Louisville store owner arms himself to defend business from rioters

'This is a rush transcript from “Tucker Carlson Tonight" September 28, 2020. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS HOST:  Well, good evening and welcome to TUCKER CARLSON TONIGHT.  

Over the weekend, on Saturday, the Presidentformally announced the impending nomination ofAmy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. Herconfirmation hearings are expected to begin just acouple of weeks from now, on October 12.  

There's no question that Barrett is qualified for thejob. She graduated first in her class from Notre Dame Law School on a full-ride scholarship. 
She clerked for Antonin Scalia on the SupremeCourt. Then she left, going to a top law firm, practiced there and then rejoined her alma mater as a Law Professor.  

Three years ago, Barrett was confirmed by theUnited States Senate and became an Appellate Court Judge, which she still is.  

While doing all of this, Barrett had five children with her husband, Jesse, and then adopted two more from Haiti, one of whom has special needs. TheBarrett's youngest child, meanwhile, has Down syndrome.  

So on any level, Amy Coney Barrett is a remarkable person, an unusual person, maybe the most impressive person to receive a Supreme Courtnomination in memory. Here she is, with her family at the announcement on Saturday.  

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)  

JUDGE AMY CONEY BARRETT, SUPREME COURTNOMINEE:  If confirmed, I would not assume that role for the sake of those in my own circle, and certainly not for my own sake. I would assume this role to serve you.  

I would discharge the Judicial Oath, which requires me to administer justice without respect to persons, do equal right to the poor and rich and faithfully and impartially discharge my duties under theUnited States Constitution.  

(END VIDEO CLIP)  

CARLSON:  Okay, so you can kind of see theproblem for Democrats. How would you derail thenomination of someone like that? A legal scholar who just went through Senate confirmation who is now a sitting Federal Judge, and on top of it all, has seven kids and seems well adjusted and normal. It's the last point that drives the left completely insane.  

Amy Coney Barrett looks like a happy person. Heropponents clearly are not happy people. They're miserable. That's where their politics come from.  

So even though on some level, Democrats understand rationally that it's a very bad idea toattack a woman for her family and for her religious faith, they can't help themselves, so they're doing it. 

Amy Coney Barrett represents everything that made this a great country. 
Therefore, they despise her. Watch MSNBC's legal analyst denounce her as a fake Christian.  

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)  

ELIE MISTAL, MSNBC LEGAL ANALYST:  It is not Catholic. It is not devout to turn away thy neighbor. It is not devoutly Catholic to take away people's healthcare as Amy Coney Barrett has repeatedly said she will. It is not devoutly Catholic to apply thedeath penalty, which Amy Coney Barrett has written that a good Catholic judge should recuse themselves from situations implying the death penalty.  

But she has not written and here is, you know, theelephant in the room -- she has not written that agood Catholic judge would recuse themselves onissues involving abortion or a woman's right tochoose.  

So what we're left with is a hypocrite.  

(END VIDEO CLIP)  

CARLSON:  Okay, just in case you're following at home. Amy Coney Barrett doesn't seem sufficiently enthusiastic about Obamacare, therefore, she is not a real Christian. Such as the theological analysis onMSNBC, the agnostic channel.  

Others of course see Barrett as far too sincere aChristian. Watch the unhappiest man in America, aguy pushing 70, shuffling toward the end of life with no clue what happens next attack Amy ConeyBarrett as mentally ill for daring to believe in more than shopping and vacations. Watch.  

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)  

BILL MAHER, HBO HOST:  But apparently the pick is going to be this Omy -- Amy Coney -- we will all be saying this name a lot. I'm sure because she is [bleep] nut.  

[LAUGHTER]  

MAHER:  Religion. I was right about that one, too. Amy Coney Barrett, Catholic, really Catholic. I mean, really, really Catholic, like speaking in tongues.  

(END VIDEO CLIP)  

CARLSON:  So what this is really about -- and you guessed this already -- is abortion. The left is worried that Amy Coney Barrett doesn't love abortion enough. She and her husband have seven children after all. So honestly, it's a pretty fair guess. 

But this is a nomination to our highest court. So it's interesting, and you'll notice this, as the debate continues, they never address the question of thelaw on abortion on Roe v. Wade. Does anyone really think that Roe versus Wade makes sense as an actual Supreme Court decision? And if it does, we're exactly in the Constitution is this guarantee of post viability abortion?  

