This is a rush transcript from “Tucker Carlson Tonight" November 23, 2020. 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.
You've heard a lot over the past few days about the security of our
electronic voting machines, and this is a real issue, no matter who raises
it, or who tries to dismiss it out of hand as a conspiracy theory.
Electronic voting is not as secure as traditional hand counting. Period. It
never will be as secure. Voters can see this because it's obvious and it
makes them nervous. And why wouldn't it make them nervous? Our leaders have
given us every reason not to trust technology.
The people now telling us to stop asking questions about voting machines
are the same ones who claim that our phones weren't listening to us. They
lie. We all know that.
Other countries understand that. They don't use electronic voting because
they know it undermines confidence in democracy. A system cannot function
if no one trusts the vote, and that's true here, too, as we're finding out.
Going forward, we need to find out exactly what happened in this month's
presidential election. We need to find out no matter how long it takes the
investigation to unfold or how much it costs.
And once we get answers from that investigation, we ought to revert
immediately to the traditional system of voting, the one that served our
democracy for hundreds of years.
What we're doing now is not working. That's an understatement.
As of tonight, the State of New York still hasn't managed to count the
votes in five house races, thanks to mail-in voting. That's a disaster.
Let's stop pretending that it's not.
But at the same time, we shouldn't let our focus on voting machines
distract us from all that happened earlier this month.
The 2020 presidential election was not fair. No honest person would claim
that it was fair.
On many levels, the system was rigged against one candidate and in favor of
another, and it was rigged in ways that were not hidden from view. We all
saw it happen.
The media openly colluded with the Democratic nominees. Joe Biden and
Kamala Harris refused to explain what they would do if they were elected.
That's never happened before in any presidential election in American
history, but the media allowed them to do it.
At the same time, beginning in the spring, Democrats used our public health
emergency for nakedly partisan ends. They punish Trump supporters for
trying to gather, but they exempted their own activists, rioters and
vandals from BLM and Antifa from the COVID lockdowns entirely. They said
this out loud.
The restrictions they did enforce crushed America's small businesses, the
heart of the Republican Party, and yet they made their own donors
fantastically richer.
Jeff Bezos alone saw his net worth jump by more than $70 billion during the
pandemic.
Then Democrats used the coronavirus to change your system of voting. They
vastly increased the number of mail-in ballots, because they knew their
candidates would benefit from less secure voting. They were right.
They used the courts to neutralize the Republican Party's single most
effective get-out-the-vote operation, which for generations had been the
National Rifle Association.
Not enough has been written about this, but anyone on the ground saw it.
Thanks to legal harassment from the left, the NRA played a vastly reduced
role in this election and that made a huge difference in swing states like
Pennsylvania and others.
But above all, Democrats harnessed the power of Big Tech to win this
election. Virtually all news and all information in the English speaking
world travels through a single company, Google.
A huge percentage of our political debates take place on Facebook and
Twitter. If you use technology to censor, the idea is that people are
allowed to express online, ultimately, you control how the population votes
and that's exactly what they did.
They rigged the election in front of all of us and nobody did anything
about it.
Dr. Robert Epstein saw this coming. Epstein is one of the world's foremost
experts on the effect of Big Tech on politics. Epstein is not a partisan
Trump supporter. In fact, he's a Democrat. But he believes in democracy,
and for years, he has warned that Silicon Valley could steal this election.
This is what he said we spoke to him about a year ago.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. ROBERT L. EPSTEIN, SENIOR RESEARCH PSYCHOLOGIST, AMERICAN INSTITUTE FOR
BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY-CALIFORNIA: Google and similar
companies like Facebook are completely unregulated in the United States, so
they can do whatever they please.
And if they all work together in 2020 to support the same presidential
candidate, which is very likely, and probably it'll be a candidate that I
support, by the way, they can shift upwards of 15 million votes with no one
knowing that they've been manipulated and without leaving a paper trail for
authorities to trace.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Dr. Epstein has tracked the effect he says Google has had on this
month's presidential election and he joins us now to explain what he has
found.
Doctor, thanks so much for coming on. What effect do you think have you
measured of Big Tech on the voting outcome this month?
EPSTEIN: Well, a couple of things that we've looked at so far. First of
all, we had 733 field agents in three key swing states this year: Arizona,
North Carolina and Florida, and we preserved more than 500,000 ephemeral
experiences. That's a lot. That's about 30 times more data than we got in
2016.
