Tucker: Politicians, bureaucrats 'should have no role' in deciding who gets vaccinated

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Tucker: Politicians, bureaucrats 'should have no role' in deciding who gets vaccinated

'Tucker Carlson Tonight' slams Biden's vaccination stance: He's not 'pro-choice, Joe Biden is pro-mandate'

This is a rush transcript from "Tucker Carlson Tonight," May 4, 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. Back in March, Joe Biden gave his first primetime address as President. Almost all 24 minutes of that speech were devoted, as you'll remember to promoting the new coronavirus vaccines, the miracle of medicine.

One of the administration's main priorities, Joe Biden told the country was making certain that every American got a COVID shot, and yet the administration later took pains to explain. Universal vaccination is not the same as a Federal mandate. They're very different.

But the government is not now nor, will it be requiring vaccine passports. That's what Joe Biden's flak assured reporters. So, as important as vaccines may be, and they are, the question of whether to take them, whether to have powerful drugs injected into your body is the most intimate kind of personal health decision.

Politicians and bureaucrats should have no role in a decision like that. You may have heard that before. These decisions are for the individual alone to decide in consultation with family, physicians and clergy. When it comes to medical care, it is your body. It is your choice, just as it has been since 1973.

And that seemed to be consistently enough, the Biden administration's position on vaccines, many people assumed it was their position, but it was not. On the question of vaccines, Joe Biden is not pro-choice, Joe Biden is pro-mandate. You may have missed that.

Just because there is no official Federal requirement to take the coronavirus vaccine does not mean that you and your family won't be required to take it. With the full backing of the Biden administration, private industry and nonprofits may be forcing you to.

For example, colleges across the country have announced that they will require vaccine passports in the fall. Students who can't show proof of COVID vaccination will not be allowed on campus.

Yale, Georgetown Princeton have adopted this rule. Of course, most have followed. Now, Duke, Columbia, Cornell, the University of Michigan is requiring the COVID vaccine. So is the University of Massachusetts and the entire University of California system, which is the largest in the country.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice over): When students at the University of California head back to school next fall, they'll likely need to have a COVID vaccination when they step onto campus.

UC made the announcement Thursday along with California State University campuses, and Stanford University's Provost sent out a letter stating they will require full COVID-19 vaccination as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: You can see where this is going and at high speed. Soon, virtually all college students in America will be required to take the COVID vaccine. In effect, it is a national mandate, though, because it has happened piecemeal, school by school, each apparently making an independent decision, few have recognized that as it's happened.

But a national mandate is what it is. The question is why? Why are schools doing this? And is it a good idea?

From a medical standpoint, it's hard to understand the reasoning behind this. As a group, young people are not at risk of dying from COVID, maybe more significant, huge numbers of college students have already been infected with the coronavirus. We know that and therefore they have natural immunity to it.

So why do these kids need the vaccine? No one has explained that. The question has rarely been asked. But in no other circumstance we're aware of do we immunize people against a virus for which they already have the antibodies. Again, from a medical perspective that doesn't make sense, and it seems especially strange to require it in this case.

None of the coronavirus vaccines have been approved by the F.D.A. They are experimental medicines, they're administered under emergency authorization. That does not mean that they are dangerous and we are not claiming the coronavirus vaccines are dangerous. But we are telling the truth, which is there are unresolved concerns about their long term effects on some people including their effects on female fertility.

That is not a conspiracy theory. That is true. It's an honest question. What's the long term effect that no one so far has been able to answer? And it's not simply being asked by partisans. It's being asked by practicing physicians.

Katharine Lee, for example, is a research fellow in Division of Public Health Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. Lee doesn't seem like a partisan Republican or QAnon adherent or a crank. She gladly took the coronavirus vaccine, she seemed to support the coronavirus vaccine strongly.

But then in herself, she noticed unexpected effects on her menstrual cycle, quote: "It wasn't a symptom that was on the list," Lee said, "I expected that my arm would be sore or that I might have a fever or headache, but this just wasn't on the list."

