Tucker: Biden's making a mess of US economy
'Tucker Carlson Tonight' host examines rising gas and commodity prices and the mainstream media's coverage
This is a rush transcript from "Tucker Carlson Tonight," May 11, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS HOST: Good evening, and welcome to Tucker Carlson tonight.
A lot of unprecedented things happening, but honestly, not all of them are shocking. For example, it probably shouldn't surprise you that once they got their hands on real power, the same lunatics who don't believe in Human Biology immediately made a serious mess of our economy, it took them less than six months to do it.
First, they acted like the U.S. dollar had no value. They spent money like they just printed it for the occasion, which needless to say they had. And predictably, we wound up with frightening levels of inflation, which for the record, they still deny exists.
But inflation does exist as you know, well, if you live here. Corn prices to name just one example of a staple commodity that is now out of control have risen by 50 percent just since January.
But that wasn't bad enough, the lunatics then decided to make it even worse than that. So they paid millions of Americans more than they make at work just to stay home and do nothing. To justify doing this, they used the word COVID quite a bit, but it had nothing to do with the pandemic, they just wanted to break the system and so they did.
And the rest of us immediately wound up with a bewildering combination of rising unemployment in the middle of a severe labor shortage. So at the very same time we found ourselves with too many workers and also too few workers. That doesn't even make sense. But thanks to their policies, that's now exactly what we have.
And then finally, in case 2021 didn't remind you enough of a grimmer version of the 1970s, we now have serious gas shortages in a country that was recently energy independent.
All along the East Coast of the country today, people couldn't fill up their cars. Take a look at the footage. It looks like Venezuela.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice over): Gas shortage is now being reported in at least six states and expected to grow, stretching down the highways as customers wait at the pumps.
The Governor of North Carolina has declared a state of emergency. The station there running out of fuel.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice over): As pumps run dry and officials urge drivers not to panic buy.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are completely out of diesel and gas.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice over): But already, long lines and low fuel gauges.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice over): The shutdown to the pipelines also putting major airports in Baltimore, Charlotte and others on the East Coast at risk of low supply.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: An emergency? No. If they ran out of weed, that would be an emergency. Don't worry, says "The New York Times." None of this is real.
It's a conspiracy theory. Your eyes are lying to you. You're hysterical.
In a piece today, "The New York Times" reported that, quote: "Since the pipeline shutdown, there have been no long lines at gas stations." Then apparently someone in "The New York Times" newsroom found a working television and the paper deleted that line from the article a few hours later, without ever acknowledging it had included the line in the first place. That was the paper, but for their readers on social media who presumably will believe absolutely anything, "The New York Times" did not even bother to change the lie. That tweet is still up, quote: "Since the shutdown there have been no long lines or major price hikes for gasoline."
Right? Not at all.
Except in the State of Georgia, where as of 3:00 p.m. this afternoon, almost six percent of all gas stations had no gasoline. In Virginia, that number was almost eight percent of all gas stations. In North Carolina, it was eight and a half percent. In Metro Atlanta, the biggest city in the south, more than 20 percent of all gas stations, more than a fifth had no gasoline to sell. That is an energy crisis.
Why is it happening? Well, the official explanation is that some mysterious gang of cyber criminals hacked the software at a major American fuel supplier called Colonial Pipeline. Colonial Pipeline handles more than two million barrels a day. That's roughly half the East Coast entire supply of diesel, gasoline and jet fuel.
And that's not a small problem in a country like every country on Earth that still relies almost entirely on fossil fuels to survive. But don't worry, says your new Energy Secretary, Jennifer Granholm, formerly the incompetent Governor of Michigan, quote: "It's not that we have a gasoline shortage, it's that we have the supply crunch." Oh, it's a supply crunch and that's very different from a shortage at least in some theoretical way that's important to Jennifer Granholm.
So what is the White House doing about this supply crunch that is not a shortage? Well, here's the answer from Anne Neuberger, who is the confirmed non-genius who somehow serves as the Deputy National Security Adviser for Cyber and Emerging Technologies.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNE NEUBERGER, DEPUTY NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER FOR CYBER AND EMERGING
TECHNOLOGIES: So first, we recognize that victims of cyberattacks often face a very difficult situation and they have to just balance off in the cost benefit when they have no choice with regard to paying a ransom.
