Tucker: Democrats and the media are 'distressed' by CDC's new masks rules

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Tucker: Democrats and the media are 'distressed' by CDC's new masks rules

'Tucker Carlson Tonight' host discusses the 'mask dilemma' facing the mainstream media

This is a rush transcript from "Tucker Carlson Tonight," May 14, 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.

There is stunning new video just out. It was shot by the U.S. Navy off the coast of San Diego. It clearly shows an unidentified flying object descending from the sky, hovering, and then disappearing without a trace into the Pacific Ocean. If you've dismissed UFOs as imaginary or ridiculous, and many have, you're going to want to see this tape. We'll show it to you in just a moment.

But first, as you have likely heard, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have just issued new guidance on who must wear masks and when. It turns out, government scientists finally took a second to check the science and realized oh wait, everything we've been telling you for months is completely wrong.

Actually, people who have been vaccinated don't need to wear masks most of the time because they're vaccinated. That means they're safe. Right.

So for the 151 million Americans who've already received the COVID vaccine, this would be good news. They can breathe freely for the first time in a year. They don't need to be ashamed any longer to show their faces in public. They can be human. They can be Americans, and people like that are celebrating.

But for others, people whose main interest is not public health, but whose main interest is power, this new guidance is, as we often say in the news business, a troubling development.

For people like that, letting the vaccinated live without wearing masks raises all kinds of distressing questions beginning with: if people are permitted to dress any way they want to dress, how are we going to control them? And more to the point, if nobody has to wear a mask, how are we going to know who the Republicans are? How can we be certain who to scoff at? Who to feel morally superior to?

These are not small questions. News organizations are struggling with them as we speak.

For months, TV networks have attacked people who dared to go outside without their masks. You've seen the tape of the super spreaders. Some lady trying to buy oranges in the grocery store in Florida without her mask. You don't know her name, but you know one thing about her, you know who she voted for, the orange man. She is one of the crazies. She has to be -- no mask.

Except now, in the wake of this new guidance, you really can't know and that's the problem.

When everybody was told to wear masks, you could instantly identify party faithful on site. They were the ones obeying the rules. But now that the rules have changed. What do we do? Well, we could just act like it never happened. We could pretend the C.D.C. guidance hasn't changed at all. That's many people's plan. That's David Hogg's plan.

David Hogg is only 21 years old, but he's got the crappiness and neuroses of a much older woman. David Hogg has been fully vaccinated, of course, but he announced this morning, he is going to continue to wear his mask when he is outside. Masking up is inconvenient, Hogg conceded, but it is quote, " ... more than worth it to have people not think I'm a conservative." Good point, David Hogg.

When you wear a surgical mask, even after the doctors have told you not to, everybody is going to know your politics, not to mention your position in our society. You're in the ruling class. That's why you can afford to ignore the science and instead adopt a public health precaution as a fashion accessory.

It's like ancient Chinese foot binding that way. It's a mark of social distinction.

When you're that powerful, you don't need to walk or in this case breathe.

If you hate the idea of an egalitarian society, and people like David Hogg definitely do hate that idea, these new rules from the C.D.C. are a disaster because they allow everyone to go maskless together and that's bad.

Now, you can't complain about that out loud, of course, this is a pandemic, so you've got to keep your game face on and talk about public health. Instead, you're hearing people fret that allowing the vaccinated to go bare faced could be very dangerous. That's Leana Wen's position. Wen is the in- house doctor over on CNN.

Before this job, she was the President of Planned Parenthood, an organization that causes more deaths in America every year than all forms of cancer combined. So say what you want about Leana Wen, she knows a lot of what kills people, and she is highly distressed by this new guidance.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: And I do really worry now we're going to be potentially going into grocery stores or other settings where they could be exposed.

So if you're taking your kids to the grocery store or somewhere else, try to go at a time when there aren't a lot of people around. And if there are a lot of maskless people walking around, you suspect that some of them could actually be unvaccinated, maybe leave and come back later.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Oh, okay. Well, then there's the problem right there. People lie. It's human nature.

Not everyone who is not wearing a mask has actually been vaccinated. You just can't tell.