Kate Clancy, another scientist who studies female fertility at the University of Illinois reported that she had the same symptoms after she got the vaccine, and she wrote about it in some detail on Twitter, you can look it up. After she did write about it, dozens of other women wrote in about similar experiences they had had after getting the vaccine.

None of these symptoms had been described in the medical literature. The reason: the clinical trials for the vaccines never tested for the effects on the female menstrual cycle or for fertility or on pregnant women.

So maybe the symptoms amount to nothing. That's often the case. Maybe they mount to something, we don't know. The fact is, we can't say what the long term effects of this vaccine will be on women, including pregnant women.

Honest people admit this, every scientist knows it. According to a recent study published in "The New England Journal of Medicine," quote, "More longitudinal follow up including follow up of large numbers of women vaccinated earlier in pregnancy is necessary to inform maternal pregnancy and infant outcomes."

In other words, at this point, and there is no changing this because it's true, we just don't know. Again, that does not mean the coronavirus vaccine is dangerous. There is no proof that it is dangerous, but there doesn't need to be.

We don't need proof of harm in order for public health officials to be careful and precise about how they distribute these drugs. No medicine is designed for every person in all circumstances. In fact, every prescription a doctor writes is the result of a cost benefit analysis.

Most people for example, consider chemotherapy, a miracle treatment. It is, it saves lives. We are grateful for chemotherapy. But just because we are grateful for chemotherapy does not mean that we would give chemotherapy to the entire American population.

We don't even give chemotherapy to every cancer patient because every patient is unique just as every person is. That is a fundamental precept of Medicine, of Science.

And yet, somehow our COVID vaccination policy does not acknowledge this. For the purposes of vaccination, our leaders, including our public health officials pretend that a 19-year-old athlete is identical to an 80-year-old with emphysema, both need the COVID vaccination immediately.

Whatever else that is, it is not a scientific standard. It is quackery. And yet every power center in American life appears to be unquestioningly on board with it.

NBC News is now running, and you may have seen these, PSAs, Public Service Announcements with its on-air talent demanding that everyone in the country get the shot.

Barack Obama just released this creepy little video telling small children to get the shot.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Hi, everybody, it's Barack. Now that every American over the age of 16 is eligible to get the vaccine, I want to talk about you getting yours.

The vaccine is safe, it's effective. It's free.

I got one, Michelle got one. People you know got one. And now, you can get one, too. It's the only way we're going to get back to all the things we love, from safely spending time with grandparents to going to concerts and watching live sports.

So get the vaccine as soon as you can.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Some creepy old guy telling your children, your little kids to take medicine whose effects we do not fully understand. It is totally normal. Yes, that happens every day. Don't ask questions. Just do it.

As CNN explained recently, we're not getting our freedom back until you do.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: And when we can reduce the level of infection in the community, increase vaccination rates. That's when at some point, hopefully soon, but at some point, we can relax the restrictions.

I don't know if that works for many Americans. For many people, it probably does work to say yes, we're in this together. It's patriotic. We're doing this together.

But I think a lot of people are thinking kind of selfishly. Thinking, what's in it for me? And they're not willing to wait until this elusive herd immunity. If we can tell those individuals who otherwise would not get vaccinated, if we say to them, the moment of freedom for you is when you get vaccinated, when you reach the two-week mark.

These are people who otherwise might not be vaccinated. So let's give them that incentive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Did you listen that carefully? It is selfish, says the crank doctor on television even to consider what effect a medicine might have on your body or on the bodies of your own children. It's selfish.

That's the sort of person now in charge of America's public health policy. Just shut up and take it. It's immoral to consider the risks.