Colonial is a private company and we will defer information regarding their decision on paying a ransom to them.
QUESTION: Would the administration offer any advice on whether or not to pay a ransom?
NEUBERGER: So typically, that is a private sector decision and the administration has not offered further advice at this time. Given the rise in ransomware; that is one area we're definitely looking at now to say what should be the government's approach to ransomware actors and to ransoms overall.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: That's the person protecting you from the cyber criminals.
Colonial Pipeline, Anne Neuberger would like to remind you is a quote, "private company." And as a matter of principle, the White House does not get involved in the affairs of private companies, not unless private companies were to use the wrong pronoun in a sentence, in which case the F.B.I. would arrive with a SWAT team and make televised arrests.
But in cases where the mere fuel supply of the entire eastern seaboard is at stake, Anne Neuberger and her friends at the White House strongly prefer a hands-off approach. They are situationally libertarian that way.
What is this about? Well, you know. On some level, let's be honest about it, the White House approves of this disaster. Yes, some gas stations are closed tonight, but soon enough, the lunatics plan to close all of them, close every gas station in the entire United States, shuttered forever, to make way for some new as yet not quite defined means of transportation that will magically replace the gasoline engines that we have used for more than a hundred years.
This is a Green Revolution. So, who cares about some old pipeline?
Remember that on his first day in office, Joe Biden shut down a pipeline.
That's the first thing he did. It was the massive Keystone XL pipeline. Joe Biden didn't wait for mysterious hackers to shut it down. He shut it down himself, and more than 11,000 people lost their jobs.
And by the way, gas prices went up. In case you haven't noticed, gas prices have never gone down.
In the State of California, the average price of a gallon of gasoline is over four bucks. A year ago, it was $2.70. In Illinois, gas is $3.20 a gallon; last year, it was $2.10. It's not just two big liberal states, it's the entire country.
In Texas, gas prices are averaging $2.70 a gallon; last year, it was $1.50.
In the State of Maine, the average price of gas is almost $3.00. A year ago, it was under two, and so on.
Nationally, Americans are paying about $45 billion more for gasoline overall than they were last year. Why? This is the result of policy decisions made by the new administration. This is the Green New Deal. We've got it already.
And if you love gas shortages and electricity blackouts, no air conditioning, $80.00 plywood, this is the program for you.
Tomorrow, the administration's Bureau of Labor Statistics will release the new official numbers on inflation in America. You should know that a key part of that statistic is called the Consumer Price Index, and the Consumer Price Index measures the prices of a carefully curated selection of goods and services.
And if tomorrow's Consumer Price Index number is flat, rest assured the people on TV will tell you it is proof that inflation isn't real. Should you believe them?
Well, before you take their word, take note of what is not included in the official Consumer Price Index, lumber for example, because no one in America buys building materials. So you should definitely ignore this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice over): In a recent study by fortune.com, the average price of lumber is now 280 percent higher than what it was pre- pandemic, which is causing the cost of construction to also increase 30 to
40 percent.
In a statement from the Division President for Homes by Towne, Jeff Pemstein, he says for a typical 1,500 square foot home, just rough lumber used for framing has increased from $14,000.00 per home to $29,280.00.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Two hundred and eighty percent. Wow, Marge, that's a lot. What's going on here?
Well, typically in the material world where the laws of nature apply, when the price of something jumps that quickly and that high, you've got a supply problem, because it's supply and demand. There isn't enough of that thing to go around. More people want it and we don't have enough of it.
Does that apply to lumber? Are there fewer spruce trees out there than there were a year ago? Are those trees growing more slowly than they once did? Have we seen a 280 percent increase in new houses being built? The answer' is no, no and no.
The real answer, as you may have guessed, is that bad Federal policies are distorting the price of everything in this country from two by fours to diesel fuel to corndogs. None of this is an accident just as it wasn't an accident when the power went out in Texas over the winter. It wasn't a cold snap that did it. It was a Federal policy that encouraged the state to rely on windmills which don't actually work.
So it's not a natural cycle. Somebody did this to us on purpose.
Chuck DeVore is the Vice President of the National Initiatives at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. He joins us tonight. Chuck, thanks so much for coming on.
CHUCK DEVORE, VICE PRESIDENT, NATIONAL INITIATIVES AT THE TEXAS PUBLIC POLICY FOUNDATION: Great to be with you, Tucker.
