Tucker: How 'defund the police' movement backfired on Democrats

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Tucker: How 'defund the police' movement backfired on Democrats

'Tucker Carlson Tonight' host sheds light on the 'massive consequences' of the left's anti-police rhetoric

This is a rush transcript from “Tucker Carlson Tonight” November 10, 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. 

There is so much going on right now. So much from so many directions that at some point, it's worth pausing, turning off the headlines for a moment and framing what we're seeing in order to understand it. 

What you're watching right now is not simply a battle between two political parties, or even two opposing worldviews, it is deeper than that. And if you want to understand what's really going on, we're going to isolate just one slogan that kind of decodes it all. The slogan is, "Defund the police." 

Defund the police. You probably haven't heard that for a while. In the weeks before the election, no elected Democrat would say those words in public. So effectively, it has disappeared. 

Yet, in a lot of ways, "defund the police" defined this year in American politics. For months, it was the central demand of the American left. It was the main thing they wanted. And there was never any question about what defunding the police would mean. Really, it was a remarkably straightforward slogan. 

Defund the police meant, defund the police: cut off their salaries, get rid of them. But why? What was the point of getting rid of the police? Of defunding them? That's the real question. It's baffling, really. 

In conventional politics, the goal is always to improve the lives of your voters, give people something they want, and in return, they will vote for you. That's the exchange. 

But who exactly wanted to defund the police? Was there a constituency for that? Whose life was going to be improved by abolishing law enforcement?

Was there evidence that anyone's would be improved? No, there wasn't. 

No academic study or white paper from some think tank in Washington even suggested that defunding the police would help anyone. In fact, dozens of studies over decades proved exactly the opposite. It would make things much worse, and that makes sense. How would dangerous neighborhoods become safer once there was no one around to stop crime and violence? 

Well, obviously, they wouldn't become safer. That's ridiculous. 

If you thought about it for 15 seconds, you would know that defunding the police inevitably would wind up killing people. That's not an exaggeration.

Literally, Americans would die if you defunded the police. They knew that, but they did in any way. 

We've never seen anything like that happen here. We have had a lot of bad ideas in America over the years, but most of them hurt people by accident.

In the late 1950s, doctors prescribed for example, thalidomide to pregnant women because they sincerely thought it would help. When the drug turned out to cause horrifying birth defects, they were shocked and contrite. 

The well-meaning liberals who designed our welfare system never dreamed it would destroy the black family and make poverty worse. That was an unintended consequence of a good intention. That is not what is happening here. 

The left called for defunding the police knowing full well what would happen next -- chaos. Chaos was the whole point of it. More rape, more robbery, more murder. Those weren't unfortunate byproducts of a noble idea.

Those were the intended consequences. 

Think about that for a minute. The people behind defunding the police tried to destroy society itself. That's not politics. Tearing down civilization isn't a political position. It's something much, much darker than that.

It's a kind of spiritual battle. 

That sounds like overstatement, but it's not. We should understand the stakes here. 

For a long time though, we didn't understand them. In fact, when the Defund the Police Movement started this summer, few knew what was going on, as was so many faddish hysterias that sweep our culture, most people just went along with it. They were afraid not to. Everyone else was. 

So when BLM vandals painted "Defund the Police" on a major thoroughfare in Washington right near the White House, the incompetents who run that city let it stand for months. They were proud of it. They said so. 

Gadflies like Sandy Cortez from Westchester went on television to explain that defunding the police was cool. It's what all the kids were doing. It's the future, and therefore better. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY):  It's funny because when people ask me what does the world where we defund the police, where you know, defunding police looks like, I tell them it looks like a suburb. 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

CARLSON:  Defunding the police looks like a suburb just like the one Sandy Cortez grew up in, with lush lawns and pool parties and hip moms and Range Rovers and the pickup line. Fun. 

But the reality of defunding the police was very different. America's cities did not become suburbs, thanks to Sandy Cortez's idea. As summer continued, here's what they looked like. 

[VIDEO CLIP PLAYS] 

CARLSON:  No, that's not Sandy Cortez's sleepy hometown, that's the reality of defunding the police. Our cities burn. 