She just said that. Some are telling us it's racist to consider the risks. The lady scientist at "The View" took the opportunity as they so often do, to inject race hate into an intrinsically colorblind issue. What do vaccines have to do with race? Nothing. But the ladies on "The View" informed us that only people of a certain color are holding the country back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SUNNY HOSTIN, HOST, "THE VIEW": White evangelicals, 45 percent say they won't get vaccinated according to a Pew Research. Republicans, almost 50 percent of Republicans are refusing to get the vaccine so we won't reach herd immunity because of those particular groups. So I say we need to shun those that refuse to get vaccinated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: It is awful for anyone with a public platform to talk like that, particularly now. It's also destructive of the country. This has nothing to do with race. It has no bearing on race whatsoever. This is a question of freewill.

At this point, the people who haven't been vaccinated on a specific race, the people who haven't been vaccinated against COVID are the ones who have affirmatively decided they don't want to be vaccinated against COVID.

In that, they are exercising what they assumed was a fundamental American right, the right to choose which medicines you put in your own body. Until recently, all of us assumed that we had that right and we did.

And then the people in charge figured out how to take it away. They found our pressure point.

If you disobey us, they've announced and Barack Obama has affirmed them, and so has Joe Biden, if you disobey, we will prevent your children from being educated. That will work by the way, because short of arrest and imprisonment, keeping children out of school is the most coercive measure the authorities could take. Why? Because most Americans still believe correctly or not, that college is the key to advancement in our society. Take that away and everything collapses.

Forbidding kids from getting an education dooms kids to a life of low status and low income. Whether or not that's true, many parents believe it is true as a matter of faith. We've been telling ourselves that for 80 years, so parents will do anything to save their children's future, including allowing them to get medicine they don't want and they don't need.

Parents across the country have already allowed school administrators to harm their children in the name of COVID and for the most part, they have said nothing. Here's a recent scene from Oregon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice over): Maggie Williams just seconds away from setting the summit school record in the 800-meter, a moment of glory. Overshadowed by this moment of concern, Williams finished in two minutes and eight seconds collapsing as she crossed the finish line.

MAGGIE WILLIAMS, HIGH SCHOOL RUNNER: I felt like I just wasn't being able to get a full breath and multiple times of that happening not being able to get enough air just -- I just felt super dizzy and then eventually passed out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice over): Williams blames her lack of oxygen on the mask she is required to wear during competition.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Forced to wear a mask she didn't need outside by administrators who couldn't care less about her health. This child passed out from lack of oxygen and as she did, the rest of us said nothing. That was not a national scandal.

So having allowed that, should we really be surprised that children as young as six years old are now being forced into coronavirus vaccination trials? In fact, a short time ago news broke that starting next week, the F.D.A. is planning to authorize Pfizer's vaccine for children 12 and over.

So what is next? It's not a question of the vaccine. You may want the vaccine for yourself and your children, you may not. It's a question of being forced to take it. And if we allow ourselves to be forced to take it, what next? And anything is the answer to that question.

If the authorities are permitted to control a healthcare decision this intimate, if they can force you and your children to take a vaccine you don't want and are afraid of, then what can't they do? Nothing.

They will have total power over your body and your mind forever. What's the limit to their power? There isn't one.

A few parents seem to understand this and have taken timid steps to resist it. One anonymous mother posted a letter she wrote to the College Dean when she learned that her kids would be required to get the shot, quote, "The Association of American Surgeons and Physicians thinks this is a terrible idea and so do I." She didn't give her name, she didn't give the name of the school. Good for her.

But where are the rest of the mothers? The ones who are willing to go on the record. There must be some. They know that if they go public, they'll be attacked immediately by Barack Obama and CNN and AP. They'll be denounced as anti-vaxxers. Anti-vaxxers -- as if there are actually many people in America who oppose vaccines, there aren't.

Virtually every college kid in America has already received some or all of the 15 separate vaccines that the C.D.C. tells parents to give their children by the age of 18. They've literally been vaccinated since birth.

So Americans are for vaccines, they always have been for vaccines. The reason that not every American has taken this vaccine is a measure of the sincere and legitimate questions they have about it.

But no one should ever be forced to take this or any other medicine against their will, and unless they speak up now, unless they resist this, they will be getting this shot, whether they like it or not, and a lot more shots after this.

That's the one thing that's guaranteed.