Unvaccinated people are like Russian spies. They circulate stealthily among the rest of us pretending to be something they're not, committing medical treason, undermining this nation from within. It's terrifying when you think about it.

But wait a second, you ask, why would someone who has been vaccinated worry at all about encountering an unvaccinated person masked or not? Isn't the vaccinated person entirely safe from COVID infection? Isn't that the whole point of getting the vaccine in the first place? And honestly, that is a fair question. Unfortunately, we are not in a position to answer that question. We're not physicians, we're not practicing MSNBC anchors, we just don't have the data.

But for reference, take a look at this perfectly well-adjusted couple on a cable news morning show. They've been fully vaccinated, but they plan to keep wearing their masks anyway. Why? Because it's just common sense.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE SCARBOROUGH, MSNBC HOST: If you're on airplanes, if you're on buses, if you're on public transportation, wear the mask. You still are expected to wear the mask and actually for your own health, you should still wear the mask. I've got to say, in the future, I mean, I haven't gotten the flu in a year. Why am I going to start wearing a mask -- stop wearing a mask on planes? That just makes good commonsense.

MIKA BRZEZINSKI, MSNBC HOST: That's right. It's a good idea.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: It's just commonsense. It's just commonsense because masks protect you not simply from COVID-19, but from everything, including from the flu. They're like magic that way. We ought to wear them forever.

So you're headed over to Amazon to throw 10,000 surgical masks in the old shopping cart. But before you do, ask yourself, do we know that's true? I mean, we should check, trust but verify. Someone has got to have those numbers, right, on masks? Someone must have checked.

Well, in fact, someone has checked.

Last year, the peer reviewed journal of the British Medical Association took a look at the effectiveness of cloth masks. Those are the kind that MSNBC anchors wear on airplanes. They're the ones you see at Whole Foods.

Surprisingly, there wasn't a lot of data on their effectiveness. The authors could find only a single randomized clinical study of the subject, in other words, a scientifically valid study. But the results of that study are worth knowing about. It turns out that people who wear cloth masks are at quote, "higher risk" of viral infection than people who don't wear cloth masks. The masks turned out to be completely ineffective.

In testing, cloth masks allowed the penetration of 97 percent of vapor droplets. But actually the masks were worse than that, they weren't just useless, they turned out to be dangerous. They were literally vectors for disease, quote, "Cloth may become damp and contaminated posing an infection and self-contamination risk."

Oh, so it turns out according to the study, people who wore the kinds of masks that MSNBC anchors plan to wear in airplanes when they fly commercial, those people were more likely to get the flu, to get infected than people who weren't wearing the masks. That's amazing. Why haven't we heard about that study before?

You know, because it was a study with math and stuff, old school science where you test your hypotheses, and then don't lie about the results of the tests. In other words, it was racism, and we can't have that.

If we're going to beat this pandemic, we're going to need fewer studies and more punitive measures. Watch this public health expert on MSNBC today explain.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDREW ROSS SORKIN, CNBC ANCHOR: For all of the companies in America who say they want a better society and they say it all the time. The one thing they could actually do which they have been unwilling to do thus far is to actually mandate vaccination.

It baffles me to this day given the trillions of dollars that was pumped out directly to businesses to help them during the pandemic that the one thing they've been unwilling to do thus far is to help themselves and help society by mandating the vaccine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Well, yes, it is pretty simple. Don't make the case, don't convince people, it's not like they're citizens, they're just peasants. Force them. Why aren't big companies mandating vaccines and punishing people who won't get the shot? It's a fair question.

And, while we're on the topic, why aren't the N.I.H. and the C.D.C. doing the very same thing? A report tonight suggests that up to half of N.I.H. and C.D.C. employees have refused to get the vaccine so far.

Whoa. Who knew there were so many QAnon science deniers in science?

As the MSNBC guy might say, it's baffling.

Well, Jeb Bush's former flack is not baffled. She knows what the problem is: the problem is you've got too many rights, buddy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: I mean why is it controversial for -- I mean, I understand a right to privacy and a right to freedom, but I don't have a right to go to my workplace unvaccinated. I don't have a right to send my kid to school without testing him to make sure he doesn't become a vector for disease.

