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Tucker: We finally have more facts surrounding George Floyd's death

Body camera footage of George Floyd's arrest leaked.

This is a rush transcript from "Tucker Carlson Tonight," August 4, 2020. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

TUCKER CARLSON, HOST: Good evening and welcome to "Tucker Carlson Tonight."

On Memorial Day weekend of this year, a man called George Floyd died in police custody in Minneapolis and America has not been the same since. It may never be the same.

In the months following that incident, Floyd's death has been used to justify a nationwide convulsion of violence, destruction, looting, and in some cases, killing and all of that in addition to unprecedented levels of political upheaval, the wholesale reordering of our most basic institutions.

Floyd's death changed everything. It was a pivot point in American history. No matter what side you're on that's very clear at this point.

So with all of that in mind, the significance of the event in mind, it's striking how little we really know months later about how exactly George Floyd died.

The official storyline is clear, it couldn't be clearer. Established news organizations state as a matter of factual certainty that Floyd was, in the words of NBC News and so many others, quote, "murdered by a Minneapolis police officer."

Politicians, both Democrats and Republicans echo that claim. Ideologues amplify it. According to filmmaker, Michael Moore, Floyd was, quote, "lynched by a cop's knee with a lynch mob of cops looking on."

That certainly is a vivid image, but does it reflect what actually happened? The short answer is we're still not precisely sure how George Floyd died. The trial of the indicted Minneapolis police officers hasn't yet started. We'll know a lot more when it does.

The media, meantime, aren't that curious about gathering further details and they're actively hostile to anyone who is. It has too many inconvenient unauthorized questions about George Floyd and you will be banned from the internet.

The catechism has been written and it's in stone. George Floyd is a martyr. Period. That's all you need to know. Shut up.

But in America, that's not good enough. It's not a real answer. In free society, citizens have a right to know why things are changing so quickly. On what grounds are we dismantling police departments? Rewriting curriculums? Firing people from their jobs?

What exactly is the basis of this Cultural Revolution that we're all living through? Once again, it may be some time before we can answer those questions with certainty. Maybe we never will. We will probably debate them for decades.

But more facts are always the first step toward establishing what the truth is, and finally, we have some more facts for you tonight.

Yesterday, the English newspaper, "Daily Mail" published never before seen body cam footage of George Floyd's arrest in Minneapolis.

Now by itself, the video proves nothing. Videos never do prove anything conclusively, but this one does suggest quite a bit.

The footage begins with police officers confronting Floyd in his car and from the start, it is clear this is not a typical law enforcement interaction.

The officers asked Floyd to get out of the vehicle. Floyd refuses. Minutes later, police pull Floyd from his car and handcuff him. Here's a clip of what happens next.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE FLOYD: Ouch. Ouch, man.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you high on something right now?

FLOYD: No, nothing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because you're acting a little --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's go. Let's go.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GUTFELD: "Are you on something right now?" There's a reason the police officer asked that. It seems obvious that Floyd is in some kind of physical distress in the video, even before police manhandled him.

And in fact, a later report showed that Floyd had a number of narcotics in his system including more than enough fentanyl to die of an overdose.

According to the autopsy, Floyd's blood contained 11 nanograms per milliliter of fentanyl. The report then notes this, quote, "Signs associated with fentanyl toxicity include severe respiratory depression, seizures, hypertension, coma and death."

In fatalities from fentanyl, blood concentrations are variable and have been reported as low as three nanograms per milliliter. One of the best known symptoms of fentanyl overdose by the way is shortness of breath.

In the video, Floyd complaints that he is having trouble breathing, famously, but he says that long before the police officer kneels on his neck. At one point, an officer remarks that Floyd has foam coming out of his mouth. Floyd is clearly struggling to walk.

When police finally get him to the squad car, Floyd refuses to get inside. He says he is claustrophobic. Officers struggled to get him into the vehicle -- over to the vehicle, Floyd begins to scream. This goes on for about 10 minutes. Here's a clip of it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go sit down, man.

FLOYD: No, please, man. Please don't do this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Take a seat.

FLOYD: I am going in. I am going in.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, you're not going in.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Take a seat.

FLOYD: Why you all don't believe me?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Take a seat.

