Tucker: Many vaccinated Americans left the realm of science entering mass hysteria
'Tucker Carlson Tonight' host takes a look at vaccine passports, virus transmission and more
This is a rush transcript from "Tucker Carlson Tonight," May 12, 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.
Two days ago, a group of people in Santa Ana, California gathered to protest Orange County's new vaccine passport program. Politicians in Orange County are building a digital database of residents who have been vaccinated against COVID.
Not surprisingly, some citizens fear that information could be used going forward to violate their privacy, or limit their constitutional rights.
No matter where you are on vaccine passports, those are obviously valid concerns. They're not crazy. If authorities in Orange County had decided to start a database of everyone who has been infected with HIV, or every woman who's had an abortion, civil libertarians and others would of course, ask vigorous questions about why they were doing that and what they were going to do with the information.
But with COVID, there are no questions allowed. So Orange County's Board of Supervisors just ignored Tuesday's protest. One of the supervisors, a Democrat called Katrina Foley, dismissed the protesters with undisguised contempt. Quote: "They don't believe in vaccines," she snorted. And you hear that a lot. "They're anti-vaxxers. They don't believe in vaccines."
But pause for a second and think about it. That's a pretty strange way to talk about science. Science never asks us to believe in anything, just the opposite. Science is a never ending attack, unsettled belief on faith, and what we imagine we know and what we assume.
Science doesn't tell us what's true. Science shows us what's true. It demands proof, not faith.
So the next time you hear some smug mask wearer harrumphing about how the mouth breathers out there in Middle America don't quote, "believe in the vaccines," you can be certain you are in the presence of someone who has no idea what science is. You will know you are talking to a moron.
But since we're on this subject, there do appear to be millions of people out there who don't believe the COVID vaccine actually works. Who are these people? Pollsters tend to miss them. If you asked a hundred Americans, do you think the COVID vaccine is effective? About 99 of them would say of course, yes, it's effective. And they'd say that because they know what they're supposed to say, they watch "The Today Show." They don't want to be punished for having the wrong opinions. They don't want to get fired or ostracized.
But let's say you phrase the same question more cleverly, in a less direct way. What would the results be then? Well, pollsters at the Morning Consult just did that. Here's what they found. Americans who have been vaccinated against COVID are more afraid of going outside than Americans who have not been vaccinated, much more afraid.
Only a quarter of vaccinated adults say they would be willing to travel to a work conference or enter a gym, only 24 percent of them would take the bus. Less than half would be willing to rent a car, alone. Only 34 percent would go to a party, just 17 percent of them would dare to take a cruise and so on. The numbers are amazing.
These people are absolutely terrified of getting COVID. Yet, once again, they have all been vaccinated.
So clearly, many vaccinated Americans, most of them, according to this poll, don't really believe in the COVID vaccine. What does that tell us? Among other things, it tells us that we have long ago left the realm of Science and are instead in a state of mass hysteria and mass manipulation.
Many Americans are too scared to think clearly. If you've had the vaccine, which you say you believe is effective, but you're too afraid to rent a car for fear of getting COVID, you're not thinking clearly.
If you've had the vaccine and say, again, you believe the vaccine works and you're still wearing a mask, you are not thinking clearly. And you're not thinking clearly because you're too afraid. And you're afraid because you've been told for more than a year that you are required to be terrified.
The arrival of vaccine has not calmed you at all. Instead, demagogues have instructed you to channel your fear into hate and turn it on anyone who disobeys their orders.
The result is: vaccinated Americans in masks cannot be happy or feel safe or feel any relief at all, until every other person in the country joins them in getting the shot and covering their faces. That's not rational. That's not Science. It's something much darker than that.
What began as a public health measure has become instead an instrument of social control.
We saw all of this on stark display just last night when we interviewed Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. Johnson has already recovered from COVID like tens of millions of Americans, maybe over a hundred million.
Ron Johnson has had the COVID virus and survived. Johnson is not opposed to vaccines. He has had many vaccines in the past, he told us last night, he'd be happy to have many more vaccines in the future. He is for vaccines.