Has this debate gone too far? I mean, people, so, sure you can do what you want, but it doesn't mean you get to go on with your pre-pandemic life if you're not willing to carry your burden in society.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Why is it controversial? Well, exactly. You do it because you're a good person. You need to get vaccinated because if you don't get vaccinated, you might infect people who have been vaccinated, and how unfair would that be?

It's not like abortion or something. You just don't have the right to do that.

Now, some are claiming that this new standard is confusing, but it's not, that's a conspiracy theory. Shut up. Nothing could be clearer than the science on COVID: get vaccinated. Joe Biden said it this week: hurry up and get the shots. And while we are at it, vaccinate your entire family, including any child over the age of five months.

Now, your kids may be more likely to be killed by cheetahs than killed by COVID, but it's still incredibly dangerous not to vaccinate them as often as you can right away. And, by the way, they can't get an education or have friends or go to summer camp if they don't get the shot, so just do it.

And then -- and this is the key, so listen carefully -- once you have all been thoroughly vaccinated, you must live as though you haven't been vaccinated, because, although the vaccine is a hundred percent effective and therefore essential, actually it doesn't work at all. It's pretty much just saline solution, but with potentially fatal side effects.

So take the vaccine, but don't trust the vaccine. Damn the C.D.C. guidance.

And the next time you're outside with your spouse, for example, just to prove you're on the same page -- your spouse, keep in mind, the person you're legally married to, the person you sleep with, the person who, like you, has been fully vaccinated -- the next time you're outdoors with that person, be certain to wear at least one mask before you kiss her sexlessly, in the driest, falsest way possible, especially if there are network camera pools present.

Otherwise, if you fail to take these obvious, commonsense health precautions, millions will die and you'll be helping the cause of white supremacy.

Vice President Kamala Harris herself demonstrated this guidance recently. It applies to all of us. "You may kiss the bride?" Sure, I will, but with a mask on.

There's nothing confusing about this. But that doesn't mean these rules are set in stone. They must be observed, but they can be expanded.

As with Mosaic Law, the pious will want to build from Archbishop Fauci's edicts. Father Fauci says to wear a mask over your face. And that's fair, of course, it's your duty.

But especially good people might want to upgrade from there -- from a mere mask to a plastic bag. Same civic-minded spirit behind the project, but more of it. Plastic is far less permeable than cotton, therefore it's safer.

We dare a COVID germ to sneak through plastic. Go ahead. Try it, COVID. You can't.

But for some out there, even conventional plastic may not be enough. It might not be good enough in a moral sense. Would you really trust your life to a sandwich baggie or a dry-cleaning bag? Probably not.

So, the truly pious will want to go ever further than that, and good for them. They'll go with Hefty garden bags, or the higher-grade contractor version that demolition crews use to haul drywall off construction sites.

Tightly secured, of course, with bungee cords and electrician's tape around the neck. Because it is about safety. It's about sensible commonsense precautions.

And for responsible people who follow those precautions, with the contractor bags, life can finally return to normal. People like that can roast all the hotdogs they please on July 4th. People like that are patriots.

And by the way, they're not doing this for themselves, they are not suffocating for themselves alone. They're doing it for all of us. They're storming the beaches of COVID so the rest of us could live as intended in a fully obedient country. Call them heroes, call them martyrs, actually. They've earned it.

CNN is going to celebrate these people in a primetime special probably posthumously. These are the brave Americans who believed in science. Anderson Cooper presents the ultimate sacrifice for public health. It's coming.

So several states including New York and Hawaii are still in the face of this new C.D.C. guidance refusing to relax their mask mandates Nancy Pelosi is on board with that. She is refusing to relax the mandates in the House of Representatives and she can do that.

Yesterday, Florida Congressman Brian Mast defied that order.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. BRIAN MAST (R-FL): Madam Speaker as the member designated for the representative from Florida, Brian Mast, I ask that given the updated C.D.C. guidance, we all take off these stupid masks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So Brian Mast standing on science spoke the truth and for that, he was threatened with a fine for being maskless on the House floor. We have reached out to Nancy Pelosi's office, and you won't be surprised when they blew us off and declined to comment.