And we're finding a couple of things that are pretty clear. Number one, is
that Google's search results were strongly biased in favor of liberals and
Democrats. This was not true on Bing or Yahoo.
The bias was being shown to pretty much every demographic group we looked
at, including conservatives. So in fact, conservatives got slightly more
liberal bias in their search results than liberals did. How do you account
for that?
And then we also found what seems to be a smoking gun. That is we found a
period of days when the vote reminder on Google's homepage was being sent
only to liberals, not one of our conservative field agents received a vote
reminder during those days.
The good news is on that fourth day that we were monitoring, we went public
with some of our findings, and Google backed off, they literally shut off
that manipulation that night. And so for four days before the election,
they were showing vote reminders to everyone, finally.
CARLSON: What effect and we're thankful that you are apparently the only
person monitoring this, it controls -- Google single handily controls our
view of the world, and yet no one seems to care. But what do you imagine
the effects? What if you measured the effect of this manipulation had on
the outcome of the election?
EPSTEIN: Well, there are multiple manipulations here. We were also
monitoring YouTube this time, and Facebook and Bing and Yahoo.
The bottom line at the moment is that these manipulations, the ones that
we've so far quantified, could easily have shifted at least six million
votes in just one direction. That's the bare minimum at this point that I'm
confident of.
The maximum, we haven't even begun to estimate that yet because we have so
much data to look at.
CARLSON: So that's the margin of the election right there. So, you're
saying that what you feared could happen may indeed have happened, that the
manipulations from one company Google may have determined the outcome of
the presidential election.
EPSTEIN: Well, we've been told this for nearly a year by whistleblowers
from Google. We've seen it in leaked documents from Google, leaked videos
from Google.
There is no question that they set about after the 2016 election to make
sure that President Trump, whom I do not support, by the way to make sure
that he is not re-elected, and the massive amount of data we've collected
is consistent with what the whistleblowers and leaks have been telling us
for a long time now.
So yes, the answer is yes.
CARLSON: So why is this not at the top of the concern of anybody who cares
about democracy? Why are we allowing this to happen do you think?
EPSTEIN: Unfortunately, the answer is pretty obvious. Google literally
buys candidates and politicians and my colleagues, my fellow academics are
often bought by Google with large grants.
So you know, the fact is that if you're a Democrat, or you're a liberal,
you like what Google and to some extent, these other tech companies are
doing. You like it, it's to your advantage.
You know, the problem, though, is that we don't know who Google is going to
be supporting tomorrow. And in fact, in different countries around the
world, they don't necessarily support liberals. In some countries, they
support conservatives. In China, they work with the Chinese government to
help surveil and control the Chinese population.
CARLSON: This is the story right here. Dr. Epstein, I hope that you get
the funding that you need to continue this research. I think it's -- hard
to think of many things more important and I hope that changes are made
immediately. Or this is --
EPSTEIN: Well, we have moved into Georgia. So, we're now monitoring the
Georgia runoff. So we're doing our best.
CARLSON: I hope that you will. Thank you.
So Big Tech, clearly, influenced the outcome in this election. That should
be shocking and unacceptable to anyone who believes in democracy or good
government and yet it was essentially celebrated by the national media,
which shared the goal of removing Trump from office.
Sharyl Attkisson is the author of the book, "Slanted: How the News Media
Taught Us to Love Censorship and Hate Journalism." She joins us tonight.
Boy, that title is chilling, but true. Sharyl Attkisson thanks so much for
coming on.
What effect do you think the tech companies had on this election?
SHARYL ATTKISSON, AUTHOR, "SLANTED": Well, I think it was big looking at
it in a non-forensic way -- Dr. Epstein knows a lot more about all of that
than I do -- but just looking at the influence that they have had over the
past couple of years after a concerted campaign that began in 2016, on the
part of political and corporate interests, to try to control the internet
landscape, the information that we get online, because these forces knew
that once they had largely controlled the terms of how we talk about news
stories, in news divisions and on TV and on cable news, that there was
still this place, they saw people were getting unfettered access to off
narrative information.
Studies maybe they don't want you to see or know about, opinions that maybe
they don't want you to have or know about, and so they set out their goals
to then move into the internet in a way like we hadn't seen before, in a
very overt way in those weeks before the election, in fact, to try to
control that information landscape as well.
CARLSON: I don't know how frequently we can sound this alarm. I hope
something is done about it soon. But give us an example of what they did in
the weeks before the election, if you would.
