFY: Well, these older liberals always told us that they believe in so much peace and equality. And remember the bumper sticker you see on the back of cars that says "Coexist"? There's nothing about coexisting that liberals want to have with people they disagree with. How much are you guys willing to sacrifice to push this, to make sure that you get freedom back in New York?

ANTHONY: I personally am looking at maybe going to New Hampshire.

(LAUGHTER)

DUFFY: Jo, you?

JO ROSE, PROTESTED AT BURGER KING: Me, speaking for myself, my belief is that it's either I'm going to be free, or I'd rather die. I'm not going to take this. I don't care if it's in New York, I don't care if it's in Florida, I don't care if it's out of the country. We, the people, deserve to have our God-given rights. No man or institution can take that away from me. So me personally, I would not stop until my freedoms are given back to me.

And again, I shouldn't have to have government that is supposed to be working for us, the people, to give me back my freedom, because if I have to beg for it then that means that I'm not free.

DUFFY: God bless you both, thank you for both standing up and fighting back and pushing back. That's the only way we get our freedom back, so thank you for all you're doing and thanks for joining me on THE ANGLE tonight, Jo and Michael.

All right, 11-time NCAA all-American swimmer Jeri Shanteau has a dire warning for Americans about the future of women's sports. She joins me in moments, so stay right there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DUFFY: This is a FOX News alert. NFL legend and Hall of Fame coach John Madden dead tonight at 85. FOX's Matt Finn is live from our west coast newsroom with all the details. Matt?

MATT FINN, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Sean, the NFL announcing the legendary 85-year-old announcer unexpectedly passed away this morning but did not give a cause. Madden was a household name, one of the most influential NFL figures ever, a prominent TV sports host and analyst, winning an unprecedented 16 Emmy Awards for his sports broadcasting, covering 11 Super Bowls from 1979 to 2009.

Madden, a former coach, didn't just educate and entertain the nation as an announcer, he became a massive brand, a pitchman for restaurants, hardware stores, and beer. He was also the face of "Madden NFL Football," one of the most recognizable and bestselling sports videogames of all time.

Madden started at CBS, later partnering with Pat Summerall, becoming the network's top announcing duo. Madden moved to FOX in 1994 and later moved to NBC's Sunday Night Football. Madden earned a bachelor and master's degree from Cal Poly in 1958. He was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles, but a knee injury ended his career. He was brought to the Oakland Raiders as a linebacker coach. Madden then replaced the head coach at age 32, beginning a remarkable 10-year run that earned him a spot in the pro football hall of fame.

The Raiders, now based in Las Vegas, said in a statement that "The Raiders Family is deeply saddened by the passing of the legendary John Madden," and sportscaster Jim Gray calls him a great coach and the best broadcaster ever. Jerry Jones, the Dallas Cowboys owner, says "I'm not aware of anyone who has made a more meaningful impact on the National Football League than John Madden."

And also a short while ago this evening, the death was announced of former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, 82-year-old Reid of Nevada battled pancreatic cancer. Sean?

DUFFY: Matt, thank you for that report. It is a sad day for football.

All right, for weeks, THE INGRAHAM ANGLE has been bringing you the latest on Lia Thomas, the UPenn athlete who is upending women's swimming. Thomas is a biological male who is absolutely dominating the pool. Teammates and parents are absolutely livid. Last week the USA Swimming official Cynthia Millen announced on this show that she was quitting over the entire situation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CYNTHIA MILLEN, FORMER USA SWIMMING OFFICIAL: Men swim eight to 12 percent faster than women. Men have larger lung capacity, skeleton, circulatory system, heart. And nothing that Lia did by taking a year off to take testosterone suppression drugs, that does not change Lia's body. So every time Lia jumps into the pool, it's a man who is competing against women. This is grossly unfair.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DUFFY: So of course, Lia Thomas isn't the only trans athlete out there. She's part of a growing trend, one that has 11-time NCAA all-American swimmer Jeri Shanteau sounding the alarm. So Jeri joins me right now. So Jeri, you had a pretty distressing warning for us about the future of women's sports. What is it?