But Congressman Brian Mast did agree to come on tonight. We're happy to have him with us now.

Congressman, thanks so much for coming on. Before I ask you why every Republican in the House has been vaccinated didn't follow suit and do what you did, let me ask you why you did what you did.

MAST: I'm just not going to play her stupid game that falls somewhere between dog and pony shows, smoke and mirrors and pure manipulation, that's why.

CARLSON: So, you've been vaccinated, the science as communicated by the C.D.C. this week, current state of it is that you do not need to wear a mask because you're not going to get COVID because that's why you got the vaccination in the first place.

What is her position? What is her argument? Why is she threatening to fine you for following C.D.C. guidance?

MAST: Because they want control, they want control of everybody. And let's put the perspective on this: the person third in line to the presidency, is saying this in the House of Representatives, if you don't wear a mask, even though the C.D.C. said you definitely don't need to wear one, and science supports that, you should be fined $500.00 for the first offense and a thousand every time thereafter, and probably the reason everybody doesn't follow suit is because they don't want to be fined $500.00 and $1,000.00, respectively.

CARLSON: So how many Republicans are going to follow your lead into morally justified civil disobedience in the face of tyrannical stupid and honestly, deranged requirements like this one? How many others do you think will do what you've done?

MAST: You know, I think, come Monday, you're going to see everybody toss their masks in the air like graduates are tossing their hats in the air and say, we're just not going to follow Speaker Pelosi's tyrannical rule here.

CARLSON: I've got to ask you. I mean, we've talked a lot in this country about addressing the mental health crisis that's clearly hurting America. We're watching a mental health crisis here and I'm just -- I'm wondering how many of the people who are still wearing masks after having been vaccinated, after reading the C.D.C. guidance telling them not to wear masks, how many of them -- sincere question -- are suffering from some form of diagnosable mental illness?

MAST: Well, you've got to ask yourself, are you going to use science as just a tool to support whatever your agenda is? Or are you actually going to take it for what it is? Are you going to use it when it supports or doesn't support whatever your hypothesis is? And if you're not going to use it, in both circumstances, then you're just not being honest, you're not being true, you're not being just. And that's clearly a problem for anybody, especially somebody that is a part of representative government.

And I'd make one more point on this just quickly, and that's to say this. Let's see if they use the same fervor about protecting yourself when it comes to us physically protecting ourselves, you know, say personally, with our firearms or things like that. I don't think it will apply for them in the same situations.

CARLSON: Let me ask you one last quick question. The science suggests that people who've recovered from COVID and have high levels of antibodies are in fact safer from reinfection than people who have taken the vaccine. There are a hundred million of those people in this country. Why are they wearing masks?

MAST: Well, because they're forced to, because when you go to the grocery store, they force you to wear it, they don't let you in. When you go to the airport, they force you to or they don't let you in. That's the place that they want to get to, to force you to disclose your health information, or else you will be fined or you won't be allowed into somewhere.

And if your health information doesn't show that you got the vaccine that they want you to get, and who knows what other vaccines they will want you to get into the future, then you won't be able to rejoin society because that's what they will mandate. That is the control.

CARLSON: Time to stop playing along and thank you for leading the way in that. Congressman Brian Mast of Florida. Appreciate it.

MAST: All the best.

CARLSON: Amazing footage came out this afternoon, a footage of an unidentified flying object literally unidentified, captured by a U.S. naval vessel. These images were off the coast of San Diego. The Pentagon has confirmed this is real.

We'll show you that tape and talk to someone who can assess what it means. That's straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: We've interviewed a number of experts on the show, people familiar with footage in the possession of the U.S. military who have said there is tape out there of unidentified flying objects descending from the sky and then disappearing into the ocean.

Well today, that video emerged. The Pentagon has just confirmed that the footage is real. You're seeing it now on your screen.

It was taken by the Combat Information Center aboard the USS Omaha on July 15, 2019 off the coast of San Diego. As far as we know, the UFO in question was never recovered. There was no material indicating a crash. More than that, we don't know.

Tom Rogan is a "Washington Examiner" columnist. Well versed in the subject. He joins us tonight.

Tom, what do you think we're looking at here?