So Jordan Peterson was a clinical psychologist in Canada a few years ago, and then he became famous because he stepped up, gave his name to defend the undying and essential principle of freedom of speech.

We had a long and fascinating conversation with Jordan Peterson about what's happening to that freedom in this country. We'll show it to you.

Plus, it is Bill Melugin's first day at FOX News. He is joining us from Los Angeles Fox LA. Probably, the last great local reporter in this country. And amazing story about an attack on law enforcement. You have not seen this video yet. We have it for you next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: So they've almost been forgotten. History books probably won't note that they even happened, but the BLM riots in Minneapolis last summer destroyed a physical place, a five-mile stretch of the city. If you don't believe it, go there now, because it's still levelled in parts.

Rioters in Minneapolis murdered at least two people by the way, that's two more than rioters murdered on January 6th at the Capitol, and then they caused more than $500 million in property damage. Rioters destroyed a police station. It's still destroyed tonight.

They hit a small business, many of them, as well as big box stores.

Then they had Civil Rights demonstrations at the local Target. Watch.

[VIDEO CLIP PLAYS]

CARLSON: So if you want civilization to continue, and most of us thought we did, you can't allow behavior like that. You can't allow people to run into Target with hammers and smash on cash registers and then applaud it. And that's exactly what our corporate class did.

Target, which is a store being destroyed in the video we're playing on the screen. They responded to the riots, the destruction of their own store by giving $10 million to social justice causes.

Brian Cornell is the chairman and CEO of Target. That money didn't come out of his salary. Unfortunately, it came straight from shareholders. He said he had no problem with the violence against target, quote, "As we face an inflection point in Minneapolis and across the country, we are listening to our team, guests and communities committed to using our size, scale and resources to help heal and create lasting change," but not help heal the country. No.

They don't care about the country over at Target.

We know that because target went on to commission a pro-BLM group to paint a mural on the front of the Target store in Minneapolis, the same store that BLM torched and looted last year. If you're wondering how deep the well of corporate decadence is, it's bottomless.

That mural is up now. It shows the words "together" and "I can't breathe." It also depicts a building on fire. It depicts arson.

Now, it is not clear which act of arson that mural on Target is celebrating, the Target store just across the street from the third police precinct which BLM rioters also set on fire last summer. But the point is clear, Target endorses rioting and looting, and so does the rest of corporate America. What they don't endorse is preserving our civilization and you should know that.

Well, there aren't a lot of TV reporters who actually break news stories anymore. So you notice when you find one and the one we've noticed a lot in the last year is Bill Melugin.

You've seen him reporting for this show from our FOX station in LA. Today is his first day is a FOX News national correspondent. We are thrilled by this -- Bill -- on his very first day has an exclusive. New footage of an attack on a police officer. Bill Melugin, congratulations. Great to see you tonight.

BILL MELUGIN, FOX NEWS CHANNEL NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Tucker, thank you. Glad to be on the team.

The video you're about to see here is really just a great example of the kind of animosity that some officers out there are encountering in the streets. The video, it is actually not from Department issued body cameras from LA County Sheriff's Department, they are still in the process of rolling all those out. It comes from a Deputy. It's his own personal body camera.

He has been on the force for 14 years and tells me he has his own personal body camera to kind of protect himself from false allegations when he is out there at work. And it's a good thing he did that because just a couple of weeks ago, he did what he thought was an average traffic stop, a woman was using her cell phone while driving, but it quickly fell apart.

The woman went after him, started berating him, making racist comments and anti-police comments. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I pulled you over because --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because you're a murderer. Yes, I started to record because you're a murderer.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can't be on your cell phone while you're driving.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was on my phone. I was recording you because you scared me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can't use your cellphone while you're recording.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can record you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: May I have your driver's license?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's at my apartment.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I'm perfectly legal and I'm a teacher. So there, murderer.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Congratulations.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're a murderer.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're only citing you for using your cellphone while you're driving, that's it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, ma'am.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For him being a Mexican racist, what is that name? Gasco --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is on the citation ma'am.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Here you go, Mexican racist. You're always going to be a Mexican. You'll never be white, you know that, right?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MELUGIN: Not the nicest lady right there. Now, FOX News has learned the name of this woman, but at this time, we are not going to identify her because we've reached out to her multiple times. We still have not gotten a comment from her.