The elderly were beaten and killed by thugs. Crimes skyrocketed in every metro area in the country. Things fell apart as they were always going to. 

No normal person in either party could support this. So, the architects of Defund the Police did what they could to silence all discussion of the topic. Don't talk about it. 

Here is Lisa Bender, the President of the Minneapolis City Council explaining that Americans who were uncomfortable with their homes being broken into in a world without police must be -- and of course, you can guess the punch line here -- racist. Watch. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR:  Do you understand that the word "dismantle"

or "police free" also makes some people nervous. For instance, what if in the middle of the night, my home is broken into. Who do I call? 

LISA BENDER, PRESIDENT, MINNEAPOLIS CITY COUNCIL:  Yes, I mean, I hear that loud and clear from a lot of my neighbors. And I know -- and myself too -- and I know that that comes from a place of privilege, because for those of us for whom the system is working, I think we need to step back and imagine what it would feel like to already live in that reality, where calling the police may mean more harm is done. 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

CARLSON:  So calling the police is an act of bigotry. Self-defense is immoral. That was Lisa Bender's position. Again, that's not a political position. That's a religion. 

But increasingly, that was the posture of the entire Democratic Party, and you know what happened next, inevitably. By August, shootings in New York City had increased by more than 80 percent over the year before -- 80 percent. There is no precedent for that because it has never happened. 

Defunding the police was killing Americans in huge numbers. And yet, remarkably, the very people who claimed so loudly to care about gun violence decided not to notice what was happening. They never mentioned it. 

By September, when virtually every person who could afford it had fled the cities in fear of disorder and chaos, Kamala Harris was still repeating the same BLM approved talking points, still attacking the police. Here she is in a tape, she certainly wishes didn't exist. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

KAMALA HARRIS (D), VICE PRESIDENT ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES:  Black Lives Matter has been the most significant agent for change within the Criminal Justice System, because it has been a counter force to the force within the system that is so grounded in status quo and in its own traditions, many of which have been harmful and have been discriminatory in the way that they have been enforced. 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

CARLSON:  If Republicans had been smart, that would have been a political ad last month, "Black Lives Matter has been the most significant agent for change within the Criminal Justice System." What does that mean? 

Well, Black Lives Matter had only one demand of the justice system and they shouted it over and over again into bullhorns in our streets, "Defund the police. Defund the police." That was their demand. They said so, they didn't hide it. 

So in many places, the authorities did just that and you know what happened next. In Minneapolis, which was the first city in America to embrace this lunacy, more than a hundred cops are now leaving the force. Crime has become so bad in Minneapolis that the very politicians who once demanded that we defund the police are now begging for more police. That's happening tonight. 

City officials are now considering bringing in officers from other jurisdictions to restore order and keep citizens from being killed. Violent crime there is up 22 percent over last year. How did that happen? You know how it happened and voters do, too. 

Thankfully, this has been a disaster for the Democratic Party, not profound enough, but still, no one is for it. Who is for defunding the police? Well pretty much no one, it turns out. 

Crime and chaos scare the hell out of homeowners, taxpayers, job holders, anyone with children or pets or cars or furniture or any expectation of life beyond this afternoon. Defunding the police is nihilism and everyone knows that. 

Polls show that Hispanic voters really hate the idea, and it's one of the main reasons so many voted Republican last week. You wouldn't have to be a desperately unhappy Gender Studies Major with a degree from Duke to think defunding the police was a wise idea. And it turns out, that's the entire constituency for it. Unmarried, unhappy, Gender Studies Majors from Duke. 

That's not enough people to win an election and some of the smarter Democratic leaders are starting to figure that out. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

REP. JAMES CLYBURN (D-SC):  Jamie Harrison started to plateau when Defund the Police showed up with a caption on TV, ran across his head. That stuff hurt Jamie. And that's why I spoke out against it a long time ago. 

I've always said that these headlines can kill a political effort. 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

CARLSON:  Jim Clyburn, and ladies and gentlemen, telling it like it is.

Defunding the police is a bad idea because it can, quote, "kill a political effort." Oh, not a bad idea because it kills human beings, thousands of the poorest people in our society, which it measurably does, no one disputes that. 