ATTKISSON: Well, there are plenty of ways and hidden ways that every day,
our information is controlled. And it's for example, Google actually made
this announcement when coronavirus hit that they were going to direct
searches to the World Health Organization, which in retrospect admitted --
the W.H.O. -- had gotten certain things completely wrong. But that's where
we were being directed because of the partnership that they developed,
because interest wanted us to go there and believe that.
But right before the election in ways that weren't even partly hidden, I
felt like there was a sense of desperation, because the tech companies
began overtly censoring and taking down accounts rather than just sort of
minimizing them or minimizing their reach in ways that couldn't be denied.
So look at "The New York Post" story on Hunter Biden and the audacity of
that, but to not even care in those couple of weeks leading up to the
election that we saw exactly what they were doing, because they knew there
would be no repercussions for that before the election and perhaps none,
quite frankly, after the election.
CARLSON: That's absolutely shocking. Do you think that there's any way to
rein this in before the next election even before the runoff in January in
Georgia that will determine control of the Congress?
ATTKISSON: Well, I doubt before the runoff, but if we're looking four
years down the road, there are a lot of strong technical minds and
independent journalism minds and information people who are looking for all
kinds of new ways where information can be disseminated without being
curated by these self-appointed parties who have their own conflicts of
interest, where people won't be deplatformed if they simply share factual
information, or hey, if they want to share information that's not true, but
leave it up to you to discern what is and isn't and the research that you
want to do rather than letting these unnamed faceless people with conflicts
of interest, do it for you.
There are a lot of people searching for ways to do that, and I do think
something new will be born of all of this.
CARLSON: Man, that can't come too soon. Sharyl Attkisson, great to see you
tonight. Thank you so much.
ATTKISSON: Thanks.
CARLSON: If you're a Trump voter and you suspect that this election was
stolen, was rigged, you're on to something, and it is the tech companies
above all that did it. Keep that in mind.
Up next, banning building, solar panels, signing international agreements
that destroy American jobs to make people like John Kerry feel virtuous,
seems like something that would happen in 2009, but Joe Biden wants to
bring it all back.
J.D. Vance joins us after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: It turns out John Kerry, like Barack Obama is what they call a
climate denier. How do we know that? Well, because like Obama, John Kerry
recently purchased a $12 million waterfront home on the island of Martha's
Vineyard. So obviously, he's not really worried about rising sea levels.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN KERRY, FORMER UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF STATE: The passive
indifference that most countries are accepting is basically a mutual
suicide pact. That's what people are on right now. Because we are not doing
what is necessary to save the planet.
He is not helping the forgotten American. He is hurting them. Their kids
will have worse asthma in the summer.
President Trump pulling out of the Paris Agreement: that is going to cost
lives. That's not a simple political move. People are going to die because
of the decision he made.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: So Joe Biden wants to spend a lot of money next four years
talking about climate. What's interesting is that climate is very low on
every survey of voters' actual concerns.
They're worried about things like paying off their debt. Many people are
drowning in debt. They're worried about relatives who are dying of drug
ODs. They are worried about a stalled economy.
So why do they keep talking to us about this? Have they not learned
anything in the past four years? J.D. Vance has thought more about this
subject than virtually anyone. He's the author of the famous book,
"Hillbilly Elegy," a movie version of it is currently airing in theaters.
It will begin streaming tomorrow. We wanted to ask him these questions.
J.D. Vance joins us now. J.D., thanks so much for coming on.
Before I ask you about the movie, let me ask you about the kind of central
place in the elite liberal mind occupied by climate. They've never
succeeded in convincing the population that this should be a top concern.
Why is that?
J.D. VANCE, AUTHOR, "HILLBILLY ELEGY": Well, I think because people
organize, they are fundamentally unserious. You know, people may not be
experts on the details of environmental policy, but I think people -- most
people recognize that if you're lecturing the average American about how
much they drive their car, but you're letting the two biggest polluters in
the world, China and India, basically do whatever they want to, then you're
not interested in environmental damage, you're interested in gaslighting.
And so I think when people like John Kerry try to preach about the
importance of self-denial, to just save the climate, and then go and buy a
$13 million mansion and say nothing to China and India, people just
recognize they are full of crap.
CARLSON: But they keep trying. I mean, every time they speak, and
certainly every time they get power, they're coming up with a new scheme.