But in this specific case, Ron Johnson consulted with his physician who tested him for the antibodies to the virus. And like so many people who have already had COVID and recovered, Ron Johnson has greater natural protection from the virus than any vaccine could give him. So there is no medical reason for him to get the COVID vaccine.
People should not take medicines they don't need.
Ron Johnson has decided for these reasons against getting the shot. Now, that is not a crazy position. In fact, it's an entirely rational position, given what we know. In Ron Johnson's case, it's a much more rational position than getting a vaccine than taking medicine he doesn't need that would be reckless and crazy, it would not be science.
So this is rational, and probably because it is rational and because Ron Johnson explained his position so clearly, and so calmly and with such reference to actual science, the forces of lunacy decided that they must destroy Ron Johnson before others could hear what he was saying.
So here's how MSNBC responded to him last night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRIAN WILLIAMS, MSNBC HOST: This is Senator Ron Johnson on FOX News tonight.
SEN. RON JOHNSON (R-WI): People ought to respect other people's freedom and liberty and their ability to choose whether or not to get vaccinated or not. 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.
WILLIAMS: So Doctor, I know, a really smart, educated substantial people who believe him to be a witting or unwitting asset of Russia, who would sound a lot like that in American society.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: An asset of Russia. If you choose not to get the vaccine, even on the advice of your physician, taking medical advice from a practicing doctor, then you are working for Vladimir Putin. You're a traitor. You're doing the bidding of a foreign power, you've committed treason.
Now we should point out those words did not come from Joe Scarborough or that angry race lady who appears in the afternoons on MSNBC. No, that was Mr. Brian Williams himself, America's last living anchorman, the voice of reason, the man who calms you with the truth. Unfortunately, he too, has gone insane, as have so many.
Here's some guy on CNN calling for people who haven't been vaccinated to be arrested if they try to enter public buildings.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Is that my concern anymore that someone who has chosen to be unvaccinated is making a bad choice and question two is, maybe there should be laws that allow them to be kept out of the building.
XAVIER BECERRA, U.S. HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: Well, you've hit right on the point, John.
How do we get to a point where we get everyone to be as safe as possible?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: "Maybe there should be laws that allow them to be kept out of the building," says the Dumbo on TV. They'll say anything. What's amazing is the response from Joe Biden's Cabinet Secretary. Oh, good point. Oh, good point, Dumbo. ' You'd like to think that we will look back on all of this, and we're saving the tape for this eventuality and laugh someday, but we're starting to wonder if that day will ever come. Maybe the fear will never go away. Maybe it's too useful. Maybe anyone who ask questions will be called an agent of Russia, or China or Syria or whatever.
Who knows where this is going?
Glenn Greenwald has thought a lot about it. He's a journalist. You can find this work on "Substack." He is, by the way, one of the world's living experts on heretofore a hidden nexus between the Kremlin and vaccine hesitancy, and so we're happy to have him on tonight.
Glenn, thanks so much for coming on. Is Putin against the COVID vaccine? I hadn't heard that before.
GLENN GREENWALD, JOURNALIST: I mean, this is illustrative, Tucker, of the fact of two things in liberal culture of which obviously MSNBC and CNN are a major part. One is, it has become a completely tyrannical movement. They don't believe in free speech. They want everyone who disagrees with them censored, off the internet or kicked off cable.
They don't believe in due process. They constantly declare people guilty of crimes for which there's no evidence based solely on accusations. And here, they are essentially trying to force people to give up control over their bodily autonomy once a leading value in American liberalism by claiming that they have no right to weigh for themselves the cost and risk of taking a vaccine.
I got vaccinated after spending a lot of time reading everything I could and listening to experts, including my own physician and made my own decision and everyone else should have that right.
But the other part of this is, this coercive tactic that they use that if you don't obey them, and you don't agree with them, they will just call you a Russian agent. I think we need to stop and realize how demented that is. These are journalists who are doing this.
Like you can't go around -- that's a really grave accusation to make about somebody they know there's no evidence for it. He doesn't want to get a vaccine because he has antibodies, therefore, he's an agent of Putin. And yet, it's totally acceptable for even journalists in liberal culture to hurl those accusations in order to coerce or manipulate people to do what they want.