You can find it, maybe you can tell us where it's been hiding, but they can't find it. They don't want to have that debate, so they attack Amy ConeyBarrett's family.  

The abortion industry lobby group, NARAL, tweeted that Barrett, quote, " 
... belongs to a group that both refers to women as handmaids and believes that husbands are in charge of their wives." Hilarious considering Amy Barrett's life. She seems pretty self-directed.  

But then several other outlets, places like POLITICO and "The Guardian" 
suggested that Barrett belongs to a cult. They said that the usual partisan operatives and think tank hacks who seem to exist to give weight to fake stories like that know nothing about the first thing about religion and they're betting that you don't either.  

In fact, Barrett is a member of a mainstream Christian group called People of Praise. It's part ofthe Charismatic Renewal Movement that started in the '70s. There are tens of millions of Charismatic Christians around the world. So, this is not a fringe sect.  

In fact, some members of People of Praise areactually politically liberal it turns out. One indications of this, Pope Francis, appointed one ofthem Auxiliary Bishop of Portland, Oregon, probably not a right winger.  

But the details aren't the point of this. Attacking Christianity is the point of this.  

Why do they hate Christianity? Well, because at its core, Christianity is a threat to the left because it acknowledges an authority higher than theDemocratic National Committee.  

When Dianne Feinstein told Amy Coney Barrettduring your first confirmation hearings three years ago, that quote, "The dogma lives loudly within you." 
What Feinstein really meant was that Barrett's dogma might be more powerful and enduring than the Democratic Party's dogma. The very idea of that is deeply offensive to them.  

Watch Mazie Hirono, probably the single slowest person ever to serve in the U.S. Senate, explain that attacks on Barrett's personal faith are fair game.  

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)  

SEN. MAZIE HIRONO (D-HI):  Of course, I will question Judge Barrett under oath as to her other views because she has a very closely held views that will impact a woman's right to choose.  

The issue is whether or not her closely held views onissues such as the Affordable Care Act, such as abortion rights, can be separated from her ability tobe a fair and objective Justice.  

(END VIDEO CLIP)  

CARLSON:  Closely held views. Remember that phrase. That's their new euphemism for Christianity. They don't even want to say the word.  

On Saturday, a guy called Ibram Kendi. He is abestselling author and a very famous all of a sudden antiracist expert at Boston University attacked Coney Barrett and her husband for the sin ofadopting children from Haiti.  

Here's what he wrote, quote: "Some white colonizers adopted black children, they civilize these savage children in the superior ways of white people, while using them as props in their lifelong pictures ofdenial, while cutting the biological parents of these children out of the picture of humanity."  

It's hard to know exactly what that means. Theperson who wrote it is obviously a moron and can barely write English. But the broad picture is very clear. It's better for a black child to starve in Haiti than to live with a white family in America.  

That's the point the Klan might have made 60 years ago. It's now commonplace on the left. It's pure racism. Obviously, it's the definition of it.  

But Twitter didn't censor that expression of racism. In fact, this summer, Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey announced he was donating $10 million to Ibram Kendi's Antiracist Research Center at Boston University. So that is what Jack's money is paying for. But Kendi, while very well-funded himself isn't theonly person making points like this.  

This weekend, a longtime Democratic Party staffer called Dana Houle tweeted this, quote: "I would love to know which adoption agency Amy Coney Barrettand her husband used to adopt the two children they brought here from Haiti." He added that quote, "Many adoptions from Haiti were 'sketchy as hell.'"  

How did we get here? In a healthy country, the fact that the Barretts adopted two children from this hemisphere's poorest nation in addition to having five of their own would be seen as heroic because it is heroic. On the modern left though, it is viewed as dangerous.  

To a party at war with nature, motherhood is athreat.  

Listen to Amy Coney Barrett describe how she and her husband adopted their second child. It is an interesting story actually. She had just learned that day she was pregnant. When the adoption agency called and said there had been a devastating earthquake in Haiti and could they pick up a three- year-old? That's not an easy decision to make. Watch how she made it.  

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)  

BARRETT:  Jesse was on the phone with theadoption agency working out the logistics to go pick up John Peter in Florida. I just wasn't really feeling that great. It turned out Juliet was going tobe coming along that year.  