These are people who, by the way, hate nature, or at war with nature, not
interested in the actual environment at all. But climate is always at the
top of their plans.
What's in it for them? Why?
VANCE: Well, it's a pretty complicated question. I'll give you one part of
my answer, which is that I think it's a quasi-religious phenomenon, right?
I think what a lot of these people have is they have lost any sense of real
religious faith, and so their sense of virtue is very often tied up in
self-denial around the climate.
They don't drive their car. They don't go to certain places. They take
certain actions that are perceived as virtuous. It's at least an organizing
principle around which they can kind of organize their life.
I think a lot of people who maybe care about the environment in a very real
way recognize that that sort of religious approach to this issue just
doesn't make any sense.
But I also think there's just a component of basic power going on here. If
you look at the agenda that's being pushed by people who care the most, or
at least claim that they care the most about the environment, it is very
often making industries that are very important in the heartland, like oil
and natural gas, more economically troubled, and it is making other
industries like digital technology, easier to sort of push and make the
centerpiece of an American economic policy.
So I think in a lot of ways, these people's sort of sense of virtue and
sort of self-interest align and intersect in a way that makes the
environmental issue pretty tough to bring any rationality to.
CARLSON: I think that's nicely put. So you wrote one of the bestselling
books of your generation, no exaggeration, "Hillbilly Elegy." It was not a
political book, I read it. You didn't seem to have a political agenda in
writing it.
The reviews of the film have been tinged by politics. The film, which is
out now. Why do you think that is? What is that about?
VANCE: I think there are a couple things going on. I mean, you know, one,
a lot of people don't like that I am a conservative and I talk about these
issues and that I come at these things from a right of center perspective.
And I'm okay with that. I'm fine with the criticism. I can take it on. I am
a big boy.
I think there's something a little bit more pernicious that I'm starting to
pick up on that does really bother me. And it's this idea that, you know,
Hollywood has made a movie about working class white people, and Tucker,
you know, the story and a lot of folks who have read the book do, you know,
it's really a story about addiction, about resilience, about family, sort
of overcoming obstacles, but also suffering in really, really important and
profound ways.
And, you know, unfortunately, those movies I think, aren't especially
popular. Those stories are popular among the intelligentsia. They don't
want to hear about white working class Americans, they'd rather lecture
those people about being privileged. I think that's disgusting and wrong.
But I'm at least glad that Ron Howard and the team at Imagine thought
enough for the book to try and make a good story out of it. And I think
they did.
I think folks who watch the movie on Netflix tomorrow, when it comes out
will hopefully find something about my family that they can sympathize
with. And that's, I think, really the goal of telling the story in the
first place.
CARLSON: I think your analysis is exactly right. The reviews I have read
object to the idea of chronicling the lives of people who they think should
just shut up and go away or die, and so I just -- I commend you for telling
their story in a way that millions of people saw. I think it's really
important.
J.D. Vance. Congrats on the movie.
VANCE: Thanks, Tucker.
CARLSON: So LA County is shutting down restaurants and bars because of
coronavirus.
Here's the funny thing. Their own data show that restaurants and bars are
not responsible for the spread of the virus.
What is that? We will tell you?
Plus, the critically acclaimed Governor of New York won his Emmy today.
Candace Owens, the noted television critic here to react straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: Los Angeles is famous for its restaurants and restaurants and
bars, and that city have done their very best to accommodate coronavirus
restrictions. They built patios. They've expanded outdoor seating.
They've done a lot and they spent a lot of money doing it. Many are still
struggling to get by.
Now, Los Angeles County has ordered restaurants to stop all outdoor seating
this Wednesday. What's the scientific justification for this? Is there one?
FOX News medical contributor, Dr. Marc Siegel is following this story and
joins us tonight. Dr. Siegel, good to see you.
DR. MARC SIEGEL, FOX NEWS CHANNEL MEDICAL CONTRIBUTOR: Tucker, good to see
you. I'm very concerned about government overreach here, using fear to
control and most importantly, in this case, the cruelty of closing
restaurants. The timing is here, right before Thanksgiving.
And you know, Governor Newsom himself is in quarantine because of an
exposure of his family. I wish him well, but a lot of people can't afford
the kind of quarantine he has and Mayor Garcetti of Los Angeles says he
wants the bubble to be as small as possible -- the bubble.
Well, your bubble can't afford to be small, unless you can afford it,
really afford it, the way that his family can. And I want to point out some
statistics that come out of our local FOX bureau tonight, which is
shocking.