CARLSON: The White House doesn't seem that interested in addressing the closure of gas stations and a fifth of gas stations in Metro Atlanta are closed tonight because they don't have gas. But that's not a big deal because the pipeline is a private sector company, and we don't get involved in private sector companies.
Describe if you would this reaction. Can we take it at face value?
DEVORE: Well, Tucker, what we're seeing right now are features of the Green New Deal future, not bugs, right? This is all intentional.
CARLSON: Right.
DEVORE: If prices are higher, we have to consume less and by consuming less, we can save the planet. Never mind what China does, never mind what India does. It's all about reducing our standard of living, so that we can, you know, contribute to the future climate of the planet.
And so, from fiscal policy with the Federal government spending trillions of dollars, then causing the Fed to turn on those printing presses, more dollars chasing fewer goods, to policies that discourage oil and gas production, discourage the construction and operation of pipelines. What we're seeing is the beginning of our future, unless we can stop it.
CARLSON: What's interesting is that the dumb people among us, I'm definitely in that category, wait around for some piece of legislation titled "Green New Deal" to get worried. And we think, oh, that would never make it through Congress. And we forget that you can affect almost all of the same objectives with the regulatory agencies. You don't have to pass the Green New Deal, you can just do it.
DEVORE: You're absolutely correct. There's something called the social cost of carbon that can be enacted through regulation. And the social cost of carbon is whatever they say it is. It's just a made up number anyway , and if that goes through, if that regulation sticks, you're going to see not only the price of fuel go up, but also everything because everything depends on energy to be made: your clothing, your food, your houses, everything is going to be tied to that.
And what they want to do, of course, is get us to consume less, and especially consume less oil and natural gas. It's just insane because it's going to damage not only our economy, but it is going to hurt the working poor in America the most. They can afford it the least.
CARLSON: I mean, it seems purely punitive to me. I mean, if you want to cripple a country, if you want to make it weaker, you cripple its energy supply. I mean, energy is progress. This is a rich country because it has cheap energy. So why doesn't anyone say that? Instead, we get caught in these labyrinthine debates about what we know about climate change. Not that much, actually.
But why doesn't somebody say that out loud? They're trying to cripple the country.
DEVORE: Well, in many parts of the country, you're not even allowed to say it. I was invited up to New York State a couple of years ago to address a group of independent power producers because no one locally could really talk about what was actually happening.
And in New York, you had Governor Cuomo that was preventing any new construction of natural gas pipelines to bring American made natural gas from Pennsylvania up through New York and into New England. And as a result, Tucker, you know what happened that winter? Not only did they have to bring in natural gas from Trinidad and Tobago, but they also brought it in from Russia, Russia. Russian natural gas in Massachusetts because we couldn't use our own natural gas from Pennsylvania.
CARLSON: Natural gas is clean. Natural gas is not coal. It's not a tire fire.
I mean, you can actually literally burn used tires with the scrubbers we have now and not pollute. Why do people who believe in staying warm in the winter who believe in civilizations cede the moral high ground to lunatics who literally couldn't program your coffeemaker, but somehow claim the right to control your energy supply? Why doesn't anyone stand up to these vandals?
DEVORE: Well, they need to start standing up because it's only going to get worse from here on out. We have something called environmental, social and governance investing, ESG investing right?
You have BlackRock, you have trillions of dollars being invested. And right now, they are steering away from domestic oil and gas production and putting it into China.
CARLSON: Of course, yes, I'm starting to connect the dots here. Chuck DeVore, great to see you tonight. Thank you.
DEVORE: Good to see you. Thank you.
CARLSON: And one of the dots is you and your life is about to get a lot more difficult. It's harder than ever, as we've said to buy lumber, gasoline and corn. Those are not the only consumer staples though that are getting a lot more expensive and it may be forbidden.
Now, Jeff Bezos's "Washington Post" is telling you that beef should be banned. Beef, the food.
The food website, "Epicurious" has banned beef recipes. Why is that?
Probably a connection between beef and testosterone, beef and masculinity, therefore it's bad. Needless to say, Kamala Harris is against it. She told us that back in the fall of 2019, no more red meat.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Do you ban plastic straws?
KAMALA HARRIS (D), THEN CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think we should. Yes.
BURNETT: But why do you support changing the Dietary Guidelines?