FLOYD: I'm not the kind of guy. I'm not that kind of guy, man.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Take a seat.

FLOYD: I'm going to die in here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Take a seat.

FLOYD: I'll die, man.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get in the car.

FLOYD: Can I seat in the front?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, you're not getting in the front.

FLOYD: I've got the --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get in the car.

FLOYD: Okay, man. Okay. I'm not a bad guy, man.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get in the car.

FLOYD: I'm not a bad guy. Oh man (inaudible). Please, officer. Please.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sit. Take a seat.

FLOYD: Please.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Take a seat.

FLOYD: Okay. I'm getting choked. I can't breathe, Officer. Please. Please.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: You can decide for yourself what you think of that video and we hope that you will. That's the whole point of having a news network, to bring you the facts and allow you to decide what they amount to. We hope that takes place in this case.

But you should know that everything you just saw happened before the cop famously kneeled on Floyd's neck. At one point an officer tells George Floyd to calm down or he is going to have a heart. Floyd fully agrees with that, but he continues to resist.

Ultimately officers pull Floyd from his vehicle. He falls to the ground. And at this point in the video, you may begin to recognize what's happening because you've seen it before, the entire world has seen it before. That's the video that started months of riots, at that point.

So the question is, why haven't we seen the rest of the video until right now? The video seems relevant, particularly considering all that has happened next.

And the answer to why we haven't seen it is simple -- because Keith Ellison, he is the Attorney General in Minnesota, hid the video from the public. He refused to release the footage and he admitted it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEITH ELLISON, MINNESOTA ATTORNEY GENERAL: I'm a firm believer in transparency and the public's right to know, but a higher priority for me is a successful prosecution. Therefore, I'll consult with our lead investigators and I'll say to them, when can we release this information to the public and still safeguard the prosecution?

And if we can do it before then, I would have no problem with doing that. But I am reluctant to do anything that would undermine the prosecution of this case.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Right. I'm a firm believer in transparency and the public's right to know, says Keith Ellison. But apparently that's not true. Videos like this are released all the time by authorities. In this case, it was hidden. And in fact, if it weren't for leaked to a foreign newspaper, we wouldn't have seen that video.

But now that we have seen it, what can we conclude from it?

Buck Sexton is host of "The Buck Sexton Show." He joins us tonight. Buck, thanks so much for coming on. So before we get to why we haven't seen this before, and I think the reason is evident. What do you make of it? What did we learn?

BUCK SEXTON, FORMER NYPD INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, this is critical. We didn't have the full even video story of this and as you've alluded to already, we obviously should have a long, long time ago. I'm not going to say that this exonerates Officer Chauvin, I think that's far too much here.

CARLSON: I am not saying that either.

SEXTON: There clearly could still be a finding of criminal -- I know -- of criminal guilt with whether it's involuntary manslaughter. There are a whole host of charges he could still be guilty of here.

But we do have to look at what was the run up to this incident that then caused months of rioting. You have somebody who is in NYPD parlance an EDP, an emotionally disturbed person, someone who is clearly having either a panic attack or some kind of psychological episode. Officers giving him lawful commands.

What this takes away, Tucker, the thing that we do know is that it's a much tougher case now to make that there was any racist intent, or even intent at all to kill this man, based upon the events leading up to the video we've seen. That's what we do know and that's a critical component of understanding what really transpired.

CARLSON: I think that's right and I'm comfortable and I think all of us living in a democracy should be comfortable with a system in which adult citizens can decide what they think based on all available evidence.

But we haven't been able to assess all available evidence because it's been hidden from us and that suggests, in fact, it's very clear that we are being manipulated and cowed into accepting a very specific interpretation of events that has been used for political purposes. Why are we going along with this?

SEXTON: Well, because it was necessary for the narrative here. The BLM movement has been around before. This was really a restart of a 2.0, and a lot of people that saw this, I think, initially wanted to use it for political purposes and anything that would have caused even a little bit of sympathy.

I mean, Officer Chauvin was roundly condemned by Democrats and Republicans across the country as a murderer, really, right away.

Now again, as you and I both agreed, he may still be criminally guilty of homicide here. We have to see how the case transpires. But they ran with the narrative right away of a racist cop, part of a racist system who murdered this man in cold blood with no provocation, with no underlying or mitigating circumstances leading to that use of force. That was a disservice to the truth.