CARLSON: This is a much longer conversation. I hope someday we can sit down for an hour and talk about it. But I just -- and it's coming out of left field, but I can't resist asking you. What is this fixation with Russia? We've been talking about this for five years now. I've never been to Russia. I don't know that much about Russia.
Their hatred of Russia seems so disproportionate to Russia's actual influence in the world. I'm starting to wonder, what is this about? Do you have any idea?
GREENWALD: I mean, there's a lot of literature on the ability to use paranoia and tribal fears in order to manipulate people. You know, when Obama used to be pressured by like Marco Rubio and McCain and the hawks in the Democratic Party that do have more guns. He used to say, "Russia is not a scary power, they have an economy smaller than Italy. They're like a regional power, at best."
And yet, in the Democratic Party mind, Vladimir Putin is like Darth Vader. Russia is an existential threat. They've contaminated and infiltrated institutions. They're deliberately stoking this fear constantly among their liberal flock, because doing so keeps them frightened and keeping them frightened means that they're more submissive and more malleable to control.
That's really what it is about, but they really do believe in it. It is not like they're faking it. They've all worked themselves into this mania over a country that has no -- is not threatening the United States on any level.
CARLSON: I know. It's like, making us afraid of Burundi or something. It's so weird. I've got to go see Russia sometime. They're making me want to go there.
Glenn Greenwald, thank you so much. As always, I hope we see you soon.
GREENWALD: Good to you, Tucker. Thanks.
CARLSON: So finally, after more than a year, we've all known this is true for a long time, for a year, but "The New York Times" is now acknowledging that actually, you can't really get corona outside.
It turns out, the C.D.C. has been lying to you about outdoor coronavirus transmissions.
A month ago, the C.D.C. informed the public that quote, "Less than 10 percent of COVID-19 transmission was occurring outdoors." The C.D.C. used that number to continue recommending mask wearing outside including at concerts and sporting events, even to people who are fully vaccinated and that's one of the main reasons that kids across the country have been forced to wear masks, even when they're exercising.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice over): This Walpole soccer team is getting in some practice, masks and all. It is cool today, but their coach is worried about warmer weather.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We could get a 90-degree day and the -- you know, the side effects of wearing a mask and having our young kids running around that temperature is really not worth it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: So why would you put a child in a mask outside while exercising? It's so obviously unhealthy. It's so clearly bad for the child. Well, because people believe the C.D.C. that you should wear a mask outside, after all 10 percent of COVID transmission occurred outdoors and that's a lot.
But it wasn't true. Now, "The New York Times" is reporting finally, that it was a lie. The agency's numbers "The Times" writes, quote, " ... appears to be based partly on a misclassification of some COVID transmission that actually took place in enclosed spaces," enclosed spaces, meaning indoors. In addition, C.D.C. officials quote, " ... picked a benchmark -- 10 percent -- so high that nobody could reasonably dispute it."
Why would they do that? In real life, experts say the total share of corona transmission that occurs indoors is actually below one percent and could be as low as 0.1 percent. Basically none.
Globally, studies have shown the same thing. The biggest study to date in China showed that, we ignored it for a year. According to "The Times," quote: "Saying less than 10 percent of COVID transmissions occurs outdoors is akin to saying that sharks attack fewer than 20,000 swimmers a year. (The actual number worldwide is about 150.) So it's both true, but deceiving."
The question is why didn't they correct it?
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya is a Professor of Medicine at Stanford and one of the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, which is great, and you ought to read. Doctor, thanks so much for joining us tonight.
DR. JAY BHATTACHARYA, PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE, STANFORD: Thanks for having me.
CARLSON: So, this is something that I think you and I have discussed on the air. It's certainly widely known that the actual documented outdoor transmission of COVID is rare. The C.D.C. has misled us, intentionally or not. Why?
BHATTACHARYA: I mean, I think part of it is they are just way too cautious. They think that there's no harm from overestimating the risk and as if it were -- as if, you know, causing fear in the population of walking outside is no harm.