HARRIS: Yes.
BURNETT: You know, the food pyramid.
HARRIS: Yes.
BURNETT: Reduce red meat specifically.
HARRIS: Yes, I would.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: And of course, creepy beta dork, Bill Gates, is all on board. He thinks we should eat something called synthetic beef.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL GATES, COFOUNDER, BILL AND MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION: Well, there are some Tesla equivalents here. People like Beyond Meat and Impossible that are creating a category where instead of using a cow, they use proteins made in a factory, and so there's no animal cruelty. There's none of this greenhouse gas release, none of the manure.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: So here's a little tip, if you want life advice, you definitely want to take it from Bill Gates. He has done a pretty good job, made some pretty crappy software and got rich off it, but you definitely want him in charge of the planet.
Dave Duquette is the founder of Western Justice, not in charge of the planet, but he has views on the beef question. Dave, why do they hate beef so much, do you think?
DAVE DUQUETTE, FOUNDER, WESTERN JUSTICE: Hi, Tucker. Thanks for having me on. The funniest part about that little Bill Gates deal was, you know, this fake meat situation is all but greed. He is creating the ruse that it's a green situation, and it's not.
When they put this fake meat, some bovine cells into a petri dish with whatever else they put in there, they end up -- it creates bait, mainly yeast, but it creates a bunch of CO2 gas. It has got to go somewhere. So it's all about greed.
CARLSON: Oh. I wonder if the escape of COVID-19 from the Wuhan Institute of Virology makes us want to conduct more reckless biology experiments or fewer on our safe food supply?
DUQUETTE: Yes, I'm with -- the study we're doing that I talked about before was a study to prove that cattle actually have a net negative impact on the environment. But also, one of the things we're going to put into this is how bad this fake meat is and all the things that they put into the fake meat.
People don't realize what's going into that; and if they did, they wouldn't buy it and they wouldn't eat it.
CARLSON: I mean, they eat a lot of other stuff that's clearly poisoning them. Obviously. Endocrine disrupters, testosterone levels, sperm count, you know, falling through the floor. So clearly something's going on. Is there something inherently unhealthy about beef? Just straightforward beef.
DUQUETTE: There's nothing -- we're omnivores. Humans are omnivores. We're not straight carnivores. We're not straight herbivores. We are omnivores.
We are not built and set up to be a vegetarian. And the reality is, vegetarians and vegans make up less than three percent of our population, and to have those people telling us what we need to eat -- take, for example, what happened to Governor Polis in Colorado a few weeks back. He had his meat out day, and it turned Colorado into a giant barbecue. You could probably smell it all the way over there on the East Coast, because everybody went out and bought meat that day. Instead of a meat out day, they had a barbecue day.
CARLSON: These people are so predictable. No gas, no meat. Inspiration to head to America. Dave, thanks so much for coming on tonight. I appreciate it.
DUQUETTE: You bet.
CARLSON: So in one of the most amazing stories ever told, ever, the guy in charge of America's response to COVID turns out to be the guy who funded the creation of COVID. We're speaking of Tony Fauci, and the gain-of- function experiments at the Wuhan laboratory that the U.S. government with his approval, paid for.
Well, today, Fauci finally faced some questions about what he did in the United States Senate. We have video of that. He still hasn't been indicted, but it's a start.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: Thanks to an amazing piece by the former chief science writer for "The New York Times," Nicholas Wade, we have learned that for years, Tony Fauci signed off on funding for gain-of-function experiments at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Tony Fauci approved that funding despite a federal moratorium on gain-of- function experiments because they are dangerous.
Now, we know that Wuhan lab was almost certainly where the coronavirus pandemic began. Finally, someone asked Fauci about this.
At a hearing today, Rand Paul became the very first. Here's part of the exchange.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): Dr. Fauci, do you still support funding of the N.I.H. funding of the lab in Wuhan?
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS
DISEASES: Senator Paul, with all due respect, you are entirely -- entirely and completely incorrect that the N.I.H. has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
PAUL: Do they fund Dr. Baric?
FAUCI: We do not fund gain --
PAUL: Do you fund Dr. Baric's gain-of-function research?
FAUCI: Dr. Baric is not doing gain-of-function research. And if it is, it is according to the guidelines and it is being conducted in North Carolina not in China.