And Attorney General Ellison here for the State of Minnesota saying that he wants a successful prosecution. He is supposed to want justice, and I think that that has been lost in all of this.

CARLSON: Yes, they're lying to us. And again, people can decide. The jury can decide. But whenever people withhold facts from the public, whenever they lie to create a storyline that is not rooted in truth, but in myth, for political purposes, the rest of us should demand that they stop and then, yet, we've rolled over completely.

I mean, this is a longer conversation, but do you think, at some point, we're going to rethink how we respond to moments like this? When a tragedy is immediately leveraged for political gain, maybe the rest of us should say hold on a second, I want all the facts before I weigh in.

SEXTON: I think the way this was set up, especially given a country that was already under psychological duress, because of the COVID lockdowns and a lot of anger and frustration brewing, people exploited this right away.

And if you tried to weigh, Tucker, and this was true, really for a lot of people in journalism as well, and I even think people who are of good faith, they were essentially told, you either go along with this with a narrative right away or you're racist. There was no grounds for, let's just wait for more facts. And that is dangerous and that needs to change.

CARLSON: Yes. Yes, we shouldn't put up with that. Ever. Buck Sexton, great to see you. Thanks so much.

SEXTON: Thanks, Tucker.

CARLSON: So a lot has happened since that tragedy, and it was a tragedy in Minneapolis on Memorial Day, an awful lot. And most of it has been bad for the weakest among us.

There has been a massive uptick in violence across the country. Homicides are up 24 percent in America's biggest cities. Here's a look at the consequences.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice over): This is nine-year-old Janari Ricks, instead of planning his future, his parents are planning his funeral.

Chicago Police say they've worked around the clock to find the suspect that fired multiple rounds Friday evening in the 900 Block of North Cambridge killing Janari.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice over): The Portland Police Bureau says the amount of shootings doubled compared to a year ago. The worst the city has seen in 30 years.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice over): There been so many shootings in the first seven months of 2020 that we are now ahead of the total of 776 for all of last year.

The story of the city's youngest murder victim, one-year-old baby Davell Gardner Jr., who was shot and killed in his stroller at a barbecue, hurt everyone with a heart and a conscience.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Boy, that is sad. So what are our elected representatives doing to protect us from this chaos? Well, from their responses you would be forgiven for thinking the government works for the criminals against you and your interest.

In Minneapolis, city government moved to eliminate their police department. Here's what happened after they did that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice over): With a segment of the public and the City Council against them, the Police Union says morale is terrible. Officers don't proactively police and are reluctant to use force.

Victor Herrera is just trying to run his restaurant.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VICTOR HERRERA, RESTAURANT OWNER: In the night, there is no security here, so there are a lot of people try to get in inside in the back. Stealing things in the back and we need more police.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: City government sent a memo out in Minneapolis telling citizens when they were confronted by criminals to just give up your cell phone and your wallet.

Yes, in Seattle, the City Council tried to ban police from using teargas to control rioters who are torching local businesses. Gangs, of course swooped in to take advantage of the government mandated lockdowns, recruiting boys who should be at school or at work.

This trend by the way, doesn't just apply to New York City, big Metropolises, it applies to places like Olympia, Washington as well. Fort Wayne, Indiana; Green Bay, Wisconsin, Milwaukee -- thanks to work of freelance journalist Michael Tracey, we know that businesses in those cities have seen the worst violence and looting they've experienced in decades. Much of it, by the way, irony of irony, affects immigrants who showed up here with no money, no privilege, and tried to get their piece of the American Dream only to see it short circuited by the violence.

These are some of the pictures in Tracey's piece showing the destruction. Take a look. They're important. "Please don't hurt us," reads a sign from a convenience store owned by a Mexican-American. He said he was looted. That's in Minneapolis. That's the epicenter of the destruction.

There are dozens of pictures like this. The damage has been permanent, by the way. Big retailers have begun rebuilding. Smaller businesses are still fighting to obtain insurance money, many are giving up and closing for good.

Michael Tracey is the man who wrote that piece and took those pictures. He is a freelance journalist. He joins us now. Michael, thanks so much for coming on.

