On the NFL Vaccination Policy
Pat McAfee: (
00:00) ... Like what we have been able to, I don't want to say build with you in your incredible, just how nice you are with your time with us every single Tuesday. People have learned a lot about you through this show, and I'm very thankful for that. Every Tuesday, I think a lot of thoughts were potentially changed about you. People that once thought something about you changed after hearing you speak. So whenever all this information came out, there was a lot of haters out there, obviously, that immediately started burying you, but there was a lot of people that listen to you on Tuesdays that say, "Hey, he's actually an incredibly deep person, an incredibly intelligent person, somebody that you would actually like. There has to be re reasons for everything that we're hearing about right now." So I appreciate you so much for this incredible honor that we have to potentially allow you to have a platform and a floor to explain your side of this whole thing, and I can't wait to hear it. We're incredibly lucky for it. The floor is yours, Mr. Rodgers. Aaron Rodgers: (
01:00) Thank you, buddy. Pat McAfee: (
01:03) Good water drink. It's going to be long. Aaron Rodgers: (
01:06) I realize I'm in the crosshairs of the woke mob right now. So before my final nail gets put in my cancel culture casket, I think I'd like to set the record straight on so many of the blatant lies that are out there about myself right now. And I appreciate the opportunity to tell my side of the story on here. First of all, I didn't lie in the initial press conference. During that time, it was a very witch hunt that was going on across the league, where everybody in the media was so concerned about who was vaccinated and who wasn't and what that meant and who was being selfish and who would talk about it and what it meant if they said it's a personal decision, they shouldn't have to disclose their own medical information and whatnot. Aaron Rodgers: (
01:51) And at the time, my plan was to say that I've been immunized. It wasn't some sort of ruse or lie. It was the truth. And I'll get into whole immunization in a second. Had there been a follow up to my statement that I've been immunized, I would've responded with this. I would've said, "Look, I'm not some sort of anti-vax flat Earther. I am somebody who's a critical thinker." You guys know me. I march to the beat of my own drum. I believe strongly in bodily autonomy and the ability to make choices for your body, not to have to acquiesce to some woke culture or crazed group of individuals who say you have to do something. Health is not a one size fits all for everybody. And for me, it involved a lot of study in the off season, much like the study I put into hosting Jeopardy or the weekly study I put into plan in the game. Aaron Rodgers: (
02:59) I put a lot of time and energy and research and met with a lot of different people in the medical field to get the most information about the vaccines before making a decision. And in actuality, it was pretty easy in the beginning to eliminate two of them, and it didn't involve going into the questionable history of some of their criminal activities and fraud cases or any of that stuff. It was simply the fact that I have an allergy to an ingredient that's in the mRNA vaccines. So on the CDC's own website, it says, "Should you have an allergy to any of the ingredients, you should not get one of the mRNA vaccines." So those two are already. So my only option was Johnson & Johnson. At this time in the early spring, I had heard of multiple people who had adverse events around getting the J&J. Aaron Rodgers: (
03:51) No deaths or anything, but just some really difficult times and physical abnormalities around the J&J shot. And then in mid-April, the J&J shot got pulled for clotting issues, if you remember that. So the J&J shot was not even an option at that point. So then my options became, "Okay, what can I do to protect myself and my teammates if there's not one of the big three options for me in my own body?" And so I looked into and talked, again, to a lot of medical individuals and professionals and found that there was an immunization protocol that I could go to, to best protect myself and my teammates. And it was a long term protocol that involved multiple months. I'm very proud of the research that went into that and the individuals that I met with and we felt like it was what was best for me. Aaron Rodgers: (
04:54) It was not, again, something that the league didn't know about. The league was fully aware of it upon my return to the Packers. And it was at that point that I petitioned them to accept my immunization status as under their vaccination protocol. Now, at the time, they had only had the big three was what they're going to do. And if you weren't in the vaccinated category, you were in a different category, which involved some draconian measures and protocols that you would have to adhere to, which, in my opinion, were not based on science, were more based in a shame-based environment to try and get as many guys to get vaccinated as possible so that the league looks better to the rest of the world. That was the focus of these protocols, which I'll get into when I finish this diatribe here.
On Speaking to Joe Rogan, Ivermectin
Aaron Rodgers: (
00:00) I'm 48 hours in. I consulted with a now good friend of mine, Joe Rogan, after he got COVID. I've been doing a lot of the stuff that he recommended in his podcasts and on the phone to me. I'm going to have the best immunity possible now, based on the 2.5 million person study from Israel that people who get COVID and recover have the most robust immunity. I'm thankful for people like Joe stepping up and using their voice, I'm thankful for my medical squad, and I'm thankful for all the love and support I've gotten, but I've been taking monoclonal antibodies, ivermectin, zinc, vitamin C and DHCQ, and I feel pretty incredible.