So we had an intense three-hour period where we had to decide where we going to go forward with going to get John Peter in Florida because we discovered that Juliet was going to be having that year, too? Like we had really wanted five, but now it was kind of like five and six.  

So I threw my coat on. We live very close to campus. I threw my coat on, and it was January, so those ofyou from South Bend or live in South Bend know theweather.  

I walked up to the cemetery on campus and I justsat down on one of the benches, and I just thought, okay, well, if life is really hard, at least it's short. But I thought like, what greater thing can you do than raise children?  

(END VIDEO CLIP)  

CARLSON:  Life it's hard, but at least it's short. Thebest. But the nub of her explanation is this and this is a quote, "What greater thing can you do than raise children?" Quick, what's the answer that? Let's see.  

Get promoted to VP at an investment bank downtown, maybe move up to a hedge fund or private equity after that, maybe buy a bigger loft in Tribeca? 
Maybe go to more raves in Ibiza. Have more brunches.  

Too many in our ruling class, those are the answers. They view children as a distraction from the real point of life, which is extended narcissism until death. No wonder they're so unhappy.  

An entire political party guided by the distorted personal priorities of highly neurotic Vassar grads. You can see where they've got to stop Amy ConeyBarrett.  

Here's one Connecticut senator, a man who lied for years about serving in Vietnam, telling you with astraight face that Amy Coney Barrett is illegitimate.  

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)  

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT):  I have no intention of meeting with Judge Barrett because I simply refuse to treat this process -- a sham illegitimate process -- as really legitimate and fair.  

(END VIDEO CLIP)  

CARLSON:  So this isn't just a debate overprocedure. On Saturday, the most powerful Democrat in the Senate, Chuck Schumer of New York, announced that Amy Coney Barrett actually stands -- and we're quoting -- "against everything America believes in and stands for." Grotesque. Watch.  

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)  

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY):  Just about everything that America believes in and stands for when it comes to issues like healthcare and labor rights and LGBTQ rights and women's rights, Judge Barrett stands against all of that.  

Justice Ginsburg must be turning over in her grave up in heaven to see that the person they chose seems to be intent on undoing all the things that Ginsburg did.  

(END VIDEO CLIP)  

CARLSON:  So follow this reasoning if you can. Ruth Bader Ginsburg is quote, "turning over in her grave up in heaven." We must honor her final dying wish. That's the position of the party that's against cults. Yep. 
It's such a lie.  

And precisely because Democrats know that AmyConey Barrett's life refutes the lies, they have pushed on the rest of us for decades, they must destroy her personally. They have no choice.  

Her happiness, her family's happiness is evidence that they are frauds.  

John Kennedy is a senator from the State ofLouisiana. We're happy to have him on tonight. Senator, thanks so much for coming. Did you think that we would reach a point where Democrats would say out loud we're going after her on herreligious faith?  

SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R-LA):  Well, I saw an indication of that in her confirmation for her Courtof Appeal position.  

You're correct. It's only Monday. So far, Judge Barretthas been called a religious bigot, a racist, an antifeminist, an anti-public health.  

Her opponents haven't gotten around yet to calling her an alien lizard person, but it'll come before it's over with, I'm afraid, that they'll accuse her ofdrowning little warm puppies.  

That's not what this is all about, though. I think almost all of my Democratic colleagues know that none of these things are true.  

This is what they're upset about. Judge Barrett is aconstitutionalist, which means she is a Madisonian, which means she believes in the separation ofpowers, which means she believes that Federal Judges are not politicians in robes, which means she believes that the United States Supreme Court is not supposed to be a mini Congress, which means she believes that Federal Judges are not supposed to try to rewrite the Constitution every other Thursday toadvance a political or social agenda that they can't get by the voters.  

Which means that she believes that law is not supposed to be politics practiced a different way, and that upsets, not all, but many of my Democratic colleagues because they don't believe -- well, let me put it in a positive way -- they believe in declarative government, as opposed to a representative government. Not all of them, but many of them.  

In a representative government, the people control policy through their elected representatives. In declarative government, which we've been moving toward, policy is made by unelected judges and unelected members of the administrative state. Another word for bureaucrats.  

And Barrett believes that that should not be thecase. That is -- now, having said all that, I'm on theJudiciary Committee, Tucker, I'm going to do my job. I am going to test her. I'm going to probe herintellect, her temperament, her character, and herjudicial philosophy.  