LA County has said that there's 204 hotspot areas they are concerned about,
but less than three percent of those are restaurants and bars. Tucker, you
know, what's more than seven percent? LA County buildings, government
buildings are more than twice the problem.
And you know what the problem is? It's staffing, it's not even customers.
So if you're a customer that wants to go to a restaurant in Los Angeles on
Wednesday or Thursday, you can't do it. Even with outdoor dining, as you
pointed out, even at a time when it's 63 degrees today in Los Angeles, you
can't afford to eat outdoors.
And it's poor people we're talking about here because the very few cases
that you've seen of COVID-19 are occurring in Domino's or in Taco Bell or
McDonalds or in Burger King or Domino's Pizza. That is who is affected
here, not some beautiful gourmet restaurant governor in Napa Valley that
could send you all the food you want to eat.
So on Thanksgiving, restaurant owners were asked by a local reporter, what
are you going to do, Tucker? And many of them said, we're going to close
and we're not going to be able to reopen.
And guess what we have here. We've got plenty of food for Thanksgiving. We
have turkey. We have dressing. We have stuffing for everyone that was going
to be here.
So my message for Mayor Garcetti tonight is this. Mayor, please reconsider
closing the bars and restaurants in Los Angeles when they're not spreading
COVID-19, when many people, Mayor, are waiting for their turkey at one of
these restaurants instead, what are they going to do? Tucker, they're going
to be gathering together much bigger crowds than they would have
potentially spreading COVID-19.
There is the hypocrisy of government -- Tucker.
CARLSON: Government buildings were responsible for more than twice the
number of infections as restaurants, but they are open and restaurants are
closed. That's the takeaway from my perspective.
Dr. Siegel, amazing. Thank you for the math. I appreciate it.
SIEGEL: Agree. Thank you.
CARLSON: Good news from the political world tonight, Governor Andrew Cuomo
of New York has accepted his well-deserved Emmy Award. Here is the montage
the academy played during his celebration of his contributions to
television history.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. ANDREW COUMO (D-NY): Flatten the curve, flatten the curve, flatten
the curve.
This is an N-95 mask.
We talk about social distancing.
Slow the spread.
New York has been getting the short end of the stick from this Federal
government from day one right across the board.
Let's stop just for one moment, the partisanship.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Well, the newest season of "The Andrew Cuomo Show" debuted today,
filling the empty spot where "The Sopranos" used to be. He appears to be
auditioning for the Food Network now.
The TV star governor unveiled his creative take on the traditional
Thanksgiving dinner. Let us know if you think this is going to win a James
Beard award.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: Yes, we're going to be along physically, but we are spiritually
together, celebrating in a way that is even deeper.
You're giving thanks and honoring your global family.
It's not a normal Thanksgiving. It's not the traditional Thanksgiving. It's
better than that. It's deeper than that. It's more spiritual than that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Your global family. Has there ever been a dumber person in public
office? A global family isn't family at all, and you should know that
Governor Cuomo is not spending Thanksgiving with his global family online
on Zoom. He is spending it with his actual family because he is in charge,
and he gets to do exactly what he wants.
But for everyone else, subject to his rules, they are having turkey with a
heap of loneliness.
Well, the critically acclaimed governor also made it clear that it is law
enforcement's responsibility to make certain that after nearly 400 years of
tradition you eat Thanksgiving alone.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CUOMO: How a law enforcement officer says, "I choose not to enforce that
law." I believe that law enforcement officer violates his or her
constitutional duty. I don't consider them a law enforcement officer.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: If that guy ascends to a Cabinet position, we have to listen to
him for four more years. It's just going to be absolutely unbearable.
Candace Owens, founder of Brexit joins us tonight. Candace, great to see
you.
So Governor Cuomo says, you need to spend the Holiday alone with your
global family, apparently like randoms on Facebook, but he is spending it
with his actual family. Tell me how this works.
CANDACE OWENS, FOUNDER, BLEXIT: Oh, it's COVID for thee and not for me.
You have to love these Democrat governors. They have absolutely no shame.
And let me just say this: in America right now, it just feels like
everything is upside down. You've got this week rapper Cardi B wins Woman
of the Year for rapping about her genitalia. Now, we have the governor who
oversaw the most COVID deaths in his state and he wins an Emmy, Tucker. He
gets to win and take home an Emmy.