I'm struck by two things. One, how good this piece is and how arresting the images are; and two, that you who don't work for a big news organization did this story when almost nobody else did. You just drove from little city to little city and asked the people who live there, how are things going?

Why isn't "The Washington Post" and "The New York Times" -- why aren't they doing this?

MICHAEL TRACEY, FREELANCE JOURNALIST: Well, that's true, Tucker. I mean, it wasn't rocket science. We were told that this was the biggest protest movement ever in U.S. history, or at least "The New York Times," very excitedly reported that, and in tandem with that protest movement were historic nationwide riots on the order of something we've never seen since at least the 60s and perhaps even going back further.

So as somebody with a journalistic instinct, I wanted to see for myself how communities were dealing with the aftermath, what the attitudes toward what transpired were. I just wasn't really getting that from the sort of mainstream organs that you would expect to be covering a story of such purported significance.

And you're right, I mean, just traveling around, I can't tell you how many boarded up establishments I've seen. It's impossible to keep a tally. And this is across the entire country. I've driven across the continental United States.

And if you go to "The New York Times," you go to "Washington Post" or you go to any of these other outlets, it's not as though there's an easily accessible tally anywhere where you could, you know, find out what the precise quantification is of the amount of destruction that's been wrought in these purportedly historic events.

And you really have to ask yourself, why is that? Why has journalistic resources not been deployed to illuminate the scope of what occurred? It's a pretty simple question to pose and yet the answer seems to be elusive.

CARLSON: So let me get your subjective view of it all, having done it, driven coast to coast through towns big and small. You've lived in this country all your life. What's it like? How extensive is the damage?

TRACEY: The damage is beyond anything that I've witnessed in my lifespan, which isn't that long, thankfully. But also beyond anything, I understand have happened in the United States, again, since at least the 1960s and perhaps earlier.

I mean, I think there are components or features of these particular riots that differ from the 1960s where these are very much multiracial in nature in terms of the perpetrators.

So you have certain cities in which the protesters or the rioters are more white than the police forces which have been dispatched to control or monitor them, which is sort of interesting sociologically, wouldn't you say?

And yet again, when you go to, you know, even some relatively sparse locales, like you mentioned in the intro, Green Bay, Wisconsin; Olympia, Washington and then in combination obviously with Chicago, and Seattle, and Philadelphia. Again, the enormity of this just has not been anywhere near close to conveyed by the information sources which the public relies upon for accurate depictions of what's going on in the country around them. And that, to me is disturbing as a citizen in addition to a journalist.

Another thing that I notice when speaking to the residents of all of these places, many of whom are minority, many of whom are recent immigrants, as you noted, whose livelihoods have been completely upended is that their sentiments differ markedly from the activists and journalists who profess to be speaking on their behalf.

These residents, again, largely nonwhite, tend to be far more scornful, far more condemnatory of what has rocked their communities than the pundits and the activists who gallivant around and claim to be their representatives in the popular discourse.

There could not be a wider gulf there and that also has not been anywhere near close to adequately conveyed.

CARLSON: So that is journalism when a reporter actually gets out on the road with a car and notebook and ask people questions, you find surprising things. Michael Tracey, thank you so much. I hope our viewers will read your piece, it is worth it. Appreciate it.

TRACEY: Thanks, Tucker.

CARLSON: Well, students ought to be heading back to school at the end of this month or the beginning of next. Summer is winding down, but many of them won't be doing that. We'll tell you why.

Plus, a Federal agency fired American workers and replaced them with foreigners. That actually happened. It's about to stop happening. Thanks to an Executive Order. Great story, just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: It's August. That means your kids should be heading back to school pretty soon. But the completely incoherent public health officials who now run this country have decided that your kids absolutely cannot under any circumstances step foot inside a classroom this fall, at least until Joe Biden wins.

Going to class would be a disaster, they say, and you're a monster for considering it. And by the way, don't even think about setting up study sessions or hiring tutors because contemplating that makes you, yes, a racist.

We are not exaggerating, incidentally. PBS which you fund with your taxpayer dollars, would like you to know that if you want to educate your child outside the closed public school system, you are, quote, "vastly deepening inequities in access to education," end quote.