It's just a strange, strange kind of risk perception and it undermines the trust that people have in public health, which is, in many ways, incredibly unfortunate.
I mean, they sold us -- they told us lockdowns were necessary to stop the disease from spreading. They told us that mask mandates, lifting them was Neanderthal thinking. I mean, I think all of these things serve to undermine public health -- the trust in public health and I think it's very, very unfortunate.
CARLSON: It's -- what's so interesting, though, is to contrast it with the way the C.D.C. and the public health authorities have handled other epidemics. The AIDS epidemic, for example, many of us remember from the 80s, which was horrible.
Before there was an effective treatment, people died of it, and they died really terrible deaths. It was sad as hell. But the C.D.C. spent a lot of time telling us all the ways that you couldn't get it, the message was, calm down, it takes a lot to get this, it's not airborne, you're not going to get it from a water fountain. I mean, they really went out of their way to calm people about the threat of this fatal disease. They're doing the opposite in the case of COVID. Why?
BHATTACHARYA: Yes, I mean, I think it's really -- many of the lessons that we should have learned from the AIDS epidemic, for instance, we don't moralize or stigmatize a disease, you provide care for a patient -- people with the disease, you compassionately treat it.
Instead with COVID, we've said -- what's the first question anyone asked when you get COVID? Where'd you get it? What do you do wrong? We stigmatized it.
We've also created this fear. I think -- I think part of it, Tucker, to try to answer your question is that I think the people that sort of rule public health are actually scared of the disease outside the port of what actually the evidence shows in a way -- and they've decided that almost any action is necessary, okay, as long as it reduces the risk of the spread of the disease, even if it causes all kinds of other harms.
And I think that that fear that they have about COVID outside with what the evidence actually shows about it carries on even when you're talking about the vaccine. The vaccine is not good enough, apparently, which is really strange, because it is good enough.
The vaccine is a fantastic thing if you want to reduce the risk of severe outcomes from COVID. I think a lot of the -- a lot of the pathology is explained by the fear that public health authorities themselves have about this.
I saw the C.D.C. Director, Rochelle Walensky talk about not sending her son to a summer camp this summer, 16 years old, where there's very low risk of any bad outcome happening if a 16-year-old gets the disease. Why would you not send him to summer camp? I mean, it doesn't make any sense unless you are really truly scared.
CARLSON: I think people with obvious mental illness are in charge of making our policies, I mean, certainly neurotic. That's obvious. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, I appreciate your coming on tonight and for that clear and calm explanation. Thank you.
BHATTACHARYA: Thank you.
CARLSON: So we told you last night about inflation, and we predicted that the Consumer Price Index numbers that were coming out today would be a lowball. They turned out to be higher than anyone, literally anyone who predicts this stuff expected. That's a big deal.
It's going to have massive consequences for the U.S. economy in a lot of different ways. One of the world's experts on inflation and its effects joins us after the break to assess what we're looking at.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: The price of gasoline is shooting up across the country. Now, parts of the Eastern Seaboard are experiencing major gas shortages and disruptive gas shortages.
FOX's Trace Gallagher is on this story for us. Hey, Trace.
TRACE GALLAGHER, FOX NEWS CHANNEL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Tucker Let's begin with skyrocketing gas prices. I'll give you a sampling of averages across the country. But we just took this picture outside the front door where gas is up to $4.89 a gallon. Now, that's very common here in Los Angeles and San Francisco. And when the summer blend kicks in later this month, prices will go up another 15 percent.
So now to the averages: California is at $4.11 a gallon on average. Good luck finding that. In Illinois, it is $3.23. That's the highest since 2014. Virginia, $2.87 a gallon, and North Carolina at $2.85.
But now look at this, in North Carolina, 70 percent of gas stations are out of fuel altogether. In Virginia, it is more than 50 percent of stations, and in Georgia and South Carolina, it's almost 50 percent. Nine other states are also experiencing outages and when gas is low, tempers are high.
At a North Carolina gas station, a woman tried to cut the line and ran into another car, then witnesses say she spit on the other driver. That man got out, spit back and the fight was on.