I think around the corner, we can expect AOC will likely pick up a Pulitzer
Prize in Economics for her amazing and brilliant idea that the government
should just pay us to stay at home.
I mean, it feels like we're honestly playing the crazy game. And you know,
you take a look at this and to be serious, it's hard to mince words here.
This is absolutely despicable stuff that we are seeing from these Democrat
leaders in inner cities, whether it's Los Angeles, whether it's California
or New York. It's horrible stuff that we're seeing and the American people
are suffering.
I mean, this guy during the midst of all of this coronavirus pandemic took
the time to author a book. Don't forget that. He authored a book, a
grandstanding book, an ode to himself about how great of a governor he is
from beside his mansion walls while the people on the streets are suffering
from rioting, from looting.
If anything, he is qualified to write a how-to manual on how to ruin your
state in a couple of months, and that's all I see when I look at Cuomo.
CARLSON: So why didn't Harvey Weinstein think of this and write a guide to
a happy marriage or like a, you know, fourth wave feminist tract or
something like -- so the idea is, you take the thing that you're guilty of
and you pretend you're the opposite of guilty of it. In fact, you're the
greatest guy in the world at doing the thing that you're demonstrably
terrible at, is this going to work?
OWENS: I don't know if it's going to work. I recommend Nicolas Maduro down
in Venezuela write a book in how to feed the masses. Maybe Robert Mugabe in
Zimbabwe can write a book on economics.
I mean, this is crazy stuff that we're seeing but the American people are
getting sick of it. We saw last week the New Yorkers are starting to stand
up and they are rioting and they are protesting these masks and these
lockdowns. You see this across in California taking place as well.
The American people are fed up with this hypocrisy. You know, Gavin Newsom,
dining with his family without a mask, while the restaurant owners are told
they have to shut down and not enjoy Thanksgiving.
I don't think this is going to end well for them because this hypocrisy is
not working.
CARLSON: No. And for any of us. I mean, you can push people to a point
where they start to respond, and then your politics become radical and
angry. And that's kind of the last place we want to go.
OWENS: That's exactly right. And I'll say this, I know that I will be
hosting a big Thanksgiving with my family this year. I do not need the
government to give me permission to do so. This is America. This is a free
country. And we've given these politicians far too much power this year in
terms of COVID-19.
CARLSON: Good for you. Thank you for your clarity and good luck. I hope
your address is private. Candace Owens, good to see you tonight.
So the City Council of the City of New York voted to cut the budget of the
NYPD, the largest and best police department in the Western Hemisphere, by
a billion dollars; eliminated the plainclothes police unit.
So city residents didn't welcome this, they never wanted it. In fact, now
they are clamoring for more policing. Like so many cities across the
country, New York is experiencing a surge in crime. Shootings are way up in
the city. Twenty five people shot over the weekend, just this weekend in
New York.
Just last night, six people were wounded and one killed at a single
shooting in Brooklyn.
But if that's not grotesque enough for you, how about this, the sudden
spike in subway passengers being pushed onto subway tracks. Yesterday
morning, a 29-year-old was shoved in broad daylight onto the tracks in a
busy station downtown Brooklyn. Last week, two others were shoved onto the
tracks and separate incidents in the city.
Bill de Blasio who has completely wrecked the largest city in the United
States is now responding, sort of. He is promising to increase NYPD
presence on the subway.
A little late for the people who have been killed.
Well, Governor Cuomo is not the only one who is threatening to send armed
men to your home to stop you from celebrating Thanksgiving with your
family. Others are, too. We'll have that for you next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: Thanksgiving has been around for nearly 400 years in this
country. Just in the last century, it endured and continued despite two
World Wars and a global depression. But now in 12 states, it's coming to an
end this year. They've canceled Thanksgiving.
In Oregon, the Governor Kate Brown is ordering her subjects to keep their
Thanksgiving dinners to six guests or less and those who defy her orders
could go to jail.
FOX News Senior correspondent, Rick Leventhal has this story in its
entirety. We're happy to have him tonight. Rick, good to see you.
RICK LEVENTHAL, FOX NEWS CHANNEL SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Tucker, good
to see you. If you see something or say something that used to apply to
possible terrorists among us, well now, in Oregon, it means call the cops
on your neighbors if they have too many guests for Thanksgiving dinner.
Remember, this is the state that just legalized magic mushrooms and
decriminalized the possession of heroin, cocaine and LSD. So hard drugs are
essentially okay, but the Governor says gyms, zoos and museums are not.