You're a fool if you think this is about children though. It has nothing to do with children. We know the virus poses very little threat to them. So what is it about? Well, here's one possibility given that it's an election year.

If students aren't allowed to go back to school, about 24 million people may have to stop working. They are parents who need to take care of their children, and they're not going to be able to work and do that.

According to a report today from Goldman Sachs, which specializes in telling us what we already knew. Since May, seven million people a week haven't worked because they need childcare and they don't have it. Now, ask yourself which political party stands to benefit if those numbers rise through Election Day?

We'll give you some time.

The Governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan tried to put an end to this lunacy on Monday. He overruled local officials who wanted to close not just public schools, but private and parochial schools, too, through October 1st.

Hogan argued that the schools themselves ought to be making those decisions, not bureaucrats with a partisan agenda. And that's what this is, by the way, political theater.

In Los Angeles, the public school union isn't even pretending anymore. They want the police to be defunded before they will go back to work. They want a moratorium on charter schools, of course, and a wealth tax.

Here's a hint. When your teacher's agenda resembles the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign platform, it's not really about education anymore, and it's going to get worse until elected officials say stop.

Well, in Los Angeles, police were called to a house party in a big house where an urgent situation was developing last night. It turns out, people were not wearing masks. They weren't social distancing. They weren't rioting though, so the LAPD found this to be a totally unlawful assembly. Watch this remarkable footage.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice over): Sky Nine live over Beverly Press tonight where the LAPD has responded to a large party happening right now at a mansion.

As you can see, large gatherings are banned under the county's Coronavirus Health Orders.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice over): There is a food truck there, as well as the DJ. Few if any masks or social distancing going on. You see the police officers there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Yes, we have a situation. News chopper six on the scene. We have a food truck and a DJ. We will keep you posted with this developing story.

It's beyond parody. For years, science and health experts, actual experts have said that lockdowns do more harm than good and they lead of course to absurdity like this that we'll be embarrassed about when we wake up from our stupor.

Alex Berenson has been chronicling all of this. He is the author of "Unreported Truths About COVID-19 and Lockdowns." He joins us tonight. Alex, thanks so much for coming on. So where are we in the course of this pandemic?

ALEX BERENSON, AUTHOR: That's a great question Tucker. And, you know, there's good reason to believe actually if you look at some of the Sunbelt States that may be the worst of what, you know, I don't know if you call it the second way or the summer spike is behind us.

Hospitalizations in places like Arizona and Florida and Texas are all declining. Now deaths lag, I've said that to you before, and so you know, other people in the media who want to foment panic are going to be able to probably look at flat or slightly rising death counts, maybe for you know, for some period in the next few days and make hay with that if they want to.

But if you actually look at hospitalizations, it looks like we maybe past - - we may well be past the worst of this in the Sunbelt, and that is very, very striking because, you know, the unreported truths, the new one is about lockdowns, and whether or not they work.

And the Sunbelt states didn't really lock down again in June and July as they saw this spike, and it seemed to have crested. They didn't have hospital overrun. They didn't have anything like the death counts in New York City and the northeast in the spring.

And so if you're going to be somebody who is in favor of lockdowns, you really have to grapple with that and explain to me and explain to the world, explain to the nation why it is that lockdowns work so well if these places that didn't lock down seem to have seen a better outcome than places that really locked down hard.

And if you look at Europe, it's the same thing. Sweden now seems to be basically done with its epidemic. We don't -- I hate to say that with certainty because we don't know in three months or six months what might happen.

CARLSON: Right.

BERENSON: But right now, there are very, very few new cases in Sweden which didn't lock down and parts of the rest of Europe are seeing a new spike. And there's sort of good epidemiological reasons to believe that lockdowns don't work, which is why in 2006 -- which is why for 15 years, experts on pandemics said, this was not a good idea, and then all of a sudden in March, they threw out everything that they've been saying.

CARLSON: Amazing. Alex Berenson whose research has been going on for months now, available on Amazon and I think worth reading.

Alex Berenson, thank you so much.

BERENSON: Tucker, thanks for having me.

CARLSON: So, the mob, meaning unhappy people on social media are demanding that Trader Joe's rename its international brands, Trader Jose for example as racist. But the supermarket chain is fighting back, amazingly. That's next.