I did talk to LA County Sheriff Alex Villanueva about this. He told me he was appalled by what he saw on that video there, but he commended his Deputy for staying very professional and just doing his job and remaining calm. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHERIFF ALEX VILLANUEVA, LA COUNTY: She claims to be a teacher and I understand if it's Southwest College where she is teaching, I'm not too sure where, but if she represents her profession, is that an indictment on her profession and the caliber of people? Because you have one incident like George Floyd, a murder, all right, but some people want to label the entire profession as if everyone was a Derek Chauvin.

And this shows you that bigotry, racism comes in all colors and all ages and proof of that right there.

If you want to call all of the Deputies murderers, unfortunately, you're doing the exact same thing which you're accusing other people are doing against your own kind.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MELUGIN: All right, so here's the kicker here. The Sheriff's Department confirmed to me today that the woman in that video, she actually called Internal Affairs and filed a harassment complaint against that Deputy right after that traffic stop happened.

The Department also tells me that that woman has a history of making false claims against Deputies, so Tucker, good idea for this Deputy to have his personal camera here. It might end up saving him. We'll send it back to you.

CARLSON: Glad she is teaching the kids. Bill Melugin, thanks for that. And welcome to FOX. We're really glad you're here.

MELUGIN: Thank you.

CARLSON: Well, Jordan Peterson is a Canadian. He stood up for freedom of speech in his country, he was pummeled for it. It changed his life completely.

And he has watched carefully ever since what is happening in this country. We just had a long and fascinating interview with Jordan Peterson. That's straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Jordan Peterson was a clinical psychologist practicing in Canada when he got into a fight with the Canadian government over his right to say what he believes is true. That catapulted him into the position he occupies now, which is one of the world's most important, one of its last really public intellectuals.

He has written a brand new book "12 New Rules for Life." We just had a long and fascinating -- genuinely fascinating conversation with him on a new episode of "Tucker Carlson Today." It's out on FOX Nation. Here is part of it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: You made your decision 2016 not to say what the government of Canada was prepared to force you to say. You decided, I can't do that. It violates my conscience. My soul is at stake. I'm not doing it.

Looking back on that decision five years later, your life is completely different from what it was. Are you happy that you made that decision? Was it worth it?

JORDAN PETERSON, AUTHOR, "12 NEW RULES FOR LIFE": Well, I wouldn't say I'm happy that I made the decision. I wouldn't say that my life has been particularly happy over the last five years. It's been stressful beyond comprehension for a variety of reasons.

But -- and I would say, being pilloried on a regular basis, publicly is definitely part of that. But you know, you make your decisions in life. And I decided when I was very young, I'm in my mid 20s that I was going to say what I believed and see what happened.

I talked to you earlier and talked about adventure, you know about the adventure of truth and I don't think I'm happy about what has happened and I certainly have dragged my family through their fair share of well, both hell and also incomprehensible opportunity.

It has expanded our lives in both directions to a tremendous degree. But it's certainly been an adventure. It's not been dull. And I don't believe that it -- I don't believe that it was a mistake.

Whatever happens as a consequence of telling the truth is the best thing that can happen. It doesn't really matter how it looks to you at the moment or maybe even across the years because you have to -- it's an article of faith in some sense. Do you believe that reality is better constituted as a consequence of truth or falsity?

If you believe that reality is best constituted as a consequence of truth, then you have a responsibility to speak the truth and you can't assess the consequences and say, well, that was a mistake, because part of the decision, that reality is best constituted as a consequence of the truth is the decision that no matter what happens is the best if it's a consequence of telling the truth.

And so that's what I conclude. It's like, this is what happened because I said what I had to say as clearly as I could say it, and that's as good as it could be.