PAUL: You don't think inserting a bat virus spike protein that he got from the Wuhan Institute into the SARS virus is gain-of-function?
FAUCI: That is not --
PAUL: You would be in the minority because at least 200 scientists have signed a statement from the Cambridge Working Group saying that it is gain- of-function.
FAUCI: Well, it is not.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Oh, so he just flat out denied it. But if you listened carefully, and if you kept listening, Fauci admitted that actually he may have signed off on funding of gain-of-function experiments.
He went on and testified, quote, "I do not have any accounting of what the Chinese may have done." Okay, isn't it your job to know what they're doing since it was our money? But he said, quote, "I am fully in favor of any further investigation of what went on in China."
What's the truth here? Alex Berenson has spent a lot of time looking into this and into the broader question of how the U.S. has responded to COVID.
He is the author of "Unreported Truths," the series. We're happy to have him on tonight.
Alex Berenson, what is -- so the Nicholas Wade piece, as I know you have read laid it out, I thought with a lot of clarity, how U.S. tax dollars wound up in Wuhan funding experiments that may have killed millions of people.
Fauci is denying any connection to this at all. What should we believe?
ALEX BERENSON, AUTHOR: So, you know, I do want to push back on you a little bit here, because --
CARLSON: Please.
BERENSON: You know, I think talking about indicting Tony Fauci is a mistake. I think our focus should be on the Chinese.
CARLSON: Well, I don't.
BERENSON: The Chinese did a lot -- they spent a lot of money and a very little bit of that money seems to have come from the N.I.H., okay, and Tony Fauci oversaw a multibillion dollar budget. This was a small grant, and it was a portion of a small grant. And I think he probably had no idea or, you know, if he knew about it, it was five minutes in the course of a year for him as to what was going on.
Now, that doesn't mean he shouldn't answer the questions, honestly, and it doesn't mean we shouldn't ask them, but I think making him the villain on this is a mistake. There are lots of other things I would make Tony Fauci the villain on first.
CARLSON: But let me push back on you just for a second on this one specific question. We're in agreement, I think on Fauci's culpability for a lot of bad decisions, but on this one, specifically, the Wade piece says that money came from his agency within N.I.H., he signed off on it using a loophole that allowed him to get around the Federal ban on gain-of-function experiments, and that it went through a middleman to the Institute of Virology and was used specifically on experiments designed to make bat viruses communicable to people.
That seems like a pretty clear link to me. I mean, whether he had a lot of things going on at the time or not.
BERENSON: Look, the Chinese were definitely doing that and EcoHealth Alliance and Peter Daszak have a lot of questions to answer, and I think you're right, I think Fauci does have questions to answer about this.
But again, I just want to point out he, you know, the institute he ran had a multibillion dollar budget and he -- and a lot of it was being spent on AIDS research and other, you know, Ebola research and other research.
When he says he -- you know, he wasn't entirely sure what the Chinese were doing there, I tend to believe him. Here's my biggest problem with Tony Fauci, okay.
When you go back and look at the statements that Tony Fauci has made over the last 20 years, they're astonishing, okay. He is deeply, deeply in love with himself, and he wanted to cure AIDS and he wanted to get credit for curing AIDS and it didn't happen, for being the guy who solved the HIV crisis, okay.
So corona comes along, and he's going to be the guy who saves corona and he is going to do it with vaccines. Well, guess what? There have been two actually pretty good drugs that have come out in the last year that have actually helped people with coronavirus. One is dexamethasone, which is an injectable steroids that came out of a British trial and the other, the monoclonal antibodies, okay. Those came out basically of private studies.
The N.I.H. was involved, but not deeply involved.
You've heard very, very little about those. Why? Because Tony Fauci wants the vaccines to end the coronavirus crisis, and he wants credit for it.
And, you know, a lot of what he has done in the last year has been pointed towards that, and I think we've made some bad public health decisions as a result.
CARLSON: Well, that's for sure. Let me ask you one last question about the gain-of-function experiments. So clearly, almost, by definition, potentially, very, very dangerous and I think we're living through the consequences of one of them right now.
BERENSON: Yes.
CARLSON: Why would any money from U.S. taxpayers go to support that whether or not Fauci knew about it? I think clearly didn't, and was obligated to know, but leaving that aside, why would any money from U.S.
taxpayers go towards something like that?