Plus, the cultural banals at CNN are policing the English language again and eliminating a word that most of use maybe every other sentence. You're going to want to know what they banned before you get canceled for using it.

We will tell you just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Well, in recent years, the Jacobins of the new left have succeeded in banning huge parts of our common vocabulary, the English language in this country. No one ever pushes back against them, so we shouldn't be surprised they've kept going. They haven't stopped with illegal alien and manhole cover. No.

At CNN, which is the official news channel of cultural vandalism, the word "woman" is now off limits. But wait a second, you ask. Don't progressives raise billions pretending to be allies of women? Yes, they used to, but now they've moved on to more fashionable interest groups.

Last week, CNN's official Twitter account sent out this headline, quote, "Individuals with a cervix are now recommended to start cervical cancer screening at 25 and continue through age 65." End quote.

Well as it happens, there aren't any quote, "individuals with a cervix" in CNNs primetime lineup, so the channel may not be aware that only women have cervices. Every individual with a cervix is therefore a woman. So why don't just say woman and save seven syllables?

Well because that would be true and obvious, and if there's one thing the left can't stand and won't tolerate and is deeply threatened by, its obvious truths.

Well, the San Diego's Museum of Man has decided to change its name, thank god, to the Museum of Us. Here is the CEO of the museum explaining why.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's really important to us that our name is a reflection of our values as an institution and it reflects who we are and what we stand for and that is being a place that is welcoming to everybody, that sends an invitation to everybody that you belong here.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice over): The Chief Executive Officer of the museum says in the past, there were many visitors who said they didn't identify with the museum's name.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Everything really is Orwell. The left has got to the point where they only use like 11 words in different combinations. It's who we are. It's our values. It's welcoming. Every one of them a lie.

Tammy Bruce, hosts "Get Tammy Bruce" on Fox Nation which is excellent. She joins us tonight. Tammy, how were you? And what do you think?

TAMMY BRUCE, FOX NEWS CHANNEL CONTRIBUTOR: You know, I'm fine. And this is a point where we've gotten to where the woke crowd is now simply looking for things to be mad about. They can't stop, you know. There's no place where they can stop. So you get to this point.

And of course, it's absurd. They want to be inclusive. There's nothing more inclusive than the term "man." It is inclusive of the species, right? It's humankind. So when you think about, look, you mentioned manhole covers, I can't wait until we get to the us-hole covers.

I mean, there's a point where it is absurd, and of course, the heartbreak of this is there are some legitimate things we can talk about clearly for equity in society and now, it's become a joke. This is the problem.

And so it's a shame. You know, look, they've lost donors. They've admitted this. Donors are saying, look, you're trying to change history here and if they're hoping the state is going to bail them out, the state of course is having its own problem as are most blue states, so they might want to be a welcoming area and at this point they might end up just being an outdoor park.

Because you know, history is filled with all kinds of things and they seem to be uncomfortable with that.

CARLSON: Yes, well in some places, they're eliminating history entirely. So the supermarket chain Trader Joe's now taking a lot of abuse for the way it brands its international products. They call their Mexican food line, for example, Trader Jose's, their Chinese food, Trader Ming's.

The company initially said it would eliminate those brands, but now may keep them. What do you make of this?

BRUCE: Well, is this another perfect example right, Tucker? This started from a high school student who was outraged. She found her own anger and decided that those were offensive and racist and culturally appropriating and their initial reaction, she started a petition, got a few thousand signatures, and they immediately overreacted.

They immediately said, okay, we're going to change all of those things. But you know, the thing about Trader Joe's is, you know, it's meant to be fun. It is meant to be a salute to the different kinds of cultural foods. You know, the pasta is Trader Giotto's, et cetera.

And it came out, a PR firm saying, okay, we're going to change everything. And then apparently they began to hear from customers who said, no, wait a minute. No one is offended. Frankly, Tucker, like, no one is offended at the word, "man." Not really. And no one is offended by what Trader Joe's was doing.

The customers, thank goodness, were not afraid to call in and say we're okay with that. And they reversed themselves saying, you know, we're not going to change our packaging because we've heard from our customers, and they say we understood. They understood what we were doing.