No, it's a bad idea because it can kill a political objective and that's the language the Democratic Party and its leaders can understand. So it's unlikely we will be hearing a lot more about defunding the police. In fact, no one will ever again use that slogan. 

At some point, it will be like it never happened. What was that? Something out of history. But it did happen, and it had massive consequences for all of us. You should remember it. 

James Craig is the Chief of Police in Detroit. We're happy to have him on tonight. Chief Craig, you never fell for this in Detroit? You never -- you never defunded the police. I don't think anyone called for it there. Why didn't you decide to defund the police? 

JAMES CRAIG, CHIEF OF POLICE, DETROIT, MICHIGAN:  You know, I've got to tell you, Tucker. Let me just say, thank you for -- I love being on your show. You call it like it is and I've got to tell you, defunding the place is comical and ridiculous. And you know why? As a Police Chief, police officers, you work for who? The community. 

CARLSON:  Right. 

CRAIG:  And the communities that are ravaged by violence, the last thing they want Tucker, is to defund the police. Look, I started in this organization many years ago and was laid off. That's defunding the police. 

When I came back 34 years later, they have taken 10 percent of the police officer's pay. That's defunding the police. 

Let me tell you what the community says, we don't want defunding the police. We want more police. We support you. And these are in communities that are ravaged by violence. They want us there, but you get these outsiders, and it is just shameful when I hear the dialogue about defunding. 

Look at Minneapolis, reimagining, dismantling the police, and now they are crying for more police. Hypocrites all of them. Hypocrites. We serve -- 

CARLSON:  Are you surprised? Are you surprised? I'll answer for it you. No, you're not surprised. You're a Police Chief. But what could possibly they have been thinking? 

Why would anyone want to defund the police? 

CRAIG:  You know what you're thinking about? Political favor with a small group who don't speak to their constituents. I don't care what city. When I worked in LA, the people in South LA wanted the police and they didn't want to defund the police. 

And it's sad what I see going on across this country and what is even more sad, Police Chiefs in these major cities, we need to stand up in unison and denounce defunding, dismantling, and this whole notion of reimagining. 

Look, let me just say, I'm about reform. I've been in every department that is about reform. But what does reimagining look like? And now Minneapolis is calling for the Sheriffs and Transit Police to come in? To do what? 

CARLSON:  Exactly. 

CRAIG:  To do police work? I mean, come on. 

CARLSON:  Yes, me, too. I wish -- I wish they had listened to you at the outset. We talked to you right when this began, and you laughed in their faces, but of course, they ignored you completely. 

Chief Craig, thank you for coming on tonight. 

CRAIG:  Well, I'm happy to be back, but I was going to say that's why this group is calling for my resignation, because they don't want to hear the truth. 

CARLSON:  Well, of course. 

CRAIG:  But I'm staying here. 

CARLSON:  Amen. I hope you do. And I know people who live in your city do. 

CRAIG:  Thank you. 

CARLSON:  Chief Craig, thank you. 

CRAIG:  Thank you. 

CARLSON:  Saagar Enjeti from "The Hill" is one of the people who has thought a lot about what this all means. Saagar, thanks for joining us. I mean, you would have to have a political party that's completely controlled by a small group of incredibly decadent lifestyle liberals even to consider something this destructive. 

SAAGAR ENJETI, OPINION HOST, "THE HILL":  Well, that's exactly what this is, Tucker. This always has been a top down aristocratic revolution against the working class of this country. 

CARLSON:  Right. 

ENJETI:  That's what defund the police is at its very basic. Why else does Amazon, Starbucks and every Fortune 500 company in America support this movement? They wanted to rip us apart amongst racial lines, but it backfired. And that is why a large group of pan-ethnic working class voters voted Republican, the highest share of this country has seen since 1960 for Richard Nixon, since before the Civil Rights era. 

Why did the Latinos of Miami Dade County and Rio Grande Valley and Lawrence, Massachusetts or the Asians of Orange County, California all stand up and say "hell no" against this movement? Because they have skin in the game of actually needing to make wages, Tucker, and they can't have their property looted and destroyed. They can't have their kids have this propaganda shoved down their throats in the public schools. 