But today, President Biden said he has got it handled. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think you're going to hear some good news in the next 24 hours, and I think we'll be getting that under control.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GALLAGHER: But even with the pipeline up and running, governors like Brian Kemp of Georgia realize it'll take several days to get fuel flowing. No remedy in the meantime.
Finally, we should note, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission today sent out a tweet reminding people not to fill plastic bags with gasoline, commonsense, I know, but people are actually doing it -- Tucker.
CARLSON: I just saw a video of a lady doing that. Trace Gallagher, great to see you.
GALLAGHER: Yes, you too.
CARLSON: Gas shortages -- 1970s are back. Well, new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that inflation is actually rising much faster than virtually any economist in the country predicted. Overall, we learned today, the year-over-year gain in the Consumer Price Index is up 4.2 percent. That's the fastest jump in 13 years since the 2008 meltdown.
The rise in what's called the Core Consumer Price Index that excludes food and energy is the highest in 40 years, since 1981.
Peter Schiff is an economist and the CEO of Euro Pacific Capital. He joins us tonight to explain what this means.
Peter Schiff, thanks so much for coming on. What does this mean? And should we be concerned about it?
PETER SCHIFF, CEO, EURO PACIFIC CAPITAL: You should be concerned. And as I said on the program last time, this is a tax, it is the inflation tax. And if you look at how much the cost of living went up, measured by the CPI in the first four months of this year, it's two percent.
So if you triple that to annualize it, we have consumer prices rising at six percent annually. But if you look at the monthly numbers, every month, it accelerates. So if you extrapolate the trend of the first four months of this year, for the entire year, you're going to get a 20 percent increase in consumer prices in 2021.
CARLSON: So I mean, because our financial system is a global system, other countries, China, most notably buy U.S. Treasuries with an expectation of return. If the value of the U.S. dollar starts falling as quickly as these numbers suggest it is, why would any country invest in U.S. bonds? In government bonds? I mean, doesn't this threaten to cause you know, a shakeup?
SCHIFF: Well, they won't. Yes, they're going to be selling U.S. Treasuries. I mean, anybody that can connect these dots is going to be selling U.S. Treasuries.
And the problem is, there's a lot of U.S. Treasuries to be sold. You know, and they talk a lot about the shortage of goods. The real problem is the surplus of money. You know, whenever you print a lot of money, it's always a good shortage because the Federal Reserve can print all the money they want. They don't -- but they don't print products to buy with the money.
So we have all this money being printed, we're not producing a lot, people are sitting at home cashing unemployment checks. This is a tax, it is an inflation tax, a Biden tax, whatever you want to call it. But when Joe Biden says that, don't worry, only people that make over $400,000.00 a year are going to have to pay higher taxes to fund all these programs, he is lying, because every American is going to pay the inflation tax and it is going to hit the middle class and the poor, the hardest.
CARLSON: So I don't understand, since you just described it in the clearest possible way, when you print a ton of money, the value of that money falls. It is more money chasing fewer goods, fewer people working to make those goods, of course, you're going to wind up where we are today with massive disruptions to the labor market and spiking inflation. Why didn't any of the geniuses making these policies anticipate this?
SCHIFF: Look, even the so-called geniuses at the Federal Reserve, they keep telling us not to worry, because according to them, it's all transitory. But these are the same guys that told us not to worry about the subprime mortgage market.
Remember, early on Ben Bernanke said, oh, don't worry about subprime. It's contained.
Well, now they're saying, don't worry about inflation. It is transitory. Inflation is as transitory now as the subprime market was contained, and this inflation crisis is not only going to be worse than the financial crisis, it's going to be worse than the pandemic because the government's cure is what's going to kill the economy, not the disease itself.
CARLSON: That's right. Nicely put. This is worth worrying about, I think. If you print too much money, it's worthless. That is a law of nature.
Peter Schiff, I appreciate coming on tonight. I hope you'll come back.
SCHIFF: I will. My pleasure.