But I've started reading her interview articles and her opinions, and it is clear to me that she's aconstitutionalist and that upsets a lot of my colleagues, not all, but many of them.  

CARLSON:  Yes, I mean, if you believed in democracy, that's what you'd want. I would think.  

Senator Kennedy, we will be watching you carefully and Godspeed up there.  

KENNEDY:  Thank you.  

CARLSON:  Thank you.  

Well, last week on this show, on Friday, we told you we invited a cryptocurrency trader, one of the richest people in the country to come on and explain why he has spent so much money to make your neighborhood more dangerous while he is bailing violent criminals out of jail.  

He was going to come tonight, he has backed out again. We'll tell you why, after the break.  

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)  

CARLSON:  Last week, we told you about an organization that's really had an effect on this country, it hurt a lot of people. It's funded by some of the richest liberals in the nation. It's called TheBail Project.  

The Bail Project has spent millions of dollars putting thousands of accused criminals back onto the street as quickly as possible with horrifying results.  

The Chairman of the Board of The Bail Project is aman called Michael Novogratz. He's a former hedge fund manager, a cryptocurrency trader, whatever that is -- Princeton graduate.  

So we invited him on the program on Friday. We wanted to ask him, why are you doing this? We wanted to ask him specifically why an organizer from The Bail Project rented a U-Haul truck that rioters in Louisville used as a mobile armory before the riots there.  

We also wanted to know why a wealthy finance guy would want to bail out people like Samuel Lee Scott. Scott was facing charges in St. Louis for beating his wife and The Bail Project came to the rescue.  

According to police, Samuel Lee Scott then used his newfound freedom to beat his wife to death. He promised he was going to do that when he went tojail the first time, he apparently made good on it. Thanks to The Bail Project.  

We told you a number of stories like this last week, so Michael Novogratz bailed out Friday, but then he said he would come back tonight. But Michael Novogratz isn't coming.  

He sent an e-mail to us today saying, nope, not coming.  

He's not alone, though. There are a lot of wealthy Democrats who are funding this project and projects like it. Chelsea Clinton, for example. 
She owns apparently the longest apartment in New York City. She's rich person. She was a hedge fund manager herself. Unlikely, but true.  

In May, Clinton tweeted that she was quote, "talking to kids about why Mark and I are contributing daily to The Bail Project." We'd love to ask her of what she thinks of the effect of it and we can put it together with some of the people whose family members have been killed by the people Chelsea Clinton is bailing out.  

Actors like Don Cheadle, Steve Carell and Seth Rogen have boasted about their donations to a very similar group, the Minnesota Freedom Fund. TheMinnesota Freedom Fund has bailed out a criminal accused of trying to kill a police officer, as well as the 36-year-old man charged with raping an eight-year-old girl. Good job, guys.  

No one has asked these actors why they are paying to get an accused child rapist out of prison. We'd like to ask why they're doing that and what do they think of the effect on the country?  

In June, Kamala Harris tweeted this, quote, "Chip in now to the Minnesota Freedom Fund to help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota." At least 13 Joe Biden staffers have contributed to the Minnesota Bail Fund.  

This isn't about people protesting on the ground. For the people giving money, it is about buying indulgences. If they donate money to social justice, they hope to avoid tough, but highly relevant questions like, where do you get your money? When was the last time you did something for thecountry? What exactly is cryptocurrency trading? What's a hedge fund? 
Why should we be in favor of that? Why are you paying half the taxes we are?  

Those are great questions. We'd love someone toask them. No one is.  

But anyway, if you're a wealthy liberal and you're giving money to one of these bail funds to assuage your throbbing conscience and try and buy protection from obvious questions about where your money comes from, come on our show. We'd love to see you.  

Well, on Friday, a mob of peaceful protesters descended on a store in Louisville and they demanded that the owner repeat "Black Lives Matter." 
Well, the store owner refused because he is an American. He doesn't have to repeat what the mob tells him to repeat.  

One of his properties had been firebombed by BLM activists the night before and he didn't feel like celebrating the people who did it. Here's the video of that exchange from "The Daily Caller."  

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)  

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:  You just said all lives matter. It's okay. You can say all lives matter. You can stand there and you can talk about blue lives matter. It's the color black that is at issue. The word black and that will
--  

FADI FAOURI, BUSINESS OWNER, VIP SMOKE SHOP AND GIFTS:  You have an issue with that. I don't have an issue because I don't see color.  