TOM ROGAN, COLUMNIST, "WASHINGTON EXAMINER": Well, I think we may well be looking at a true unknown which is to say intelligently controlled machinery that is not understood to be in the possession of the United States, China or Russia, which are the most three most advanced countries in terms of military aviation.

And so, you know, the video in and of itself is limiting what it can tell us, but I think it speaks to, as The Pentagon itself has admitted, this continuing trend of truly unexplained things coming into the public consciousness more than they have before.

CARLSON: If you listen this with the sound up, you can hear the guys who are monitoring this video in real time gasp when it seems to disappear beneath the waves. So this kind of takes the weather balloon off the table or some meteorological phenomenon off the table.

I mean, clearly, we're looking at something that is, as you just put it being intelligently controlled, and it's going underneath the ocean and then disappearing. I mean, you're -- we're sure that this could not be a foreign nation in control.

ROGAN: Yes, and that is the -- yes, and that is why you see people like Senator Rubio leaning into the subject, the Military Office of Naval Intelligence, which really leads the military effort researching this. There isn't anything that we have top secret information about what China or Russia have, or what we have at Area 51 that can do what these things do in terms of the variable performance.

And I think specifically relevant to this video, in the coming months and years, an area, which we will learn more about is the interaction of U.S. Navy submarines, nuclear ballistic missile submarines and attack submarines picking up sonar contact of things moving at hundreds of knots under the water.

And so there is an undersea dimension to this that the Navy has sort of pushed off to the side, as the pilots talk more about their experiences. So there's a lot more to come out, I think is the best way to put it.

CARLSON: Hundreds of knots underwater, I mean, I think all of us can imagine objects moving at incredible speeds in the air maybe even approaching, you know, the speed of light, potentially, but hundreds of knots underwater, I don't think most people can even digest that. That's been recorded?

ROGAN: That's what I've heard from sources, very good sources, and that the Navy has the data. And one of the big things, Tucker, that I think as we move towards this Director of National Intelligence Report, and I do know that the various agencies are actually taking that more seriously than people might expect, as is D.N.I. one of the things we're going to find is that over a period of decades, a lot of the data, a lot of the measurement of these things has been put off as technical aberration, or essentially a data malfunction, because they didn't want to really admit that something very serious and special is going on.

CARLSON: I mean, some of this behavior challenges our understanding of Physics. So I think this is going to change a lot of perceptions.

Tom, I appreciate it. I hope we'll see you again soon.

ROGAN: Thanks, Tucker.

CARLSON: So you've been hearing for well over four months now that what happened on January 6th at the Capitol was a white supremacist insurrection. Now, we're learning the Department of Justice -- and this is a surprise -- has been hiding from public view a lot of video footage from that day. Why would they hide it from the public? What's in that footage? We will tell you next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: So one of the ways you know the people in charge are lying is when they say something that's clearly not true. And then they keep saying it at increasing volume over time and demanding that you repeat it or else they're going to hurt you.

You've seen that a lot since January 6th, which was, they will remind you daily, a dangerous white supremacist insurrection. It is part of the QAnon army.

Just today, Don Lemon over on CNN described January 6th, as a war with, quote, "hand to hand combat."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: I spoke with a Republican lawmaker last night and he told me during the commercial break, he said listen, I fought in the war. Denver Riggleman, he said, I went to war. And he said the difference was is that I didn't have people denying the realities of war or denying my experience and what happened at the Capitol was nothing less than war, as I said hand to hand combat.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: They bring the drama, these people. It's unbelievable. So they're going to beat you over the head with the same storyline for four months. You think it's fair to ask like what are the details? Who shot Ashli Babbitt for example, and why aren't you telling us? And where's the rest of the footage of this deadly white supremacist QAnon insurrection?

But they're not sharing the footage and that's very strange. The Capitol Hill Police Department's General Counsel is arguing in court that releasing more surveillance footage from January 6th would help, quote, " ... those who might wish to attack the Capitol again."

Right? The D.O.J. is making the same arguments.

Why are they withholding this footage? Julie Kelly has followed this subject more carefully than maybe any other reporter. She's a senior contributor to "American Greatness." We're happy to have her on tonight. Julie, thank you for coming on. So how much -- do we have any idea how much of this footage they're hiding from the public, what it might show and why they're hiding it?