So that's a good sign. Maybe that's another curve we're going to be flattening here.

CARLSON: Yes, I mean, I think the woke people, if they want to help, maybe they should tip more. They are famously bad tippers. So, if you actually want to help the little guy, like leave a hundred bucks next time you buy a cup of coffee at Starbucks or something. That never seems to occur to them. I've noticed, which tells you a lot.

BRUCE: That's right. And stop seeing everyone as the enemy. That might help some unity as well.

CARLSON: I agree with that. Tammy, great to see you tonight. Thanks so much.

BRUCE: Thank you, Tucker.

CARLSON: So Joe Biden is doing pretty well on the polls and the key maybe everyone imagines Joe Biden is the same as he was in 2008, but he's not. They don't want you to know he is not, so they're trying to keep him out of the debates. We will tell you how, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Joe Biden's handlers have claimed again and again that he will stick with the schedule set by the Commission on Presidential Debates and face off against the incumbent three times before the election, starting next month.

They claimed that as recently as today, of course that promise is being taken as a threat by Democratic operatives around Biden. They know that their candidate's poll numbers depend entirely on voters being unable to see or hear him speak.

If Biden is allowed to talk in public, he will ruin everything. That's why this summer, "The New York Times" ran a piece by Tom Friedman saying that Biden shouldn't debate unless Trump releases his tax returns. It was an obvious ploy. We noted that at the time, but at least Tom Friedman tried to pretend he was taking a principled stand.

It was about fairness, he claimed. It had nothing to do with Joe Biden's inability to think clearly, just fairness.

But leave it to former Bill Clinton Press Secretary, Joe Lockhart, the dumbest person ever to hold that job to shatter the facade.

In a column last week, conspicuously titled, "Joe Biden could still lose this election," Joe Lockhart spelled out his prescription directly to Biden. His words even Biden could understand, Dr. Seuss level stuff, "Whatever you do," Lockhart wrote to Joe Biden, "Don't debate Trump." End quote. Got that?

As if he needed to spell out his contempt for voters a little more. Clearly, Lockhart warned that Trump quote, "can't follow the rules or the truth." That's coming from the flack for the President who was impeached for lying.

It's coming from a man who posted a made-up conversation between Republican senators back in January. Irony, of course is dead. The pallbearer is Joe Lockhart.

But Lockhart is hardly alone. Strategists and operatives have received their marching orders. Bill Kristol, the fervent Democratic partisan today tweeted that Joe Biden shouldn't debate. The public shouldn't know any more than it already does. Too much information could be bad for our plans to take power. Shut it down.

It tells you everything.

Well, speaking of the ability to freely disseminate information, 77 percent of Republicans polled said they were afraid to express their opinions publicly. They know that expressing right of center views could get them fired. So, what is the conservative establishment? The groups that take in billions every year to protect conservatives doing to protect conservatives.

David Azerrad has been in that establishment for a long time and watch carefully. He is now a Professor at Hillsdale College. He joins us tonight. David, thanks so much for coming on.

Simple question. What are the conservative institutions that conservatives fund doing to protect conservatives at a moment of maximum peril?

DAVID AZERRAD, PROFESSOR, HILLSDALE COLLEGE: Well, they're either fiddling while Rome burns for the most part by refusing to stand up to the left or they are actively throwing fuel onto the fire by supporting trade and immigration policies that harm the countries, by mindlessly defending corporate America, no matter how woke it goes, and so there is a vast disconnect between the legacy institutions of the right, the think tanks, the magazines, the activist organizations, and the base, the people who support them and the Republican electorate.

CARLSON: That can't continue forever, can it? That misalignment between leaders and their people?

AZERRAD: Well, you know, the business model works and the evidence of that is the hundreds of millions of dollars that continue to flow into their coffers each year. Now part of this money comes from members of the ruling class and Corporate America who have a vested interest in keeping America on the track that it's in.

But the other part I think is, well-intentioned Americans like you and me and you know, look when we donate, we don't scrutinize where our philanthropic dollars go. We're readily taken in by someone, you know, who has a Reagan quote and a smile, and we're like, yes, they represent me.