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:  Okay.  

FAOURI:  I don't care about white or black bull [bleep]. I see you as a human being. I see you as ahuman being. That's all I care about.  

(END VIDEO CLIP)  

CARLSON:  I see you as a human being. What awonderful line. The mob didn't know how torespond to that.  

Fadi Faouri is the man who said that. He is theowner of VIP Smoke Shop and Gifts. We are happy to have him on tonight. Mr. Faouri, thanks so much for joining us.  

"I see you as a human being."  

FAOURI:  Thanks for having me.  

CARLSON:  That just -- it makes my day to hear someone say that out loud in this environment. Why wouldn't you just say what the mob wanted you tosay? 
What did you resist?  

FAOURI:  No one can -- first of all, thank you for having me first, and the answer to that question is because no one can force me to do something I won't do -- I don't want to do. It is just for thesimple fact like, I'm a free man, you know. That's thesimple answer to it.  

CARLSON:  You are a free man. There are so few. Were you born in this country?  

FAOURI:  I was born and raised in Jordan, actually. I've been living in the U.S. for the past 24 years.  

CARLSON:  I'm glad you came here. You've seen this country change a lot. 
When you came here, I bet you never expected amob of violent people to try and force you to say something you don't believe.  

FAOURI:  Absolutely.  

CARLSON:  Were you afraid?  

FAOURI:  Absolutely not.  

CARLSON:  Many American born people seem terrified. Why were you not afraid?  

FAOURI:  Why I'm not afraid? That's how I was raised, actually. Nobody can intimidate me basically. It is that simple.  

CARLSON:  They were trying to intimidate you, I noticed.  

FAOURI:  Yes, big time.  

CARLSON:  When they showed up -- big time -- what did they do to try to intimidate you?  

FAOURI:  They basically were trying to force me tosay Black Lives Matter or her name, Breonna Taylor. And I was like -- I'm not. I'm not going to do it whether they like it or not.  

CARLSON:  Has anyone supported you in this?  

FAOURI:  I've been getting support from all over thecountry. I've been getting hundreds and hundreds ofphone calls, messages from all over. I believe there's a video of me, which is the one you just put on out there and they got like attention from everybody, even from the local news, surprising, and noweverybody wants to do an interview with me.  

CARLSON:  I can see why.  

FAOURI:  Yes.  

CARLSON:  You've got a business to run. "I am a free man" says Fadi Faouri. 
I feel like getting that tattooed on my arm. Thank you. You're an inspiration to the rest of us.  

And I hope you shamed some of the many cowards out there by your bravery. 
Thank you very much for joining us tonight.  

FAOURI:  I appreciate you, sir. Thank you.  

CARLSON:  Earlier this month, FOX obtained footage of Nancy Pelosi getting her hair done without amask because she writes the rules, she doesn't have to follow them.  

Tonight, the show conclusively proves this is a trend. We've obtained photos showing another top Democrat ignoring the rules that she makes. It's an amazing picture. We have it exclusively next.  

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)  

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)  

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE:  More and more lawmakers are calling for a nationwide rule on wearing face coverings. Senator Dianne Feinstein has written toFederal agencies asking for a mandatory mass policy both in the air and on public transit.  

(END VIDEO CLIP)  

CARLSON:  Well, that was news footage from June -- just this June when California Senator Dianne Feinstein wrote a letter to the F.A.A. demanding everyone wear masks in airports.  

Feinstein wrote, "That we need a Mandatory Mask Policy for all airport and airline employees and passengers," end quote. Feinstein claimed theagency had quote "sowed confusion among passengers about whether masks are necessary," but they are necessary says Dianne Feinstein. Not wearing them is very dangerous given thecoronavirus.  

Well, given that, today, this show exclusively obtained photographs of -- and this is going to rock your world -- Dianne Feinstein in a private terminal at Dulles Airport, an FBO As they say in private aviation, on Friday.  

In the photographs, Feinstein can be seen smiling without a mask on. One might even say she is sowing confusion about whether or not masks arenecessary. A pilot with a mask is walking in front ofher carrying a bag and a dog.  