CARLSON: Thank you. Many of you are writing in about our new documentary series, "Tucker Carlson Originals." We can tell you that a brand new episode comes out tomorrow morning and this is a great one.
It is an in depth and totally honest look at the most reviled consumer product in America, also the most popular rifle in America. It's called the AR-15, the weapon of war, they're always barking about. What is it? Exactly.
We spoke to a lot of people, including Hickok45, the most famous and probably the most knowledgeable gun blogger on YouTube. At his ranch, our team embedded with Texas Rangers, protecting their cattle with the rifle, and much more. It's really interesting, and it's easy to watch.
All the episodes of this series. Tomorrow, this new one comes up, foxnation.com is the address. You'll see the instructions there.
So our education system was designed to bring us together as a country, to create a common culture. Now, its overriding mission is to teach our children to hate their country.
We wanted to speak to someone on the frontlines of this and so we spoke to a professor about what your kids are actually learning once they get to college. It was an amazing conversation. We've got an excerpt from that conversation, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: The closer you look at curriculum, the more clear it becomes that teaching children to hate the country they grew up in, to hate the United States is not a feature of the American education system. Increasingly, it's the whole point of the system. That's the guiding principle: hate your country.
We wanted to talk to someone who is involved in education directly. So we had a long conversation, over an hour, with Nicholas Giordano, he is a political science professor. He has thought a lot about what's happening and why. It was a fascinating conversation. This is the latest episode of "Tucker Carlson Today" on FOX Nation. Here's part of it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NICHOLAS GIORDANO, PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, SUFFOLK COMMUNITY COLLEGE: While everyone is focused on this critical race theory that's being pushed, this started 20 years ago, this whole devaluing of America and that's probably the biggest problem because with the citizenship exam and the Russian Constitution exercise I do, it got me curious as to what students are learning.
And you'll find that they're not really learning about our government, they are not learning about the Constitution, the roles and responsibilities of the institutions. It's taken more of a globalist approach.
And when they do focus on the United States, they're focusing on the negative aspects that the past sins, as opposed to the totality of the American experience and that's not education and it's a big problem, because what they're doing is they say Civics and they are trying to basically masquerade that they are teaching Civics, but what they're really teaching is activism.
And so part of the education system is to build out the national identity, the American identity, and have everyone assimilate into this idea of American culture.
Well, that's gone, we're not really teaching that anymore. In fact, we actually kind of teach the opposite with this global point of view that we have to do what's in the world's best interest as opposed to America's best interest.
And so we're not really as connected as we used to be and we are destroying the whole idea of E Pluribus Unum, from many, one. And that's problem.
The second problem is: what's a good citizen? What is your role and responsibility as an American citizen? You ask any student that today, they'll say, to go and vote, that's the easy one, but they won't really tell you.
And so the education system was built on the idea of what makes a good citizen: faith, family community, reaching the maximum of potential, contributing to society, not in this idea of the collective, but through the idea of personal responsibility, taking care of the place that you live, the place that you work, and that's being thrown out now, the idea of good citizenry.
And then the last one is critical thinking: the ability to think critically is freedom. I mean, you just look at the founding fathers and take James Madison. He said, free thinking is essential to liberty. Knowledge is essential to liberty. And without it, you're going to lose liberty.
And yet here we are today, where we're creating a system of let's just give the answer the teacher wants to hear, let's just obey and comply; rather than actually explore topics, rather than have discussions and conversations and giving students the ability to learn how to organize ideas, learn how to come up with succinct arguments.
You know, if you come into my classroom, and you're coming in with a left- wing point of view, I'm going to hit you with a right-wing point of view. If you come in with a right-wing point of view, I'm going to challenge you from the left, because it's not my role to indoctrinate my students on the issues. It's to get them to think about the issues. It's to get them to come to their own conclusions.
They are plenty capable when they have the information to do just that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: If there are more professors like Nicholas Giordano, you'd be pleased to send your children to college. He had a lot to say about how intentional this effort is to tell your kids to hate their own country. It was a really kind of shocking conversation.
It's the newest episode of "Tucker Carlson Today." It's on FOX Nation.