They don't have private schools, nice schools that they can send their kids to, to escape this madness. It always has been a revolution forced down upon the working class. That's why they stood up and took back the one power they have left, which was the vote, the ballot box in 2020. That's why we have what we have right now. 

CARLSON:  Well, I don't think I could add to that. That was so nicely expressed and true. You just described the emerging Republican coalition.

These are the voters who vote Republican and who Republican leaders in Washington need to represent. Do you think they understand that? 

ENJETI:  Well, I don't think that they do understand that, unfortunately, they keep talking about we are trying to win back upper middle class white suburbanites who are the people who are behind defund the police in the first place. 

There is a pan-ethnic working class coalition out there that wants law and order, which wants to live their lives without intrusion and that is something that the Republican Party needs to lean into. It's what Donald Trump has showed the way for the future. 

No other Republican in this country could have won the Rio Grande Valley, Zapata County from my own home state of Texas, Starr County, one of the poorest counties in America with an income of about $21,000.00, ninety five percent Hispanic. They have a piece of wall now, thanks to President Trump.

And now they voted Republican for the first time by 47 percent, a 30 percent swing from we saw in 2016. It's just incredible to see. 

CARLSON:  It is unbelievable, and it wasn't because of pandering and immigration. You don't have to support open borders to get the votes of people with Spanish sounding last names. That's the most patronizingly stupid position. 

ENJETI:  Exactly. 

CARLSON:  Saagar Enjeti, thank you so much. 

ENJETI:  Thank you, Tucker. 

CARLSON:  We've told you about the enemies list circulating from Democrats online designed to punish Trump supporters because that's not Stalinist or anything. Who is on these lists and what happens to the people who find themselves on these list -- the no-work list that the left is sending around the country? We've got new information on that, straight ahead. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) 

CARLSON:  So Democrats are saying they won the presidential election. It's over. You're not allowed to talk about it anymore. They'll hurt you if they do. 

They are flooding our streets. They are victorious. 

But the weird thing is, they are still angry. Some of them seem madder than ever. So mad, they want revenge for having to live in a country with a President they didn't vote for. 

In Philadelphia this week, in a mob of about a thousand, Joe Biden voters beat an effigy of the sitting President. Why did they do that? They say they just beat him, but they did. 

Sandy Cortez called for activists to quote, "archive" the name of Trump supporters. And then today, a well-funded Democratic operation funded mostly by hedge fund managers and Silicon Valley tycoons, it is called The Lincoln Project tweeted out personally identifying information for the attorneys representing the Trump campaign in voter fraud litigation. Quote, "Here are the two attorneys attempting to help Trump overturn the will of the Pennsylvania people." 

They also encouraged lunatics to harass attorneys at another prominent law firm representing the Pennsylvania Republican Party. "Make them famous,"

The Lincoln Project said. How is that different from "hurt them"? Of course, it's not. 

Where is this going? And what's it about? 

Tammy Bruce is one of most insightful people on topics like this. We're happy to have her. She is the host of "Get Tammy Bruce" on FOX Nation.

Tammy, thanks for coming on. 

TAMMY BRUCE, FOX NEWS CHANNEL CONTRIBUTOR:  Thank you. 

CARLSON:  So why when they say they have won would they be even angrier?

And why further still would they be trying to get people they disagree with hurt? 

BRUCE:  Well, it's in their nature and we have seen this play out actually before this election. The riots, right, that is a signal of this as well.

It is an effort and desire to punish people who are different, who accomplished something different from you, who may be embarrassed you, who make you feel perhaps inadequate, and it's not, you know, their fault, but it's about this notion on the left that any problem you have is due to someone else. 

Someone else did it to you and that's going to have to manifest somehow.

But all of these projects have resulted in lists. And it's in media, it is yes, The Lincoln Project. 

Another project was announced after that AOC tweet called the Trump Accountability Project, which is a list, Tucker, of Supreme Court Justices, regular judges, White House staff, family members, other politicians who assisted President Trump. It is literally a Stalinist tactic and the making of lists in our history, of the human history has never ended well, but it does provide us a stark alarm about what people are capable of and what they want to do. 