JULIE KELLY, SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR, "AMERICAN GREATNESS": So according to the General Counsel for the Capitol Police, there are 14,000 hours of surveillance video from January 6th just between noon and eight o'clock that day. The Capitol Police captured this video from its extensive surveillance system, both inside and outside the Capitol.

So 14,000 hours they have that would show what happened before, during and of course, after the insurrection, and they are refusing to release it, as you said, saying that this will cause the insurrectionists to plot yet another attack on our democracy.

And also, Federal prosecutors, Joe Biden's Justice Department and Federal Judges are going along with this. So what are they trying to hide? I mean, if this was war, if this was like, you know, Pearl Harbor and 9/11, don't you think that they would want to show the American people all of this footage that they have of these horrible human beings, you know, attacking the citadel of our democracy?

So it raises a lot of questions. And to your point, Tucker, the hyperbolic rhetoric around this should really give people pause and make them reconsider the narrative that we've been told from the very beginning, about what January 6th was all about.

CARLSON: You know, it's just -- it's one of many huge lies, and of course, because you know, everything is displacement. They accuse their critics of telling whose lies -- very quickly, are we any closer to knowing who shot Ashli Babbitt and why? Maybe there was a good reason. We always give the benefit of the doubt to law enforcement. But you're not allowed to just shoot people in the neck and not say who did it and on what basis it was done. Do we know any answers to those questions?

JULIE KELLY: We don't, Tucker. Her family has filed lawsuit against Capitol Police and I believe the Justice Department. They are trying to get answers about what happened.

It's important to note that the only person who had a firearm in the Capitol that day was the unidentified police officer who shot and killed an unarmed veteran, Ashli Babbitt. The Justice Department closed their investigation, we still don't know the identity of that police officer. But I think her family is digging around trying to find out who it is, exactly what happened, and you know, the video that we would be able to see, might give us a lot more information about that, too.

CARLSON: Yes, you can't just shoot people and then not explain why you did it. And by the way, if Ashli Babbitt were Antifa lunatic or a BLM activist, I would say the same thing. You can't allow that. You can just let people get shot and then not get an explanation. You know, we should not allow that.

Julie Kelly, it's great to see you. Thank you.

JULIE KELLY: Thanks, Tucker. Thanks for having me.

CARLSON: So we haven't seen gas shortages like the ones many people are living through right now in more than a decade. Why is it happening now? Should it tell us something about what lies ahead? Victor Davis Hanson has the perspective on this as a historian, and he's going to bring it straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York is a nostalgic man. He loves the 70s. He has turned his city into a version of New York in the 70s, and just as it was 50 years ago, one of the most dangerous places to be in New York is in its world famous subway system.

Last year, more than a dozen people were shoved onto the subway tracks, many by the so-called homeless that the city's elites tolerate for reasons they never explain. This year, New York City is on pace to exceed that number of people pushed in front of moving subway cars.

Just this morning the violence on the subway progressed from indiscriminate shoving to indiscriminate stabbing. According to the NYPD, five New York City subway riders were attacked in 35 minutes in Manhattan today, all in the same subway line. It began around 4:25 a.m. One of the victims was a 41-year-old man. He said someone woke him up on the subway and punched him in the face. Just minutes later, somebody else stabbed a 44-year-old man in the head on the same train. Then a 44-year-old man was stabbed in the right eye.

Police have arrested four people in those stabbings. New York City's Metropolitan Transit Authority issued a statement blaming quote, "The mayor's negligence on this issue. These were five very serious armed robbery and slashing incidents at stations on the same line. All seemingly could have been prevented by uniformed presence on each of these platforms," end quote, but that would be insensitive to the vagrants now ruling public transportation in New York.

Well, speaking of the 70s, the gas shortages we're seeing across the Eastern Seaboard and the rising gas prices we're seeing everywhere remind a lot of people of what it was like to live under Jimmy Carter. We haven't seen anything like this really since 2012 when Barack Obama was the President, that's the nearest approximation.