JERI SHANTEAU, 11-TIME ALL-AMERICAN SWIMMER: Yes, thank you for having me. My message this evening is a call to action, and it is that what you see right now in women's athletics is going to be the extinction of women's sports in general. This is the beginning stages of what this looks like. We need people to understand what is going on in athletics. We need people to understand that this is a complete discrimination of women. And what is happening that we do not have our institutions and our universities and our governing bodies standing by watching this unfold IS complete neglect.

DUFFY: So Jeri, that's what's frustrating to me, because I couldn't agree with you more. This is an absolute threat to women's sports. And so I wonder, where are all the Olympic athletes? Where are all the college athletes that are women? Where's the NCAA? Where are moms and dads? There should be outrage across the country, and there's very few people who are standing up and sounding the alarm like you.

SHANTEAU: Yes, absolutely. But we live in a culture where people are scared. The cancel culture, people will lose their livelihoods. The UPenn women did write a letter, and they had to be anonymous because it's scary for them. And what they're risking, their entire livelihood thereafter. It's people like me who hopefully start a trend to encourage more people to speak up. Anybody that can do anything, this affects all of us. We have mothers and daughters and sisters and aunts. This is a women's issue. If you care about women, you should care about this cause.

And unfortunately, it's really hard for everyone to speak out right now, and I actually have empathy for their position. I take great responsibility in trying to speak up and do something, and hopefully there will be a wave thereafter.

DUFFY: And Jeri, I think you're right, because courage begets more courage with others, and people like you standing up is important. But I wanted to bring her because earlier this month, "Politico" reported that the Biden demonstration indicated its plan to include in the new Title IX rules a range of protection for transgender students, including their rights to participate in school sports. So Jeri, what's your reaction? This could actually become law, that transgender boys could get to, by law, compete against women.

SHANTEAU: My reaction to that is the same reaction I'm having over all of this. How do we understand that if we do not use sex as our identifier, we are going to make women obsolete in general, and not just in athletics? It is a standard in which we use because male bodies competing against women does not uphold what we believe in fairness of sport. And it will trickle down to everything else in life.

DUFFY: Jeri, I get it with swimming. It's a timed events, it's a racing event, but you're not touching anybody. I'm concerned, what happens when transgender boys start playing women's hockey or kickboxing or karate where you have physical contact? I think the results can be quite devastating. And frankly, I think a lot of women, young women, will be like, I'm not going to do it because the risk is too great for injury.

SHANTEAU: You make a great point. Young women, what we are setting the standard for if we do not do something now, we are going to look at young women and our daughters, and we are going to say no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, it will not matter, and you do not matter. That is the message that societally we are preparing ourselves to send to the next generation across the board if we do not do something now. And we need a political movement. We need people to care. We need laws enacted to help the discrimination that is happening against women currently.

DUFFY: Jeri, you are 100 percent right, and every mom and dad, every coach, should stand up right now and speak with you to make this end and give sports back to girls. So listen, Jeri, thank you for joining me tonight, and thank you for lending your voice to all those young girls who don't have the power that you have to speak out. We appreciate it.

Still ahead, the moment you've all been waiting for. It's the 2021 INGRAHAM ANGLE superlatives, and may be a few 2022 predictions, too, so don't go away.

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DUFFY: It's time for THE INGRAHAM ANGLE 2021 superlatives. Here to present these prestigious awards is Horace Cooper, Project 21 cochair, and Allie Beth Stuckey, co-host of "Reliable Podcast," and author of "You're Not Enough, And That's OK." Let's dive right into it, you guys, shall we. Horace, who did you have for the worst fall from grace this year?

HORACE COOPER, PROJECT 21 CO-CHAIRMAN: Well, actually it's Joe Biden. I think a lot of these answers could end up being Joe Biden. He started off so well with such high hope and expectations. But look how far the mighty have fallen.

DUFFY: So true. Allie Beth, your winner?

