The New Jersey gym owner who became a hero for defying COVID-19 shutdowns in 2020 called Democratic governors “foot soldiers” for the establishment, and were used to keep states in a perpetual lockdown.
During an interview on the “Furthermore with Amanda Head” podcast, Ian Smith said the Demcorat’s “mission” was to keep states in lockdown.
“These people are nothing more than foot soldiers in a bigger war,” he said.
“They were carrying out their mission and their mission was to lock the states down for as long or forever as possible.”
Smith, who is the co-owner of Atilis Gym, made headlines after refusing to shut down his gym, defying Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy’s COVID restrictions.
Smith received multiple fines for refusing to shit down his gym.
Last month, however, the gym owner was cleared of any wrongdoing after a long legal battle, The New York Post reported.
“We were in a state where the governor really wanted a fight,” he said.
“And because we had so much attention, I think their hand was forced into not being able to quietly shut us down and sort of open this four year war against us,” he added.
During the interview, Smith argued there was no scientific basis for masking people during COVID-19, something Dr. Anthony Fauci admitted during a recent House Select Subcommittee testimony.
“There was no scientific basis for masking,” he said.
“There was no scientific basis for the arrows up and down the one-way grocery store aisles. There was no scientific basis for PCR testing.”
Dr. Harvey Risch, a professor emeritus at Yale University Public School of Health, echoed Smith’s argument, stating that the continued embrace of masks is further eroding public trust in the health establishment.
Smith explained that his gym had safety precautions when it was open during the pandemic.
“We did have our own contact tracing system,” he said.
“Our members voluntarily did a forehead scan of their temperature every day.”
“They all signed in, registered their temperature and we put it on a little piece of paper, and we collected those until we hit I think over a million visits.”
Throughout 2020, thousands of small businesses were closed down, with many never recovering.
Smith noted that some of his fines were paid off by individuals donating.
“That $750,000 legal bill was at least…..the burden was carried in a large way by people’s generous donations [and] by the T-shirts that we wound up selling,” he said.
“I mean, we sold T-shirts, and we didn’t really make a dime off of them. But we didn’t have to…..we wouldn’t have been able to finance that legal battle. We would have eventually gone broke.”
Smith it was a “collective effort” to keep the gym open and fight the legal battles.