Now, Joe Biden is in the White House, and all of a sudden, gas prices have shot up and cities like Atlanta are basically out of gas. What's going on here exactly? There is a historical context for it and no one can construct that context more ably than Victor Davis Hanson. He's a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He joins us tonight.

Professor, thanks so much for coming on. So you look at this tapestry of events now unfolding in the U.S. What does it remind you of? What's the context for it?

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON, SENIOR FELLOW, HOOVER INSTITUTION: There's a perfect storm, Tucker. The backstory is that we're running at about seven to 12 percent per annum inflation this year. We printed $2 trillion this year in deficits. We owe $29 trillion in our national debt. We're paying some workers more money to stay home than to get out. We have this Orwellian job shortage, but high unemployment, and just when we need to demand, the cure for all of this, we're telling the producing class, your taxes are going to go up, your regulations are going to become more severe and we think you made too much money during this recession.

So we've suppressed demand now. How it applies to the gas and oil industry, remember, the first thing this administration did was cancel Keystone. The second thing it did was ban all new exploration of gas and oil on Federal lands. And the third thing it did, it unleashed John Kerry to warn everybody that gas and oil would be out of business in 20 years.

And so this producing class said, you know what, we didn't do very well during the recession when there was no demand. But do we really want to risk and go out and get our rigs pumping and refining gas, when we don't know what the restrictions of the Tax Code or what they think of us?

CARLSON: That's right.

HANSON: So we're not producing oil, and we're not producing gas as we should. And then finally, it's a very dangerous thing to provoke somebody like Vladimir Putin unless you're going to deter him. So we've talked tough and carried a twig and these Russian associated hackers know that.

So they're not afraid of attacking the United States and they are very brilliant. They have a Machiavellian insight into the American progressive line. They said, we're not after charities, we're not going to go after hospitals. We're just going to hack into a pipeline, and I think the subtext was, after all, you cancelled pipelines. So what's the big deal?

If gas goes up, you know, Steven Chu in your last administration said $10.00 a gallon was good. After all, that's going to suppress fossil fuels.

That's a very dangerous thing, just as it is to print money and discourage production. So to provoke the Russians and not get tough, and I think Joe Biden needs to get on TV quick and say, you know what, we're in an inflationary cycle and I'm calling on all of you producers, and lumber and food, and gas and oil to get out there and let's produce and you're going to have a steady, predictable regulatory tax climate and we want you to help us out.

But that's not the message we're getting. It's going to be like -- I grew up in 40 years ago and saw this happen with Jimmy Carter.

CARLSON: You cripple a country's energy supply, which we take for granted and you cripple the country. I mean, energy is civilization. So, thank you for that context. When you put it all together like that, it is even scarier than it feels like before you do.

HANSON: Thank you.

CARLSON: Thank you, Victor Davis Hanson.

HANSON: Thank you.

CARLSON: So gas prices are going up. We don't mean to bombard you with the bad news. But gun confiscation is, too, now that civil liberties have been suspended in the face of the white supremacist threat.

All over the country, officials are seizing privately owned firearms without any kind of trial. Where is this happening? And what can you do about it? We'll tell you next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: So-called Red Flag Laws are clearly unconstitutional. They deny American citizens due process, but they are expanding anyway across the country and no one seems to be noticing. Those laws allow courts to seize firearms from people's homes even if those people have not committed any crime and certainly before they are convicted of anything.

All the court needs is evidence that they are a potential mental health risk, and that can be an estranged spouse saying so or whatever. You don't need real evidence.

Not surprisingly, the Democratic Party is pushing these laws as a form of gun confiscation that no one needs to vote on. Just last month Senator Richard Blumenthal, the Vietnam war hero from Connecticut, said that Red Flag Laws are necessary to save lives.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT): Red Flag Laws, whatever you call them, we know they save lives. They are practical and proven tools that allow law enforcement under some statutes, and others including family members to keep guns out of the hands of individuals who possess and pose a danger to themselves or others.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: "Individuals who pose a danger or themselves to others," and these are the same people who are telling you that what happened on January 6th was an insurrection aimed at overthrowing the government, they're liars.

You wouldn't think though that this would be widespread because again, it's so clearly unconstitutional. So we were surprised to learn how widespread it is.