Now, whether or not that's good, well, it's good compared to all possible alternatives, all possible realistic alternatives. That's an article of faith as far as I'm concerned.

You know, our culture is predicated on the idea that truth in speech is of divine significance. It's the fundamental presupposition of our culture. Well, if you believe that, then you act it out, and you take the consequences. You're going to take the consequences one way or another, you know, so, you want the truth on your side or do you want to hide behind falsehoods?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: That's the question. You want to hide behind falsehoods. You can watch the full interview, the inspirational interview with Jordan Peterson by going to foxnation.com and we hope you will.

So under normal circumstances in a normal country with civil liberties, the Federal government needs a warrant if it wants to spy on you, but that's too high a bar for the Biden administration, which definitely wants to spy on you if you didn't vote for Joe Biden. So now, private companies will be allowed to circumvent the whole process. We are not guessing, they're bragging about it on CNN.

Senator Josh Hawley has a new book out in the perils of Big Tech. This underscores them brightly. He joins us next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: On Friday, we told you about a character in Washington called Frank Luntz. Luntz lobbies -- he is not a registered lobbyist, but he lobbies on behalf of some of the world's most left-wing corporations. A lot of people do that? Here's the interesting thing about Frank Luntz.

At the same time he is doing that, he also advises the leadership of the Republican Party. So Frank Luntz works for Google and Nike and Delta Airlines, among many others. Several years ago, Frank Luntz advised the makers of OxyContin on how to blame rural Americans as thousands of young people in rural America dropped dead of opioid ODs. Frank Luntz did that.

So he is not someone that normal people would go to for advice, and if you were running the Republican Party, you definitely wouldn't because Frank Luntz is effectively a Democrat. We know this, because we've listened to him.

Now Luntz typically launders his own opinions through the pseudo-scientific focus groups that he conducts, but in real life, his views, make no mistake, bear no resemblance whatsoever to the views of actual Republican voters.

So again, the question is, how did someone like this wind up with so much influence in the Republican Party? Why do Republican officials listen more carefully to Frank Luntz than they listen to their own voters? That is a mystery.

A lot of people have asked that question in Washington? And as of three days ago, here was our best guess for why.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So why does Frank Luntz remain a fixture in Republican politics at a time when the companies he works for are opposed to the Republican Party explicitly so? Well, in part because he is particularly close to the House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, and has been since McCarthy entered politics.

In an interview earlier this year, Luntz described Kevin McCarthy as a personal friend. And that relationship gives Frank Luntz outsized influence over the Republican Party's policy positions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So Luntz is a personal friend of Kevin McCarthy's who is the top ranking Republican in the House. That's what we said.

It turns out we didn't know the half of it.

Over the weekend, we got a call from a source who said that in fact, Frank Luntz and Kevin McCarthy are not simply friends, they are roommates. Kevin McCarthy lives in Frank Luntz's apartment in downtown Washington. That's what we were told, and honestly, we did not believe it.

The top Republican in the House lives within Google lobbyist? Come on. Come on. Even by the sleazy and corrupt standards of politics in Washington, that did not seem possible. In fact, it sounded like a joke.

But this morning since we heard it, we called to check with Kevin McCarthy spokeswoman and when we raised this, she all but chuckled at the suggestion. No, when he is in Washington, she told us, Kevin McCarthy rents hotel rooms or sleeps in his office in the Capitol. He certainly isn't living with Frank Luntz.

Okay, and that seemed logical to us. But we did press a little bit because we got the tip from someone we consider reliable and we just wanted to be sure. So the spokeswoman said she would get back to us.

Two hours later we got this text, quote: "Following up on our conversation from earlier today. Because of the pandemic McCarthy has rented room in Washington at a fair market price from Frank Luntz."

So actually the top Republican in the House does live with someone who lobbies for Google. Mystery solved. Not only are they friends, they're roommates.

So now you know why they listen to Frank Luntz, but they don't listen to you.