BERENSON: Well, there's been this argument that we should test these viruses, or we should try to make these viruses, you know, more aggressive and able to infect humans better, so that we'll know what viruses in the wild can become more dangerous.
I think the Nicholas Wade piece which obviously you've read, too, is just really good at showing why that's such a phenomenally stupid idea and why gain-of-function shouldn't go on, and Tony Fauci should say that. He should say, we're not going to do this anymore, because it's dangerous.
CARLSON: Yes, clearly and as the Wade piece points out, we've had leaks from labs of deadly pathogens virtually every year for 50 years. I mean, there's no lab that's impregnable. But Alex Berenson, I appreciate it and I hope you'll come back.
BERENSON: That's right and I think, you know, the next time, it'll be worse. Tucker, thanks for having me.
CARLSON: Yes. It has been pretty bad. Good to see you.
So Jeff Bezos's warehouse workers can't get pee breaks, some go in bottles, Jeff Bezos is buying the largest yacht in the world. A lot of people are sick of this, Jeff Bezos's newspaper affecting Congress's behavior and therefore your life.
So why are the rest of us funding it by buying cheap plastic crap from China? Our next guest has a plan to make you less reliant on amazon.com.
That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: Well, there's new information tonight about a very strange relationship we first told you about in the show. FOX's Trace Gallagher has more on this relationship -- Trace.
TRACE GALLAGHER, FOX NEWS CHANNEL CORRESPONDENT: And Tucker, if he were still alive, you can bet Neil Simon would be fascinated by this very Oscar- Madison-Felix-Unger-esque pairing we have in D.C., and when it comes to this political odd couple of Frank Luntz and Kevin McCarthy, one thing is certain, there was a rule violation. We just don't know which rule because if, as Kevin McCarthy's people claimed, the Minority Leader was renting 400 square feet from Frank Luntz at a fair market value of $1,500.00 that would fit within House Ethics guidelines, but it definitely violates the condo bylaws of the Clara Barton at Penn Quarter, which prohibits condo owners from renting anything less than the entire condo.
And since the condo has 12 beds, 12 baths, 7,000 square feet worth $4.5 million with $5,000.00 a month in association fees, experts say full rent would be 25,000 bucks or more, which is why a nonpartisan watchdog group is calling for an investigation about whether the House Gift Rule was violated.
And as for allegations that McCarthy was rooming with a corporate consultant and lobbyists, watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): Frank is not a lobbyist. Frank is a friend I had known 15 years, ever since I got in, and I just rented a room for a few months there. So I don't see that there's any problem along that line.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GALLAGHER: And even though McCarthy is no longer top dog in the House, in Frank Luntz's house, we're told he is top bunk. Neither Luntz nor McCarthy responded to our requests for comment -- Tucker.
CARLSON: The Great Trace Gallagher, thank you.
Well, Amazon, the company founded by Jeff Bezos, owner of the propaganda org in "The Washington Post" seems to get more political and more aggressive in its politics with every passing day. It's also getting richer.
As small businesses across the country are closing, as an entire sector of our economy, the last independent sector of our economy has been crushed by politicians, Amazon becomes more powerful and it becomes more powerful because a lot of people use it because the service is incredibly convenient.
But there are some people in this country we don't know the full number, probably tens of millions who prefer not to fund Jeff Bezos's latest super yacht or the government of China, by continuing to use Amazon.
Are there options? What do you do if you don't want to use Amazon? If you want to start patronizing American businesses?
Karol Markowicz has thought a lot about this. She's a columnist over at "The New York Post" and we're happy to have her on tonight. Karol, thanks so much for joining us.
So I think there are a lot of people out there who know that Amazon is bad for the United States. It's pretty aggressively anti-American as a company, but they feel like: what else am I going to do? What else are they going to do?
KAROL MARKOWICZ, COLUMNIST, "NEW YORK POST": Right. Well, I think post- pandemic, the number one thing we should do is shop locally in our communities. We've had, you know, boarded up storefronts in your neighborhoods, boarded up Main Streets all over the country. I think it's our patriotic duty at this point to bring those businesses back.
Amazon had a gangbusters year. They did so well. Last spring, when you couldn't buy anything at your local store, you couldn't go shopping for clothes, for example, lots of people had their clothing delivered on Amazon, and so on.
So I think priority one has to be shopping locally in your own neighborhood, in your own town.