We reached out to Dianne Feinstein's office about these photographs. We haven't heard back. We can be sure of one thing. This isn't really Dianne Feinstein's fault, just like when the hair salon framed Nancy Pelosi caught not wearing a mask while getting your hair done. Dulles Airport, the diabolical FBO probably mastermind the whole thing.  

We're going to stay on top of the story and bring you more evidence of the airport's guilt as we inevitably find it.  

So just last year, Joe Biden who was in his mid-70s was giving us more previously undiscovered detail about his bio. He said he quote, "got his start at aHistorically Black College called Delaware State." Watch.  

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)  

JOE BIDEN (D), DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE:  HBCUs. I got started out of an HBCU, Delaware State. I don't want to hear anything negative about Delaware State here. Okay. They're my vote.  

But all kidding aside, the fact is that HBCUs are in trouble financially. 
Let's remember why they were -- why we had HBCUs -- because black folk couldn't go to white colleges.  

(END VIDEO CLIP)  

CARLSON:  Come on, man. I'm black. I went toDelaware State.  

Well, that was news to everyone. But it was especially news to Delaware State. The University said in a statement issued this weekend, quote, "Vice President Biden did not attend Delaware State University." No, he didn't.  

He was there in 2003 and 2016, when he gave commencement addresses. Of course, that was well after Joe Biden became a senator. He was elected in 1972. So it didn't actually get his start there. He was a middle aged man, a late middle aged man, he was an elderly man actually.  

On Saturday, though, Joe Biden suggested he actually became a senator all the way back in 1840, which makes sense. Here it is.  

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)  

BIDEN:  That's why I've made it a priority of my entire career to work closely with you. From the time I got to the Senate 180 years ago, you know
--  

(END VIDEO CLIP)  

CARLSON:  A hundred eighty years ago. It's been quite some time and honestly, it shows. So how's tomorrow's debate going to go? Joe Biden will be there, apparently.  

Dana Perino will be covering it. She is the host of"The Daily Briefing" on FOX. We're happy to see hertonight. So I think you're in Cleveland. What's going to happen?  

DANA PERINO, FOX NEWS CHANNEL HOST:  Yes, it's -- I think there's like, Noah's Ark is being built justdown the road here because it is pouring here. But there's a lot of excitement in the city. You can feel that even amidst coronavirus, people know like there's a big debate here.  

This is the first time that they'll actually be seeing each other. This has not been a typical campaign.  

Think about all the information and all the things you would have seen between March and Octoberin a regular year when you didn't have a pandemic.  

So I think that -- the other thing I wanted to point out, Tucker, is that I could be on the cusp, like less than 24 hours away from winning a bet with you that there would be this debate.  

CARLSON:  That is absolutely right. I think that thejustification for my position, though, is stronger than it ever has been, which is that Joe Biden is not askilled extemporaneous speaker -- trying to be delicate now and avoid medical terminology. But how do his handlers, the people around him, think he's going to do tomorrow night?  

PERINO:  What I've heard is that they think he'll do fine. Right? And you're married, Tucker, if you say how are things going and your wife says, fine, that means not great. Right?  

CARLSON:  Bad sign, yes.  

PERINO:  That means you better be on your toes. But I think in this case, for the Biden team, I think fine, is just fine. Like, that's all he needs to do.  

But, you know, we have seen him so little out on thecampaign trail that tomorrow night, I predict will be the most watched American presidential debate in the history of our country. Everybody is going towant to see them.  

And I think it's not so much what they say as how they say it, and who they say it to. I believe that Joe Biden has more to lose in this debate than PresidentTrump has to gain.  

Biden is talking to multiple people, right? He's got afractured base. The progressives aren't trustful ofhim. President Trump is going to try to push him onthat and say that you're going to take the country too far to the left. The President also now has arecord to run on that he can talk about.  

But the other thing for President Trump is he has toshow that he can play more than one club in his bag. He can't just be counterpunching, Joe Biden. 
And this is the other thing I'd say, if Joe Biden is not mentally sharp tomorrow night, there will be no need for President Trump to bring that up because everybody will be able to see it.  

CARLSON:  That's a very good point. That debate we should add is airing here on FOX. We're happy about that. We're going to preview it tomorrow night at eight and you'll be there, Dana. We're rooting for you. I hope it's interesting. I bet it will be.  

PIRRO:  It's going to be great. Thanks for having me.  