In California alone, officials revealed just recently that a record 1,285, quote, "gun violence restraining orders" were issued by Judges in just the last year under the state's Red Flag Law. So what does this mean for you, as someone who probably cares about civil liberties and the country?

Jesse Kelly is a radio show host. We're happy to have him on tonight to explain what this is. Jesse, thanks a lot for coming on.

Hard to believe this is happening again. It's so clearly unconstitutional. But what is this really? Is this something that's going to save lives in the words of Richard Blumenthal?

JESSE KELLY, RADIO SHOW HOST: Sure, in the minds of the communists, it is going to save their lives. That's all this is, Tucker. I want everybody out there to think about this, when they think about a red flag law, let's say it's a Judge, right? Well, we know there are whacked out Judges out there.

I want you to think about the last four years of them calling you a Nazi and a white supremacist and things like that and I want you to think about your social media account, everybody who is watching, go to the last 10 things you posted and ask yourself, do any of these people think you're crazy because of that? And if the answer to that question is yes, they'll come knocking on your door one day, too.

And look, I'm not going to live in that kind of country, Tucker, I'd rather send my kids for an internship with Hamas.

CARLSON: So that's -- I mean, that's a fair point. If they can disarm you, because they think you're dangerous without convicting you of breaking an actual law, why can't they throw you in prison to save lives?

JESSE KELLY: Well, they can and they will. That's the whole point of all these end around things they do now, Tucker, it is so they don't have to use the law because they can't pass these laws. They are all unconstitutional.

But the problem for you and I, is Tucker and this is the bitter pill for the right to swallow. We're in a post constitutional era, a post law era. When you control that much of the justice system and you have these radical DAs who won't ever prosecute somebody in Black Lives Matter, but they'll throw the book at everybody who walked into the Capitol Building, you're now in a post law era and that's where we are.

We're not going there, we are already there. That's where we are.

And that's why people are buying so many guns right now. They know something is wrong, they can feel it out there.

CARLSON: So I mean, it sounds like it's a huge mistake to take these explanations at face value.

JESSE KELLY: Well, it is mistake right now, Tucker and honestly, I hate saying this, because I wish it wasn't this way. It's a mistake taking anything you see on the news with the exception of a very few shows at face value.

CARLSON: Yes.

JESSE KELLY: I assume right now and honestly, I tell my kids this, everything you see is probably a lie. You process it, you look into it yourself, you try to think about it, but everything is a lie. And like I said, that's why they're buying guns because they know. They know it deep down in their bones that something is wrong that these people want to hurt them.

CARLSON: Right. Watch when people do not what they say. I think that's really wise, really wise advice. Jesse Kelly, bracing, I appreciate it. Thank you.

JESSE KELLY: You bet.

CARLSON: Well, we've gotten a bunch of messages from viewers about our documentary series "Tucker Carlson Originals" on FOX Nation. The latest episode just dropped. You can find it on foxnation.com. It is an honest -- we tied to make it as honest as we could -- look at the most popular rifle in America, the AR-15. A lot of people are talking about the AR-15, but a lot of people don't really know what it is.

So, we have a clip to show you from the latest episode on the AR-15. Here's part of it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I got my weapon.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Drop it, drop it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I came out the door. He came out on the other side, charging as he was driving away.

And I just wanted to protect my wife and keep her safe. So that's why I did what I did.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Worth watching. Now, you often hear the phrase "Cats have nine lives." Why do they have so many lives? We're about to show you on video.

This clip shows a building on fire in the City of Chicago. Now, a lot of you waited for firemen to arrive, but one cat did not. That cat just jumped out of the fifth floor. People watched this and screamed. The cat didn't mind. He didn't hesitate.

This cat didn't wait around for instructions. He just jumped.

There's a lesson there. By the way that cat landed on its paws as cats always do and scurried away just fine.

Go cat.

That's about it for us tonight. A new episode, as we just said, of "Tucker Carlson Today" will be out on Monday.

We'll be back 8:00 p.m. every weeknight. The show that is the sworn enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness and groupthink.

Have the best weekend with the ones you love. We'll see you Monday. 

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