CARLSON: Is it possible? I mean, have we -- I mean, not to be defeatist about it, but Amazon, you have to say, and I couldn't be more opposed to Amazon. But I mean, it is the most convenient possible shopping option.
There's a reason they are huge. They're really good at delivering things quickly to your home. Could you get by without using it in real life?
MARKOWICZ: So I was an Amazon addict. I would shop everything on Amazon. I had boxes arriving at my door every single day. And I really had to ask
myself: did I want to continue on with a company that was making society in a way that I didn't want it to be?
Them pulling several conservative books was sort of the last straw for me.
I realized that we're really going to have an issue going forward if Amazon gets to decide what we read, and of course, other things that they do is also really noxious to me.
So I made the decision to stop shopping with them. Look, if at 11:00 p.m.
at night, my kid tells me they need glue for school and Amazon will get it to me the next day, I'll buy it. It's not a huge deal to shop occasionally.
But I've decreased my spending on Amazon drastically and I urge other people to do the same.
CARLSON: Right. So have an occasional beer. Don't drink vodka alone in the morning. It's a matter of moderation. I think you're right.
Karol Markowicz, a wise person. Thank you.
MARKOWICZ: Thank you so much, Tucker. Thank you.
CARLSON: So we have the coronavirus vaccine, people are acting as if it doesn't matter. People are still wearing masks. People are still under social distancing orders, but the idea that you must take the vaccine is universal. Everyone says that.
But not everyone is obeying. What are people who is choosing not to take the vaccine, who is not an anti-vaxxer, who has taken many vaccines in the past, will take many more going forward. He's also by the way, a U.S.
senator. That senator joins us next to explain why he is choosing not to do this.
We'll be right back.
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CARLSON: The vaccine rollout has been pretty amazing by conventional measurements. There is more than enough vaccine to go around, some states have more than they need, a number of states do. Anyone who wants to take the coronavirus vaccine can, there's no problem getting it, you can get it for free and that you would think would be enough.
If you're worried about COVID, if you're a high risk from it, it is your choice, you can take the vaccine; if you choose not to, if you've been previously infected with COVID and have the antibodies to protect you, maybe more effectively than the vaccine ever could, then you don't have to take it.
But suddenly the entire country is under intense pressure, social and legal pressure to take the vaccine regardless, and anyone who says maybe I don't want the vaccine is written off as some kind of lunatic, anti-science, anti-vaccines.
Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin is not anti-vaccine. He's taken a lot of vaccines. He expects to take many more vaccines. He takes the annual flu vaccine, but he's chosen not to take this one and that's a very controversial choice. We've asked him to come on tonight and explain why.
Senator, thanks so much for coming on. Brave of you to admit your personal health decision in public and just wondering why you've decided this.
SEN. RON JOHNSON (R-WI): Tucker, this is really an example of media bias run amok. Two months ago, I was asked by Milwaukee reporter whether I'd been vaccinated, and I said no, because I've had COVID. I think that probably gives me based on what I've read, probably a strong immunity as somebody who has been vaccinated. So this is a point in time where we did have enough vaccines to go around. So I said, I'll let somebody else go before me. And you know, kind of reconsider it later on.
Of course, I was immediately labeled an anti-vaxxer. I was attacked, and all of a sudden came an issue. I did get in contact with Dr. Noorchashm.
You've had him on this show. He is very concerned about indiscriminate vaccination, really focusing on vaccinating people based on medical necessity. And he is also concerned about people that have been previously infected, you might have some more complications.
So, you know, he actually suggested I take an antibody test, which I took last week, found out that my antibody levels is high as his after his two doses of Moderna. So he is actually for vaccines as well. And so now, I've decided that at least for the time being, I'm not going to get vaccinated, and I'll reconsider this so later on, but again, this should not be a controversial issue.
Now, I'm the champion of right to try legislation, but the corollary of that is right to choose as well, and we shouldn't be shaming or pressuring or mandating anybody get this vaccine. As we have said, we have more than enough vaccine to go around right now and, you know, people ought to respect other people's freedom and liberty and their ability to choose whether or not to get vaccinated or not.
CARLSON: Well, of course, I mean, it's your body, your choice as we've heard for almost 50 years.