So when people have thought, oh, the Democrats and the people that hate Trump and have been doing all of this are well meaning. They are just misguided. No. No, they are not well-meaning. They know what they are doing. These are smart political people. They understand the history of this, but they are doing it because they feel they can. 

And the American people rejected it, interestingly, in this election. Down ballot, it was a red wave, and if they continue on this track of cancel culture and purge lists, the American people are going to give them another kick in the bottom in 2022. 

And also, in Georgia, with those two senators, people are going to be looking at these runoff elections thinking, is this what we want? 

CARLSON:  Well, I hope so, because what's interesting and alarming is they weren't doing this last week or last year when they thought they had less power. The second they thought they had control, they became more extreme. 

Shouldn't they calm down and be magnanimous? Why are they doing this now?

That worries me. 

BRUCE:  Well, well, they've always wanted to do it. They are doing it now because they feel that there will be genuinely no repercussions. There will be no problem. 

That they, in fact, maybe will be rewarded. I'm waiting to hear the Biden campaign, Kamala Harris, the Obama campaign, everybody condemn this, repudiate it. We have yet to hear that. 

So we have this message of unity and healing, but ignore the guillotine, Tucker, because that's a mostly peaceful machine. 

CARLSON:  Tammy, I knew you'd explain it. Thank you so much. Great to see you. 

BRUCE:  Thank you, sir. Thank you. 

CARLSON:  So while the rest of us weren't paying attention and living our lives, wokeness infected the most noble institution we have -- the military. 

At West Point, for example, there's a new push underway to get rid of racially insensitive monuments and language. The people who should be defending the country from foreign threats, are instead attacking the country. 

Senator Tom Cotton is here to talk about what's going on and what can be done to stop it. That's straight ahead. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) 

CARLSON:  So cultural arsonists in the media decided a few years ago that statues needed to be demolished and buildings needed to be renamed because that's not the Red Guard or anything. 

Don't worry. We will stop there. We won't come to your house. 

They are still talking about it, and anyone who opposes it will just like to -- I don't know -- have a statue of Teddy Roosevelt in New York City is still attacked. 

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to this day attack anyone who thinks that was a bad idea. Here's how insane it got in 2017. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

ANGELA RYE, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR:  George Washington was a slave owner, and we need to call slave owners out for what they are, whether we think they were protecting American freedom or not. 

He wasn't protecting my freedom. I wasn't someone who -- my ancestors weren't deemed human beings to him. And so to me, I don't care if it's a George Washington statue or a Thomas Jefferson statue or a Robert E. Lee statue, they all need to come down. 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

CARLSON:  Yes, they all need to come down, and because we sort of nodded and said, oh, well, maybe they do, and we shouldn't be surprised that those ideas which are poison have infected our military. Of course, that was inevitable. 

At the United States Military Academy, West Point in West Point, New York, there is now a push to get rid of buildings like Lee Barracks named after General Robert E. Lee. He was a bad man, they say. He needs to be erased. 

Senator Tom Cotton is supporting a petition to stop this now. He joins us to explain why. 

Senator Cotton, thanks for joining us. You know that you're going to be called names for this. So rather than ask you questions, I'll just give you a chance to explain why you're doing it. 

SEN. TOM COTTON (R-AR):  Well, Tucker, I get called names a lot. It doesn't bother me any. What does bother me is when you have woke politically correct liberals who are trying to erase history. 

Look at West Point. West Point is not just a Military Academy. It is essentially a museum to the United States Army and the cadets there need to learn about their history. That's why they have a line of portraits of every Superintendent of West Point. 

Robert E. Lee was one of those Superintendents from 1852 to 1855. We're going to take that painting down and pretend that he wasn't a Superintendent when he was still an officer in the United States Army? 

Or in the library, there are two grand portraits of Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee. The two great Commanders in the Confederacy who faced off against each other. Unfortunately, U.S. Grant won, but are we going to take down the Lee portrait so when cadets are studying in that library, they don't know who U.S. Grant opposed, some fictitious opponent who can't be named like a Harry Potter villain. 

You know, if we taught these politically correct liberals a little more history, maybe they would realize that BLM Marxists and critical race theorists actually sound just like John C. Calhoun, the great 19th Century defender of slavery, because they always reduce people to the color of their skin, nothing but their race. 