Restaurants will also be closed to indoor and outdoor dining for the next
two weeks.
And don't even think about having more than six people at your dinner table
from no more than two families -- or else.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
QUESTION: Do you want people calling the police on their neighbors,
nonemergency lines or 911?
GOV. KATE BROWN (D-OR): Look, this is no different than what happens if
there's a party down the street and it's keeping everyone awake. What do
neighbors do? They call law enforcement because it's too noisy.
QUESTION: Like that could be a yes.
BROWN: Yes, yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEVENTHAL: Meanwhile, Pennsylvania is shutting down one of the biggest
party nights of the year. This Wednesday, the night before Thanksgiving,
the state is banning all alcohol sales from 5:00 p.m. until eight the next
morning begging residents to stay home to mitigate any new cases of
coronavirus.
Pennsylvania is not threatening penalties, but Oregon says violators of the
new restrictions including the six-person dinner limit, face up to 30 days
in jail, $1,250.00 in fines or both -- Tucker.
CARLSON: This all defies belief. Rick Leventhal, thank you for that
report. Appreciate it.
LEVENTHAL: Thank you.
CARLSON: So Harvard University is richer than you may understand. Harvard
has an endowment -- it is not taxed -- worth more than $40 billion. It's
one of the richest private institutions in the world that has more money
than the GDP of almost every country in Africa.
Despite having this much money, the second coronavirus hit, Harvard
attempted to fire most of its unskilled low paid staff. Harvard is charging
students full tuition to learn online, which isn't really learning at all.
Then and this just happened, Harvard recently attempted to get rich off a
coronavirus tax break by encouraging alumni to donate to the school.
Oren Cass went to Harvard. He went to Harvard Law School. He is Executive
Director of American Compass and unlike a lot of Harvard graduates, he is
pretty honest about his alma mater. We're happy to have him on tonight.
Oren Cass, tell us what Harvard is doing exactly here.
OREN CASS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AMERICAN COMPASS: Well, I just received the
usual alumni e-mail and the subject was "Smart Giving thanks to the CARES
Act" and I thought it was going to be telling me, you know, be sure to give
a little extra to those who need locally this year, but it was actually tax
planning advice for how I could take advantage of the CARES Act to make a
larger gift than ever to Harvard and pay less taxes in the process.
And apparently this is something that they and a lot of other quite wealthy
institutions are pushing pretty hard.
CARLSON: So the CARES Act, of course was written and presented to the rest
of us as a way to help people suffering from the effects of the coronavirus
lockdowns, but Harvard is trying to leverage this to get even richer. Do
they need the money?
CASS: No, they definitely don't. As you mentioned, their endowment is
above $40 billion, and in fact, it went up more than $2 billion, just this
year. So with all of the struggling that you see going on, Harvard actually
is better off than ever.
As you mentioned there, they are still collecting full tuition from all
their students, even though they are not offering a full education, and
now, on top of that, they are there hoping to vacuum up a little bit more
even as in their own operations, frankly, they haven't made a point of, I
think really attending to those in their own community who are in need.
CARLSON: So greed is a word that's fallen out of use, unfortunately, I've
noticed, but I don't think there's any other way to describe this other
than greed. This is greed.
CASS: Well, it's always puzzling to see the focus on raising money for
these institutions that have more than they know what to do with frankly,
and you know, I think there's an argument that we want our universities to
be teaching and to be to be investing in research. You know that's how we
get the coronavirus vaccine.
The problem of course is that that's not where most of the money at these
universities are going. I mean, they've become these amusement park
entitlements for kids and a huge share end up with degrees, you know, not
at Harvard, but at a lot of places that aren't worth much.
And then, you look at what they spend their time on. I went to the alumni
web page, and the top stories were all about racial justice, and I'm Ibram
Kendi's speech -- he is the anti-racism guy, Latinx gathering, and you
know, if you want to do those things with your own money, that's fine. But
I'm not sure why we're giving people tax breaks to donate even more for
that when they've already got $40 billion to spend on it if they want.
CARLSON: To teach some of the smartest kids in the country to hate the
nation that made all of this possible. I am wondering how long this kind of
poison machine can continue, do you think?
CASS: I don't know. It was stunning, frankly, that the first thing you
heard everyone talking about when it looked like Joe Biden had won the
election was well, let's hope -- you know, how much student loans can he
forgive and how quickly? Can he forgive $50,000.00 of student loans?