ALLIE BETH STUCKEY, "RELATABLE" PODCAST HOST: I'm going to have to go with the brothers Cuomo. So they are tied on this. They were heroes of COVID, and obviously this year they have fallen in disgrace for various reasons. Both of them were seen as kind of these voices of reason and stability, and now they are proving to be anything but.

DUFFY: So true. I'm going to go with Jeffrey Toobin. You all remember his zoom-capade? He's also running for the most shocking comeback, which was surprising, so he had quite a fall.

Let's go to the next one. Allie Beth, who had the biggest power trip of the year?

STUCKEY: That definitely goes to Anthony Fauci. I think the quote that really sums that up is when he said, I am science -- or I represent science, so if you criticize Anthony Fauci, who is a fallible, finite human beings just like the rest of us, then you are criticizing science itself. In that moment I saw that he thinks he has taken on godlike powers. So that is the person with the biggest power trip of this year.

DUFFY: Yes, god Fauci. Horace, who did you have?

COOPER: Kamala Harris. She was assigned the responsibility of immigration and making sure that we get it under control. When asked why she hadn't gone to the border to actually see what it is that she is supposed to be responsible for, her response was, well, I haven't gone to Europe either.

DUFFY: That's true. And then she complained that she had left --

COOPER: A major power trip.

DUFFY: -- the White House, right. Major power trip. I'm going to go with Gavin Newsom just because he was a COVID mandate guru.

Let's move on. Horace, who had the best but really worst rules for thee but not for me moment of the year?

COOPER: Everyone remembers how Nancy Pelosi decided that the House of Representatives had to be all but shut down. In fact, we created an unconstitutional vote from home idea, making light work for a member of Congress even lighter, while when it came time for her to get her hair done, it was great for her to go out without a mask in front of God and everybody. And then later we got to see her bragging about all the various fancy kind of ice creams that she's able to partake of. Rules for thee, but not for me.

DUFFY: All right, Allie Beth, who do you have?

STUCKEY: I think at least the most creative answer, or the most creative answer that was given by a person who wasn't following their own rules was London Breed. So after she issued a mask mandate for San Francisco, same area as Nancy Pelosi, she gave her reason that she was really feeling the spirit at a concert, and that's why she couldn't wear a mask. That's such a wonderful excuse, I think we should all use it.

DUFFY: Those masks, they can ruin the vibe, I guess, right? But I'm going to go with, I'm going to go with, remember this, the Texas Democrats who tried to flee the state to stop the voting rights bill? But then they were supportive of Democrats in Washington, D.C., that wanted to pass their own voting rights law. What hypocrites.

Allie Beth, what was the most cringeworthy moment of the year?

STUCKEY: This was really hard for me to decide. I'm going to go with Mayor de Blasio when he decided that he was going to eat fries and a hamburger on live television to try to get people to get the vaccine. I guess he was promoting his vaccine passport or something like that. No one likes to see anyone eat, but definitely not Mayor de Blasio. If anything, I think it disincentivized people from getting anything that he was promoting that day.

DUFFY: So true. Horace, what do you got?

COOPER: I'm going to have to go with the president again when he inadvertently referred to one of his advisors in the White House during an issue about the hurricane, referring to him as "boy," a black man. That was really cringeworthy watching that.

DUFFY: I'm going to go with Terry McAuliffe. Remember when he was on stage dancing? I never dance. Dancing is bad, it never goes well for older men. That was mine.

But listen, Horace and Allie Beth, thank you guys for joining me. I appreciate it.

One MSNBC host has taken COVID paranoia to a whole new level. The Last Bite explains.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm a Fauci groupie. I'm a thrice vaccinated mask adherent. I buy KN-95 masks by the caseload. They are in every pocket. I wear them everywhere except when I sit down. And I am certain that this is not a variant I can outrun.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DUFFY: Just keeping the fearmongering going. That's it for us tonight. I'm Sean Duffy in for Laura Ingraham. Thanks for watching this special edition of THE INGRAHAM ANGLE. I'm here again tomorrow night.

Right now, check out Gutfeld.

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