They repudiate the principles of the Declaration of Independence, and the statesmanship of Abraham Lincoln, which is one reason why, you know, this summer they started tearing down statues of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. But pretty quickly, they went on to statues of Washington, and Andrew Jackson and U.S. Grant and Abraham Lincoln. 

And when you're tearing down statues of Lincoln and U.S. Grant, it's not about the Confederacy or the Civil War, it is because you hate America. 

CARLSON:  Let me ask you a broader question of the military, you of course, have served overseas. Military is our most impressive institution precisely because it is a meritocracy. People from any background are judged on merit, encourage ability and that is why we revere it. There is a huge effort underway right now, as you well know, to change that, and to make it not a meritocracy and to promote people, recruit people based on irrelevant, immutable characteristics. 

Is there anything being done to keep the military elite and meritocratic?

To stop that? 

COTTON:  Well, it won't happen on my watch if I have anything to do about it. You're right, Tucker, the United States military is one place where you can go and it doesn't matter who you are or how rich or powerful your parents are or what color your scanner is, in which you will only be held to the standards that you set for yourself and that you can achieve. 

And there is no chance, no chance that we can continue to have the world's best military designed to keep us safe by preventing us from having to go to war in the first place if we watered down those standards for any politically correct reason. 

The only -- the only standard to which we should hold all of our soldiers and sailors, airmen, and Marines is the same standard for each and every one of them, the standard of excellence. 

CARLSON:  That's the promise of America. It is so nicely put, and I hope it remains in the military. A big effort to change that that we should know about. 

Senator Cotton, great to see you tonight. Thank you. 

COTTON:  Thank you, Tucker. 

CARLSON:  So if Joe Biden takes power in January, what will happen? Well, we've got an indication of that tonight. Joe Biden appears to be prepared to lock down the country again. And even some of his supporters are not taking that news well -- at all -- and they should. That's next. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) 

CARLSON:  News yesterday that we may soon have a working coronavirus vaccine, you'd think that news would be greeted with joy on the Democratic side. Democrats believe vaccines are the answer to everything. Don't ask questions, just take the shot. 

But New York Governor Andrew Cuomo had a very different reaction. He has worked hard to get his state's body count high. He doesn't want anyone, not the White House, not Big Pharma to get in the way of that. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY):  The bad news is that it is about two months before Joe Biden takes over and that means this administration is going to be implementing a vaccine plan. 

You have two months and we can't let this vaccination plan go forward the way the Trump administration is designing it because Biden can't undo it two months later. We'll be in the midst of it. 

And I'm going -- I've been talking to governors across the nation about that. How can we shape the Trump administration vaccine plan to fix it or stop it before it does damage. 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

CARLSON:  Oh, so we have the vaccine, but you can't have it because the orange man is still President. Okay. 

Back in April when he didn't realize the vaccine might come out while Trump was still President, Governor Cuomo had a very different reaction. Here it is. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

CUOMO:  Well, when is this over? I say personal opinion, it is over when we have a vaccine. It's over when people know I am 100 percent safe and I don't have to worry about this. When does that happen? When we have a vaccine. 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

CARLSON:  Dr. Marc Siegel is a FOX News medical contributor. He joins us tonight. Dr. Siegel, thanks so much for coming on. I didn't realize who was President determined the efficacy of a vaccine. 

DR. MARC SIEGEL, FOX NEWS CHANNEL MEDICAL CONTRIBUTOR:  Tucker, it doesn't.

Now, this is the tale of two men and we are going to start with the first man there, the Governor of New York who is playing politics and is grandstanding and is saying it is bad news on what end up being one of the most important days in the recent history of science. 

All of this work coming together, the public-private partnership, making a vaccine, now finding out it is 90 percent effective in late trials, such an exciting day, and he is talking about shaping it or possibly blocking it.

That is the worst because we already have a vaccine compliance problem in the United States. 

Now let's contrast Governor Cuomo with another man, a man who came up through the ranks, a man who did it through hard work, nose to the grindstone, didn't inherit it through his family, mind you. And he worked and worked until eventually he became a four-star General. 