No matter how cynical you become lately watching Washington, that's still a pretty remarkable thing to learn. But other questions remain. For example, what did the coronavirus pandemic have to do with Kevin McCarthy's choice of apartments? The Chinese unleashed virus on the world and all of a sudden congressional leaders have to live with Frank Luntz?

Was there C.D.C. guidance on that? If so, we missed it.

If anything, COVID increased the number of housing options in Washington, D.C. In some places, apartment prices fell, but not in Frank Luntz's building.

Frank Luntz lives in one of the most expensive buildings in Washington. We pulled the deed and we checked. The estimate that we found shows that Luntz's condo in the fashionable Penn Quarter part of the city would likely rent for over $5,000.00 a month. That's the quote, "fair market price."

So the question is, is Kevin McCarthy paying $5,000.00 every month to Frank Luntz to live in his house? We would love to know the answer. We asked several times of his office and no one got back to us with an answer.

If Kevin McCarthy isn't paying market price, he is likely violating House Ethics rules on taking gifts. And someday, we have no doubt we will find out exactly what he is paying.

But no matter what he is paying, as far as we're concerned, the price of the apartment is not the crime here. Kevin McCarthy's real crime is mocking his voters. Kevin McCarthy promises Republicans he shares their values. He tells them he's on their side.

He says that he will fight for them against permanent Washington, the forces that would like to destroy their lives. Voters believe Kevin McCarthy when he says this. They send him back to office every two years. They send him money.

And at the end of the day, Kevin McCarthy goes home to Frank Luntz's apartment in Penn Quarter, and he laughs about it.

Well, a remarkable story crossing today, CNN, of all places reporting that the Biden administration will use private groups to spy on American citizens without a warrant. Quote: "Outsourcing some information gathering to outside firms would give the Department of Homeland Security the benefit of tactics it isn't legally able to do in-house because of the Constitution, such as using false personas to gain access to private groups used by suspected extremists," end quote. Extremist being, of course, a euphemism for anyone who didn't vote for Joe Biden, meaning you.

Josh Hawley has thought a lot about Big Tech and its uses and misuses. He is the author of the new book, "The Tyranny of Big Tech." It's out from Regnery this week. His contract with Simon & Schuster having been cancelled, for no obvious reason.

Senator Hawley joins us tonight. Senator, thanks so much.

If there was ever a story that underscores your concern and puts it into bright relief, it's this, going around the Constitution, due process of the protections that we have of our civil liberties by using Big Tech against us.

SEN. JOSH HAWLEY (R-MO): Yes, that's exactly right, Tucker, thanks for having me on. This is a great example of how the government, Big Government run by the left is partnering up with Big Tech to try to trample on the First Amendment and that's the whole point here.

Of course, the left can't use government directly to spy on Americans without a warrant, although I will just point out, they did lie repeatedly to the FISA Court during the Donald Trump administration to try and get warrants, wiretaps on Trump on others, or at least on Trump associates and told all kinds of lies, the F.B.I. did, but they're now, they're going beyond that.

Why even bother with a FISA Court when you can get Big Tech to actually do the spying for you and report back to the government? I mean, this is why these companies should not be allowed to have the power that they do. And at the end of the day, Tucker, this is why we need to break them up.

CARLSON: So the question of who is going to be targeted, who's the new al Qaeda, who are the American citizens who are going to be treated like terrorists, it's got to be a real one for you.

So you cast a vote that many others in your position at the end of presidential election cycles have cast? Maybe there's precedent for the vote that you cast, but because you cast it, and because you were such a prominent critic of Big Tech and of Corporate America, to some extent, you were targeted for destruction and described as an extremist. You lost your book contract from Simon & Schuster, and a lot else.

Under these standards, why wouldn't you be targeted as an extremist?