And I would urge patriotic Americans who are sick and tired of the left desecrating everything that they hold dear to look under the hood, and look at where their philanthropic dollars are going.

CARLSON: Unless they're actively defending you, and by defending I mean, making it possible for you to live as you've lived even 10 years ago as a normal American with freedom of speech.

Unless they're doing that, they're probably acting against you. Do you think that's a fair summation?

AZERRAD: Yes, you know, let me quote a line from the left Tucker, in this regard silence is violence. I mean, the right cannot afford to sit out these fights, because everyone is lined up against ordinary Americans. The corporations, the universities, the media, Hollywood, the government and who's going to stand up for them if not their elected representatives?

CARLSON: That's right.

AZERRAD: And the people who claim to represent them.

CARLSON: That's totally right. David Azerrad, one Z, two Rs. Worth looking up the piece he wrote on this exact subject, I think at "The American Conservative," great piece. Thanks, David. Good to see you.

AZERRAD: Thank you.

CARLSON: Donald Trump signed an Executive Order yesterday designed to stop Federal agencies from replacing American workers with foreign contractors. The decision comes after a Federal utility tried outsourcing 20 percent of its entire staff. Details next.

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CARLSON: Outsourcing jobs, importing foreign labor, these are the greatest threats to Americans livelihoods, have been for decades. There's really no question about that.

So on Monday, the President signed an Executive Order requiring Federal agencies to complete an internal audit to prove they're not replacing qualified American workers with foreign nationals.

The President also fired the Chair of the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Federal utility for hiring foreign workers, 20 percent of their IT staff, not entire staff, IT tech staff, foreign workers.

Pedro Gonzalez is assistant editor at "American Greatness." He joins us to assess this. Pedro, thanks for coming on. What do you think of this move? How big is it?

PEDRO GONZALEZ, ASSISTANT EDITOR, "AMERICAN GREATNESS": It is big and necessary and overdue. The people at TVA don't have any recourse just like all of the other people that have been victims of outsourcing, they don't have a voice. They haven't had a champion for years.

And this was one of the issues that got Trump elected -- immigration. Not just illegal immigration, but legal immigration, which is I think a lot of people are starting to understand that legal immigration is a much more serious problem because you're talking about kneecapping Middle America.

These jobs that pay well, right, these jobs that you can build families with, we are selling them out. We're outsourcing them to contractors and we're literally sending them overseas.

And so what the President did with TVA was announce legislation that's going to close a loophole that companies used to outsource. And so for example, with TVA, these employees are -- they're not being replaced directly. TVA is contracting through, they are called body shops.

The product of these body shops is people. So TVA will contract with them and then they will indirectly hire these contractors, many of them are here with the H-1B visa, and these contractors will basically indirectly replace American workers.

Why does it happen? Because these contractors, unlike American citizens, are not protected by the same wage regulations. So TVA can underpay them and get away with it. And I think what's -- sorry, go ahead.

CARLSON: No, I was just -- I was murmuring agreement. I mean, these are the jobs that you send your kids to STEM classes so they can get and then they get fired and undercut by foreign nationals. Correct?

GONZALEZ: That's right. Yes, exactly. We tell kids to go to college and to work hard and to commit themselves and have a better life. But that's not the kind of immigration system that we have.

The system that we have now works against everyone who takes that advice seriously. I mean, to give you an idea, 74 percent of people with STEM degrees in the United States are not working in STEM fields, and I think a lot of it stems from the fact that if you work in like IT, you have a sword hanging over your head. You know, you never know when you're going to be replaced.

And so, of course, companies like TVA will kind of weasel around with words and they'll say, well, all the people that we're hiring are legally in the United States. That's true, but ultimately trivial. Just because something is legal, doesn't mean it's moral.

CARLSON: That's right.

GONZALEZ: And I think to make it -- to show how ironic this is, TVA, the Tennessee Valley Authority was created under President Roosevelt as essentially an economic development project for the Tennessee Valley.

So a corporation that was created to give Americans jobs in Tennessee, which was ravaged by the Great Depression is now outsourcing those jobs to foreign nationals.

CARLSON: It tells you everything. There were different kind of Democrats then.

Pedro Gonzalez, thanks so much for that. Great to see you tonight.

We are out of time. Sean Hannity is right now.

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