And then, he became the head of supply for the entire Armed Forces. And then he was tapped by President Trump to become the Chief Operating Officer of Operation Warp Speed and that man's name, remember this name, Tucker, you know it. It's Gus Perna and we haven't heard enough about Gus Perna. 

Let me tell you about him. He is working behind the scenes on a program called Tiberius, where just like the Roman Tiberius, he is looking at it from a computer point of view. So when the vaccine is deployed, that's right, deployed, he is going to be able to track it. 

We have a problem with this vaccine, it has to be stored at 80 degrees below zero centigrade. But Gus Perna is on top of that and he is working with Pfizer, and Pfizer already has in place the plans for deploying this vaccine. Where it is going to go, where the supply chain is going to go. 

And Gus Perna was asked recently, four-star general Gus Perna was asked recently, what are you going to do, General when the F.D.A. gives an emergency approval for this vaccine? And you know what the General said, one word, Tucker, "Execute." Execute. 

And you know what he said? Within 24 hours, the first batch of this vaccine is going to be in the right place all around the country, stored with dry ice or potentially with liquid nitrogen. The facilities will be there, the clinics will be there, the hospitals will be there, the pharmacies will be there. 

And you know what? I believe him. 

Now, I have a question for you, Tucker. Who are you going to believe? This governor who changes his mind every second on the political whims? Or the General? 

Tucker, I choose the military in this country every time -- Tucker. 

CARLSON:  Dr. Marc Siegel, thank you so much. 

That is the question of who you're going to believe, and whenever this vaccine does arrive, let's help the people in charge slowly and calmly explain to us what it does, what the risks are, what the benefits are, and get buy in from the public. Calm everyone down before forcing us to take it. 

That's fair. It's a democracy. 

Well, today, something called the Office of President-elect Joe Biden named Robert Gordon, its team lead for matters relating to Health and Human Services. That man, Robert Gordon could soon run this country's pandemic response. Who is he exactly? We should know. 

He is currently the Director of the Michigan Department of Health. Gordon just released health guidelines for the people in the State of Michigan ahead of Thanksgiving. In those guidelines, well, "keep your voices down,"

quote, and "your mask on in between bites," quote, "Take it off when you eat or drink, then put it back on," end quote, and that's an order by the way. 

Meanwhile, Joe Biden has named Michael Osterholm to his Coronavirus Taskforce. Here he was back in August saying that really lockdowns save us all money in the end. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

MICHAEL THOMAS OSTERHOLM DIRECTOR OF THE CENTER FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASE RESEARCH AND POLICY, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA:  It's going to be economically much, much cheaper for us to really deal with this and lockdown than it is to continue to watch these cases increase for the next six to 12 months. 

If we lock down, get better control like these other countries have done where they could basically live with the virus in a very different way than we are right now. The only answer, the fall is going to be a challenge. 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

CARLSON:  It's going to be cheaper. Keep in mind this man is a doctor, not an economist. So take that with a grain of salt. 

But what is Joe Biden's plan to fight the coronavirus? Starting at the outlines, over the weekend, a woman called Naomi Wolf -- a pretty famous Democrat actually, if you're older than 30, you remember her -- became one of many Joe Biden supporters to rethink what is this about exactly? 

Naomi Wolf wrote this, quote, "If I'd known Joe Biden was open to lockdowns as he now states, which is something historically unprecedented in any pandemic, and a terrifying practice, one that won't ever end because elites love it, I would never have voted for him." End quote. 

A surprisingly blunt, insightful and honest observation from Naomi Wolf.

Are others coming to the same? 

Alex Berenson is the author of "Unreported Truths about COVID-19 and Lockdowns, Part 2: Update an Examination of Lockdowns as a Strategy." Just the man to talk to. Lockdowns as a strategy, Alex Berenson, is a lockdown the strategy that Joe Biden appears to be planning should he take control? 

ALEX BERENSON, AUTHOR:  Well, he certainly has people who would like him to go that route, including Michael Osterholm. 

Michael Osterholm in that clip, which I viewed before I came on with you explicitly talks about what a wonderful job Europe has done, which looked pretty good and how we should follow European lockdown really hard. 