Well, home prices are way up -- way up -- and land prices all over the country. Timberland, farmland. Our leaders don't seem aware of it though. Some politicians in New York were just asked to guess the median home price in the city they hope to represent. Their answers are amazing and hilarious, and we have them straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: New York City is one of the most expensive places in the country. Whether it's worth it is another question, but it is, it is very expensive to buy a place there, but don't ask the people who want to be mayor of New York because they have no idea.
A couple of days ago, "The New York Times" asked the candidates running for mayor of New York City what the median home price is in Brooklyn. Here's some of the guesses.
Shaun Donovan should know, he is a former City Housing Commissioner. He was literally Barack Obama's Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, in charge of houses. His guess, quote, "Somewhere in the $80,000.00 to $90,000.00 range." Well, it's just $900,000 off. The median home price in Brooklyn, almost $1 million.
But he wasn't the only one who was that wrong? Though it is the funniest.
Ray McGuire used to be an executive at Citigroup. He guessed it was $100,000.00, and that is the median price, if it were 1980. Things have changed in 40 years. Affordable housing is a massive problem for most people. U.S. home prices are up over 10 percent from last year, in part because foreigners are dumping their cash here in real estate.
Big companies are also buying up a lot of houses, you may not have known that.
We've seen the steepest gains in almost a decade and a half. The responses from the candidates who want to be mayor of New York tell us why none of our leaders seem bothered to fix this problem, they are not even aware it exists.
So, so many people are lying at such high volume about the 2020 election, it is hard to know exactly what happened.
Mollie Hemingway is the senior editor at "The Federalist." She's fearless. And she has actually a journalist. She's one of the very few people who is taking the time to look into what happened in November of 2020 honestly.
You can read what she found in her new book. It's called "Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech and the Democrats Seized our Elections." Mollie Hemingway joins us tonight with some details into what she found.
Mollie, thanks so much for coming on. What should we know about the 2020 elections?
MOLLIE HEMINGWAY, FOX NEWS CHANNEL CONTRIBUTOR: It's great to be here with you, Tucker. It's funny because people have been recently saying that if you question anything about a presidential election that should be criminal, and if it were, much of the Democratic Party would be incarcerated because they haven't actually accepted a presidential election going back to the 80s.
But then we had this situation in recent months, where Republicans said they had problems with how the 2020 election was conducted, and a lot of people say you're not allowed to say that. But my research reporting indicates they're absolutely right to be concerned.
We have learned that there was a coordinated effort to change the way we vote, you know, in the middle of the game -- change the rules for voting in the middle of the game. And a lot of the way that that was done was actually through the COVID crisis.
The response to the COVID crisis enabled people to justify making dramatic revolutionary changes in the way we vote. And the way we vote is important. Historically, people identify who they are so that you can make sure that they are legitimate voters, and then they vote in secret. A lot of the changes that we made took away some of those bedrock protections or expanded them and made it almost impossible to detect fraud after the fact.
You know, in some cases, indiscriminate sending out of ballots, removal of ways to check and determine if the ballot is actually cast properly, you know, ballot harvesting and other issues, which just completely revolutionized the game.
People were right to be concerned. They were screaming about it last year. And that was for good reason. They understood that this was a radical revolution in how things were done.
CARLSON: Anyone who opposes voter ID laws at the polls is abetting fraud. Period. And so the entire Democratic Party is against voter ID laws at the ballot box, and so they're for fraud. Do you think there was widespread fraud in the last election?
HEMINGWAY: I think it's important to think about what happened in general. You want free and fair and transparent and accurate elections. In order to have free and fair and transparent elections, you also need to have, you know, a media that is behaving responsibly, need to not have a society that engages in censorship.
You need to not have rules of voting that make it impossible to detect fraud. This is why people care so much about out how the rules are set going in.
And so it was, you know, we saw this throughout the campaign. You know, they would send out ballots in some states where people were getting you know, six or more ballots sent to their house. They're also being told that this is an existential threat, whether they can you know -- whether they can get rid of Donald Trump or not and creating permission structures for doing things that are quite radical.