HAWLEY: As oh, I am sure I would be and I'm sure I have been. I mean, I have -- I assume Tucker, every day, that Google and Apple and Facebook and Twitter and all the rest monitor everything that I do online to the extent that they can just like I'm sure they do to millions of other Americans, and this is the sad state that we've reached in this country that if you disagree with these woke corporations and with their partners in government on the left, then you will be monitored, you will be tracked, they already take all of our information, our personal information, all Americans, they do that without asking us and then they sell that information without our consent, and now they're trying to use it for political purposes.

This is what happens when you have massive monopolies that then partner with leftists and government and again, this is why we've got to break up these companies and break up this Big Tech-Big Government Alliance.

CARLSON: Amen. Because short of that, there's nothing you can do about it. They can lie to you, they can steal your information, spy on you at the behest of the Biden ministration. Nothing you can do. I agree with that, Senator.

And Godspeed in your quest to break them up. Thank you.

HAWLEY: Thank you.

CARLSON: Well, now we know a year later that schools are shut down across the country, hurting children for no reason. In fact, they were shut despite the prevailing medical evidence. How did that happen?

Well, there's new evidence tonight that the teachers unions drove that; not doctors, not epidemiologists, unionized teachers -- we have that evidence for you after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: So there was never any medical justification, any public health reason to close the schools and totally destroy countless American children last year in the name of protecting us from COVID. So why did we do it? How did it happen?

Well, thanks to a watchdog group called Americans for Public Trust -- and we're grateful -- we know how it happened. They just obtained e-mail showing that a powerful teachers union influenced public health authorities in their decision to keep schools closed for in-person learning.

The union is the American Federation of Teachers, and the union sent draft language to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to include in the agency's school reopening guidance. That guidance was released in February.

In two separate cases, the suggestions that the union provided ultimately found their way into the C.D.C.'s final guidance. Adam Laxalt is the former Attorney General of the State of Nevada -- Nevada not Nevada -- and we're grateful to have him on tonight. Adam, thanks so much for coming on.

It's almost beyond belief that a teachers unions, quote, "suggestions," teachers unions writing ad copy for the C.D.C. What? How?

ADAM LAXALT, FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE STATE OF NEVADA: Well, there's no doubt about it, Tucker. This is an absolute smoking gun. So you have -- the science has been clear for a long time, schools have been safe for a long time. States have been open, some since last summer, and so parents are wondering what's going on here. And we're being told they're waiting for the C.D.C. guidelines.

And these poor people, you know, think that they're actually doing science there and they are relying solely on science. And what's going on is that the largest teachers union that gave record amounts of money to Joe Biden and other Democrats last cycle, they're at the table. They are directly involved in, you know, helping to steer the science and being part of this process.

And so it's absolutely atrocious. And of course, you know, they are feeding to us, Scranton Joe, that he is for the people, and he's going to always do what's right.

And who have they left behind here? They've left behind the powerless. They've left behind the very people that the media and the Democrats always tell us, therefore, the little guy.

Well, here, we don't have a metaphorical little guy, we have actual little people, students, kids, and they didn't put them first. The unions didn't put them first. And, you know, hopefully, this smoking gun will help people understand.

If you've been scratching your head all this time. You have your answer. It's called power. It's called money. It's called influence. And, you know, we hope this will hopefully wake people up and we can get schools open.

CARLSON: So you've been in politics and around it a long time. Just remind us, for our viewers who aren't familiar with how it works. Teachers unions aren't just teachers, they're not just unions, they have for generations been the single largest source of Democratic Party campaign cash, correct?

LAXALT: No question. They've sent record amount of money and get their President, to get Democrats in power. And this should -- this will surprise people, but it shouldn't because we had record amounts of dark money in the last election, left-wing dark money with these massive groups that have more money than they've ever had.

And they are now -- not only do they give the most money to get their policies through, you have Jen Psaki, the Press Secretary, you have Paige Herwig, who is in the White House Counsel's Office, they came out of Demand Justice. This is a group that wants to change our Constitution. And so these groups have been paying a lot of money to try to garner influence in the administration.

CARLSON: And they've gotten what they wanted. Adam Laxalt, thank you for bringing this to light. I appreciate it. Good to see you tonight.
 

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