That looked pretty good in August. It doesn't look so good right now with France reporting yesterday the equivalent of 425,000 positive tests in the United States by a population in other words. 

In other words, the French and European numbers have been much worse than U.S. numbers recently. Here is the broader point, Tucker. Lockdowns and the coronavirus have been inherently political from the beginning. I mean, I think there's a very good case to be made that President Trump would be coasting into a second term or would have won a second term anyway, if we hadn't had the coronavirus and he hadn't been punished for it by the media. 

So as Biden takes office, and I think we all expect he is going to take office in 10 weeks, Republicans are going to really have to raise their voices, I think if we don't head for national lockdowns, if we don't -- if we're not going to have national mask mandates, which is something else that Biden has indicated he wants very aggressively. 

And in the weeks between now and January 20th, Republicans are going to have to decide what to do. Are they going to, you know, fight what looks like a losing battle on behalf of Donald Trump? Or are they going to fight for COVID restrictions that are reasonable and that get us moving forward?

I guess, I should just say, fight against COVID restrictions, because a lot of us on what I like to call team reality are going to be depending on, you know, Republicans at the national and the state level to push back. 

I mean, I said yesterday, I think, you know, DeSantis and others -- I didn't say specifically, but I think Republican governors, Republican senators, I think there should be a COVID Taskforce that says, here's what we think needs to be done, especially those governors who are running big states who are going to be making these decisions. 

If Andrew Cuomo can say he doesn't want vaccines, then why can't you know Ron DeSantis and camp and other governors say, here's what we think we should do and that is what we're going to do in our states whether you like it or not Joe Biden. But if they're going to do that, I don't see how they fight, you know for Donald Trump to make a case of election fraud. I don't think they can do both those things. 

CARLSON:  Well, I'd certainly like them to save the country from complete destruction from any of those threats, but certainly from a COVID shutdown, which I don't think anybody thinks it's a good idea. Naomi Wolf, amazingly, is right. 

Alex Berenson, thank you so much. 

BERENSON:  Nailed it. Thank you. 

CARLSON:  Amazing. Naomi Wolf. You never thought I'd live long enough to say that sentence. 

Well, Andrew Cuomo isn't simply the Governor of New York. He's also something of a pinup model, maybe he doesn't have the chiseled lats of his brother over on CNN, but pretty close. Yesterday, Andrew Coleman, let us know that he is a very tough man. Very tough man. He put big orange on notice. 

We'll show you the tape, if you can stand it, next. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) 

CARLSON:  We opened last night's show by telling you about voter fraud during last week's election. It is real. We said we are going to keep track of where that is investigations are going and we will. We will be doing it all day tomorrow and we will bring you a much meatier discussion of what we know. 

We just want to bring you up-to-date on a couple of quick developments on that front today. In Pennsylvania, state lawmakers are now calling for a bipartisan investigatory committee with subpoena power to look into voter fraud there. 

In Florida. Meanwhile, a woman who died in 2017 somehow managed to vote, no word on who she preferred. And in Puerto Rico, which Democrats would like to make a state and will if they take the Senate, officials have found 174 boxes of uncounted ballots -- boxes not ballots, boxes of ballots. Let's hope it's the 51st state pretty soon. 

So there are a lot more stories like that. Do they add up to a trend?

Maybe. We're going to have that report for you tomorrow because voter fraud always matters, no matter the outcome. 

If you accept voter fraud, you've dismissed the basic premise of democracy. 

Well, as promised, we want to end tonight on Andrew Cuomo, the Governor of New York. Trying to be the most masculine Cuomo on television, he announced he was thinking about punching Donald Trump this year. Sounds pretty tough right? Punching the President of the United States right in the face and he would have done it, if he hadn't inherited his father's job as governor.

Watch. 

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP) 

CUOMO:  I needed him to help New York. That was my job. If I wasn't Governor of New York, I would have decked him. Period. I mean, he was attacking me. He was at attacking my family. He was anti-Italian. He was every nasty thing, you know. Take away that word "governor" for 24 hours, I would've had a field day with him. 

(END AUDIO CLIP) 

CARLSON:  He is anti-Italian now. Everybody is an aggrieved victim, even Governor Cuomo. 

Sean Hannity is not. He is next. 

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