It's a very complex, complex approach, but it's absolutely important.
CARLSON: It is important. I can't wait to read your book, and I will. Mollie Hemingway, thanks so much. Thanks for having the bravery to ask the obvious questions. Appreciate it.
HEMINGWAY: Thanks.
CARLSON: So Michelle Obama is everywhere in the news. She is oppressed as usual.
She is weighing in on a lot of topics, but there's one subject that she will not talk about under any circumstances we noticed. We'll tell you what it is in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: Who are the most oppressed people in the world? Could it be Christians in the Middle East? Child slaves in Sudan? Yes, they're oppressed.
But the world's most depressed person is right in this country. It is Michelle Obama.
How oppressed is Michelle Obama? She is so oppressed she told us recently she is afraid to get her driver's license renewed. She is terrified at the Whole Foods in Martha's Vineyard.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHELLE OBAMA, FORMER FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: Many of us still live in fear as we go to the grocery store or worry about --
GAYLE KING, CBS NEWS HOST: Walking our dogs.
M. OBAMA: Walking our dogs or allowing our children to get a license. I, like so many parents of black kids have -- the innocent act of getting a license puts fear in our hearts.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Yes, she's afraid to get a license. Michelle Obama cares deeply about racism. It's kind of the focus on her life.
Sort of weird given that that she doesn't seem worried at all or even aware of the rise in targeted attacks against Asian-Americans, and there have been a lot of them.
Just this week, an 80-year-old Asian man was brutally beaten in the State of California, on tape, you may have seen it. The suspects have been arrested. The interesting thing is, it's probably not white supremacists. One of them is only 11 years old.
You never hear Michelle Obama mention attacks like this. Why is that? It seems like the one thing she won't talk about.
Ying Ma is happy to talk about it. She's the author of "Chinese Girl in the Ghetto." She joins us tonight.
Ying Ma, thanks so much for coming on.
YING MA, AUTHOR, "CHINESE GIRL IN THE GHETTO": Thank you, Tucker.
CARLSON: So all of us are seeing this. If you're concerned about racism, I noticed the Biden ministration announced today that the single greatest threat we face is white supremacy -- single greatest threat. Why doesn't Michelle Obama ever mentioned what the rest of us are watching?
MA: Well, it's not just Michelle Obama, it's the Biden administration. It's most of our political leaders, even though far too many of the horrific attacks against Asian-Americans happening practically every other day now, far too many of those attacks are perpetrated by black perpetrators. Our leaders simply are afraid to utter the word "black."
What we need in this country is an uncomfortable, but honest national conversation about the prevalence of black crimes in general, and black on Asian violence in particular.
Now, what we actually could benefit a lot from is the leadership of black role models, like President Obama, like black leaders in black churches across the country. We need leaders to come out and denounce black on Asian violence unequivocally.
And you know, I was a big fan of President Obama when he bluntly talked about fatherless black households back in 2008. That took courage, and that took honesty and leadership. And I do hope that he will display the same kind of courage and leadership on this particular issue, especially given that President Obama grew up in Asia, in Indonesia.
And what we need is that we need leaders like that to call on the black community to engage in some serious soul searching to actually go out and tell its community that these attacks are heinous. They are despicable. They're disgusting, and that it's not okay.
We need that honest conversation.
There is great friendship between blacks and Asians in this country. And so at this point, we are calling on our friends in the black community, to please help, to please display some leadership on this issue because what is going on is simply not acceptable and there are far too few leaders who are willing to even utter the word "black" when describing these crimes that we see on video far too often.
CARLSON: It seems reasonable and honest and measured to me. Ying Ma, I appreciate it. Thank you.
MA: Thank you, Tucker.
CARLSON: Before we go tonight, I want to tell you, there is a brand new episode of "Tucker Carlson Originals," our documentary series. We wouldn't keep pushing it if we didn't think it was good and we do. This one is on the consumer product everyone hates and many know nothing about, the AR-15. Worth watching. It's on foxnation.com.
We'll be back tomorrow, but in the meantime, Sean Hannity takes over the 9:00 p.m. hour.
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