And I was sitting here wondering, well, why student loans? Why not auto
loans? Well, why not mortgages if we're just waving people's debt away? And
the reality is that a lot of folks in power have this weird idea of higher
education as this kind of noble pursuit when you look at what they're
actually doing, they're sort of just as grubby, especially interest as any
other and in a lot of ways they're doing a particularly large amount of
damage to our nation.
And they are also doing a tremendous amount of harm to the prospects of so
many young people who would be much better off in other pathways than
spending a lot of money taking on a lot of debt for degrees that don't even
pay off in the long run.
CARLSON: That's exactly right. But they have the most powerful lobbies in
Washington. Thank you for saying so.
Oren Cass, great to see you tonight.
CASS: Good to see you.
CARLSON: Well, for this one night only, we're bringing back the "Friend
Zone." That's the portion of the show where we meet an old friend from FOX
News. We're happy to have Pete Hegseth joining us tonight. We'll be right
back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: There are a lot of good and interesting people who work here at
FOX News, and so tonight, we are resurrecting a segment we call the "Friend
Zone" where we invite one of our friends within the building onto the show.
Pete Hegseth is one of them. He is co-host to "Fox and Friends" weekend,
author of the new book, "Modern Warriors." We're happy to have him on
tonight.
Pete Hegseth, great to see you.
PETE HEGSETH, FOX NEWS CHANNEL HOST: Great to see you, Tucker.
CARLSON: Who are these modern warriors? What is this?
HEGSETH: You know, on your show every night, Tucker, you do such a great
job of exposing the misplaced priorities, the anti-American priorities of
our so called elite, the one percent.
This book is about the real one percent of America, the men and women who
put on the uniform and answer freedom's call and are not afraid to go do
the dirty deeds of our nation, live to tell about it and their stories
deserve to be told.
You know, we have societies -- the things we celebrate and honor are a
reflection of what we value and in our society, we honor so many vapid, you
know actors and things that don't matter. This is meant to put the
spotlight squarely on the chest of the men who have done the dirty work and
the heavy lifting for freedom.
And so, you know, oftentimes on shows, we get three minutes to talk to
someone and I'll talk to a Medal of Honor recipient and you know, it's a
great story, but you just scratch the surface.
So my show on FOX Nation, "Modern Warriors" gets these guys in a room, have
a couple of beers. Let's have the no BS politically incorrect, raw, blunt
story and the book channels that exact same thing. You hear from Navy SEAL,
Army Rangers, Green Berets, bomb technician, snipers?
What's it like to be in the heat of combat? What are your fears? How do you
manage pain? How do you transition the sacrifice? In your own words, in a
comfortable place where we know all we want to do is celebrate what you've
done.
The book tries to channel that, and we just don't hear enough of these
stories. And a lot of vets don't want to talk to the media and share their
story. In this book, they do, and it's meant to celebrate all those who
have done deployment after deployment after deployment, regardless of what
the politicians say they did their job.
CARLSON: You must have met some very cool people in writing this book?
HEGSETH: Oh, Unbelievable. Unbelievable. The most difficult part was
honing in on 15 stories to tell with all of them that you could. I mean,
these snipers and bomb techs, the guys that walk the ground, that don't
know one day or another whether they'll live or die, but they do it because
they love their brothers, and they love our country.
It was a humbling experience. And you meet them all and you meet the human
side of them. These are average folks from towns we grew up in, who got
extraordinary training, and went and did extraordinary things in the heat
of battle.
And then they had to transition back home. It is not an easy task. The
military train people well to fight in combat, not necessarily come home.
And because I'm not a journalist and not a reporter out to get them, I
think they were honest with me in ways that they may not always be about
some of the challenges they face and why they do what they do.
CARLSON: I believe that. These are really unusual people. And some great
people. Thank you.
Pete Hegseth, it is terrific to see you tonight.
HEGSETH: Tucker, you're the man. Thank you.
CARLSON: Thank you. That's it for us this evening. We will be back
tomorrow night and every night, 8:00 p.m., the show that is the sworn enemy
of lying, pomposity, smugness and groupthink.
Tomorrow night, a special guest, one of our favorites: Rick Savage, owner
of the Sunday River Brewing Company in Maine. He came on the show to
complain about corona. We will tell you what happened next.
Guess who is here now? Trey Gowdy sitting in for Sean.
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