CARLSON:  Thank you. Well, you may have heard about Donald Trump's tax returns, parts of them have been leaked to "The New York Times." There's interesting story about those tax returns. It tells you a lot about America. We'll tell you what, after thebreak.  

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)  

CARLSON:  As you probably heard today, "The New York Times" obtained some details from some of thePresident's past tax returns. There are a couple ofheadlines from that story, only one of them appeared in the paper.  

First, it turns out Donald Trump was not in fact beholden to Russian business interests, or for that matter to that dastardly, Vladimir Putin. 
For years, they told us that he was. Now, we know they were lying. You probably guessed that already.  

The second takeaway from the piece is that in some years, Donald Trump paid a strikingly low effective Federal tax rate, probably lower than the rate you are now paying. Trump's accountants took advantage of the many provisions in our Tax Code tomake that possible.  

What the President did was legal, in fact, it's all but universal among the affluent who earn their money from investments rather than from salaries. 
Should the President have used these conventional tax loopholes to his own benefit? We'll leave that question to the professional hyper ventilators on theother channels. They're probably talking about it right now. In fact, of course they are.  

But far more interesting is this question. Why does our Tax Code remain so obviously so grotesquely unfair? Billionaires should not be paying a lower rate than you are paying no matter who they are, no matter who the President is?  

The main problem with America right now is that ashrinking group of people controls a growing share of our nation's wealth and power. America is lopsided and it's getting more lopsided every year. That makes our country unstable.  

Lopsidedness is why a dozen left-wing tech oligarchs can decide what you're allowed to say and think. It's why young people seem so hopeless and nihilistic, why so many of them are not starting families. It's why some of them are breaking things in the streets.  

It's why your grandchildren will almost certainly earn less than you do. 
And by the way, it's also why Donald Trump got elected four years ago. 
Americans could feel that something was profoundly wrong with the way our country was structured. Suddenly, it didn't feel like we were all in this together, it seemed clear that the people in charge were in it for themselves. So to fix it, voters went outside the system.  

Four years later, some good things have happened. But the core drivers of the crisis that we face, adying middle class and the growing hegemony ofbillionaires remain unresolved.  

This is not a small problem. If we don't fix it soon, it is a guaranteed disaster. No nation can live for long under the tyranny of selfish oligarchs. Post-Soviet Russia couldn't. That's how they got Putin.  

If we don't flatten our economy, if we don't make it possible once again for normal people to live happy, productive lives, America is going to become a very radical place and quickly. What happens then?  

Once again, Russian history provides a guide.  

Rod Dreher spent the last couple of years immersed in that history. He has written a remarkable new book entitled, "Live Not by Lies," it comes out tomorrow. Dreher interviewed dozens of people who fled the former Soviet bloc for freer lives here in the West. They know perfectly well what's going on in America right now. They've seen it before.  

Tonight, they've got a message for the rest of us. Rod Dreher joins us now to deliver it. Rod, thanks so much for coming on. Congrats on the book. 
You've interviewed people who've seen this movie before. What is their message for us?  

ROD DREHER, AUTHOR, "LIVE NOT BY LIES":  Their message for us is that we, Americans had better not think that it can't happen here. It absolutely can.  

You were talking about what the oligarchs are doing here and how difficult it is for ordinary people tohave middle class lives. I got the same message at dinner in Moscow last year from -- I was having dinner with a family and I said, how is it that anybody could ever have believed what theBolshevik said?  

The father of the family said, you have tounderstand how hard life was in this country and how the rich had everything and most people had nothing. 
He said that the Bolshevik Revolution was obviously horrible, but it came from somewhere and we're seeing similar conditions right here in America.  

CARLSON:  It came from somewhere. That's exactly right. Vladimir Putin came from somewhere. Soviet Union collapses, a small group of oligarchs take control of everything. Boom, you get Putin.  

In effect, refugees from the Soviet system you talk to, when they watch the Woke Revolution underway in our country, what's their reaction to it?  

DREHER:  They say it seems like old times because they have lived through this sort of thing before, and it makes them so angry that Americans justdon't believe them. They think that they're being alarmist.  

But when I started talking to these people, Tucker, and really got into it and listened to them, I began to see the world like they do. And the chief thing they're worried about is not gulags and secret police coming. They see something more insidious.  