But I wonder though about what you said a second ago. You've had the virus, you've recovered from it. You had a spike protein testing, an antibody test that showed that you have as good or probably according to the science, greater protection against COVID than someone who has been fully vaccinated.
So why would you need to take medicine when you're already protected?
JOHNSON: That's the $64.00 question, why are they pushing this on everybody? I am concerned now about them trying to push it onto children.
Let's face it, they aren't in a position of informed consent. We do need to recognize that this is not a fully approved vaccine, it's gone through Phase 1. It appears to be very safe in the early trials, very effective.
But we're still undergoing the Phase 2 and 3.
So we need to be honest.
I think my role as a United States Senator is not to encourage or discourage people taking vaccine but to be trans -- make sure the government is transparent and the people have all the information. I know you've come under a great deal of attack just pointing out the VAER System, you know, the early warning system on vaccines, we have over 3,000 deaths that have occurred within the first 30 days of being vaccinated and, and 45 percent of those occur on days zero, one or two.
Listen, I'm not saying that the vaccine is the cause of those deaths, but what I am saying is that is something that we should seriously consider and we should investigate that further. And unfortunately, I think the C.D.C.
is just kind of blowing that off.
CARLSON: Yes, well, all medicines come with risks, and often the risks are well worth it. I mean, we all take medicines that are risky, to some small extent, but it's worth it for us. But if you don't need the medicine, you shouldn't be pushed to take it, obviously. And that's why I'm glad you're brave enough to say that in public. Good for you. And I hope you weather the inevitable attacks.
Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, thank you.
JOHNSON: I appreciate what you've been doing in having Dr. Noorchashm and Dr. McCullough on your shows as well. Those are great interviews. I hope people watch them.
CARLSON: Yes, well, we believe in science and open inquiry, which is the basis of science and if others don't, that's their problem. Thanks a lot, Senator.
JOHNSON: Have a great night.
CARLSON: You, too. Well, you probably noticed that some sectors of American society have become much more unhappy and neurotic. Why is this happening? And what can we do about it? It's worth trying to fix this.
One journalist has looked into that very question and joins us next with his answer. Stay tuned.
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CARLSON: The biggest companies in America are thriving, most Americans seem less happy. Why is that?
Sohrab Ahmari of "The New York Post" has thought a lot about it. He is author of "The Unbroken Thread: Discovering the Wisdom of Tradition in an Age of Chaos." It is out today. He joins us tonight.
Thanks so much for coming on. What is going on? And how can the average person respond to make himself and his own family an island of sanity in the midst of this chaos?
SOHRAB AHMARI, AUTHOR, "THE UNBROKEN THREAD": Well, thanks for having me on, Tucker. This is a book I wrote for my son, Max. He is now four years old. He was two when I started writing it, and it's because just as a father, I'm very concerned about the kind of world that he'll inherit. It's a world that makes us incredibly self-serving and it makes it very difficult for ordinary Americans to live just decent, virtuous lives like they used to be able to.
And this world was created by a uni-party elite and a left establishment and a right establishment. They didn't ask us really to vote on it, but they promised us that if we got rid of a lot of our supposedly oppressive traditions, we would find liberation.
But in fact, we find on the other side of it in retrospect that those traditions and those Judeo-Christian and classical ideals actually with the restraints they provided, they kept us free and sane and the loss of the traditions has made us less free.
So an obvious example is gender ideology. The idea that an individual gets to define who they are separate from what Genesis and genetics tell us about the embodied nature of sexuality, this was sold as liberation, but in practice, it's ended up in pronoun codes and an incredible amount of repression.
A more economic example might be the loss of the idea of the Sabbath.
Again, the kind of Chamber of Commerce type sold us on the idea that getting rid of our Sabbath traditions which go back to Colonial America, and were intended to help workers and families have some time together, would free us, but in fact, it was freedom for large corporations and it's made our own lives really harried and miserable.
CARLSON: That's exactly right. What was sold as liberation turned out to be oppression. Sohrab Ahmari, I hope we can talk for a much longer period for an hour. It sounds like there's a lot there.
I appreciate you coming on tonight. Congratulations on the book.
AHMARI: Thanks, Tucker.
CARLSON: We spent an hour with Dave Portnoy on "Tucker Carlson Today."
It's on foxnation.com. I hope you'll check it out.
And now, the man who controls 9:00 p.m. in America, the Great Sean Hannity.
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