They see a social credit system like they have in China, where the oligarchs and the people who will be running this country will use all the data that big corporations get from us through our smartphones and our computers, and we'll use that to deny people jobs, to deny us access to universities and tokeep us from the margins of the economy and ruin our lives.  

They will be able to get just what they want without having to use the hard totalitarian methods. This will be a soft totalitarianism.  

CARLSON:  So, no Ukraine famine but a gradual and very firm crackdown on the rest of us. I mean, that's -- I don't think I am an alarmist, but I think that is in progress now, is it not?  

DREHER:  Oh, absolutely. Yes, you're absolutely right, and we just don't see it because a lot of it is happening not through the government, but through corporations and universities and through media and social media, so we can have our eyes fixed on the government like in the George Orwell
1984 model, that actually, we should be looking towoke capitalists and these other institutions which have so much control over our lives, control that we are giving to them by our social media use.  

CARLSON:  I've got to ask you, you've been identified -- you've been a writer for 30 years, mostly identified as a conservative. Why don't conservatives see -- I mean, some do, I think a lot ofour viewers do, but out there in conservative world, the focus is on what they government is doing and they sort of miss that the banks are making it impossible to disagree for example.  

DREHER:  That's exactly right. It doesn't fit our Cold War mindset that says government bad, business good.  

In fact, things have really shifted. 2015 was the key moment when major corporations, woke capitalists jumped into the culture war in a very big way on theside of identity politics. Now, you can't escape it.  

If people think that if we just elect the right people, get the right judges on the bench; that will take care of everything. They are really missing it. Plus a lot ofAmericans believe that America is always going tobe the land of the free, home of the brave.  

They are ignoring what dissidents like Alexander Solzhenitsyn and all of these other great people who stood up to communist totalitarianism say which is it really can happen here and we have got to prepare ourselves right now for what may be tocome.  

CARLSON:  I think that's exactly right. Quickly, I am always interested, you spent a long time writing this book and I cannot recommend it more. How did it change your personal views?  

DREHER:  You know, it taught me about how much we, Americans, including myself need to learn how to suffer better. That's what everybody I talk toincluding people who had been beaten in prison said that Americans are so comfortable and so soft, we don't know how to suffer.  

I have been thinking a lot over the past years, especially during COVID about how we have got tobe a lot more patient with our suffering so we can endure what is to come, because this is what thesoft totalitarians are going to do. They are going touse our addiction to comfort to control us.  

CARLSON:  That's a very wise point. Rod, thanks so much for coming on tonight. I appreciate it.  

DREHER:  Thank you, Tucker.  

CARLSON:  After the break, we want to take amoment and remember our friend, a historian, and afrequent guest on the show, Professor Stephen Cohen.  

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)  

CARLSON:  We have sad news tonight. Our friend, Professor Stephen Cohen who was a frequent guest on this show passed away on Friday at the age of 81.
Steve Cohen was the greatest American Sovietologist of his generation.  

For decades, he taught Russian Studies at Princeton and NYU, a fluent Russian speaker. He dreamed in Russian.  

Cohen was also a lifelong man of the left. His wife, his beloved wife, Katrina vanden Heuvel, is to this day the publisher of the "Nation" 
magazine. And in some ways, Steve Cohen's views never changed.  

The country and its politics changed around him, but despite enormous and consistent pressure fromcountless longtime friends, close friends, Steve Cohen refused to lie about what he knew to be true, regardless of who the President was. Here he is onour show almost two years ago.  

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)  

STEPHEN COHEN, AMERICAN SCHOLAR:  It's amystery of our time, and I promise you that your kids and my grandkids and the historians of their generation will look back on this terrible era, this Russiagate era and ask who started it? Why it got such traction? And why it's done the damage it's done?  

(END VIDEO CLIP)  

CARLSON:  The clarity in crisis. That is always themeasure of a man. Now that might be easy for you to say something like that. It was not so easy for Steve Cohen. He took a huge amount of flak for telling the truth.  

But Steve Cohen was a man of enormous personal courage as well as great decency and much charm. He was a great man and we will miss him a lot.  

Well, on that note, that is it for us tonight. A major programming note. 
The show will be here tomorrow at 8:00 p.m. Eastern. We're kicking off the debate preview of thefirst presidential debate tomorrow night in Cleveland.  

We'll see you tomorrow at 8:00 p.m.  

Sean Hannity standing by in New York City.  

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