This is a rush transcript from "Tucker Carlson Tonight," June 17, 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.
Just a few hours ago, the Fulton County Georgia District Attorney, Paul Howard Jr. charged former Atlanta police officer Garrett Rolfe with murder in addition to 10 other criminal charges. If convicted, Rolfe faces execution.
The alleged crime at the heart of it is the shooting of a suspect called Rayshard Brooks. We told you the details of it two nights ago.
Last Friday, Rayshard Brooks passed out drunk in the drive-thru lane of a Wendy's in Atlanta. Brooks's car was blocking traffic so restaurant employees called the police. They arrived -- Rolfe and his partner.
They woke Brooks and they asked him if he had been drinking. Brooks admitted that he had had been. Officers then move forward with a textbook DUI arrest. Nothing unusual.
But when they tried to take Brooks into custody, Brooks started swinging. He fought the officers to the ground and then snatched a taser from one of them and tried to use it against Officer Rolfe.
When Brooks raised the taser to fire, Rolfe shot and killed him.
Here's some of the video.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OFFICER DEVIN BROSNAN, ATLANTA POLICE: Hey, sir. You all right? You're parked -- you're sitting in the drive-thru line here.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Stop. Very good.
RAYSHARD BROOKS, KILLED BY POLICE: I just had a few drinks, that's it.
BROSNAN: How many?
BROOKS: One and a half? Like I said, I was getting to the second cup. I was leaving. I told her, babe, let's go, because I'm hungry.
BROSNAN: What kind of drinks did you have?
BROOKS: I'm not sure. It is something she ordered. She said top shelf or whatever. Just take me home. I am ready to go.
BROSNAN: So you had about one and a half drinks, but you don't remember what kind of drink it was.
BROOKS: No, sir.
BROSNAN: All right.
BROOKS: I really don't know.
BROSNAN: I think you've had too much to drink to be driving. Put your hands behind your back for me. Okay, put your hands behind your back. Hey, stop fighting. Stop fighting. Stop fighting. Stop fighting. You're going to get tased. You're going to get tased. Stop.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's wrong?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stop.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stop. You're going to get tased.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's wrong?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's got [bleep] taser. He's got the taser. He's got the taser. Stop fighting. [Bleep] taser.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CARLSON: After the shooting, Officer Rolfe tried to keep Rayshard Brooks alive. He performed CPR on the man he just shot.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GARRETT ROLFE, FORMER POLICE OFFICER WHO SHOT RAYSHARD BROOKS: Mr. Brooks, keep breathing. Mr. Brooks, keep breathing for me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: "Mr. Brooks, keep breathing." Rolfe said. "Keep breathing for me."
No matter how much you look at these videos or how closely, it's a tragedy every time. A father of three girls is dead. The question is, was it murder? Ask yourself? How do you think you would do regardless of what color you are?
If you snatch a cop's taser and tried to shoot him with it, most likely you'd be dead. No one would march in your memory. No one would burn a building in your name. No one would consider your death controversial, much less a racial act.
That's what happens when you attack police officers with their own weapons. Everyone knows that.
But in this case, things are very different. Officer Rolfe is facing the death penalty. He has been charged by a DA who is under enormous political pressure to prosecute. The mob wants vengeance now. They've expressed that by burning the Wendy's where Rayshard Brooks died to the ground.
They've committed violence. Will they commit more if he's not charged? That has to be weighing on Paul Howard, and not just that, Paul Howard is fighting for his job. Howard is facing a runoff election soon. Howard is also being investigated for sexual harassment and for stealing money from a nonprofit.
So, Paul Howard has every reason to change the subject and to bow immediately to the mob's demands and that's what he is doing.
During his press conference today, Howard described Rayshard Brooks, the man who went berserk on two police officers and knocked them to the ground as quote, "jovial."
Watch Howard's statement here and compare it to the video we just played you.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PAUL HOWARD, FULTON COUNTRY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: Mr. Brooks on the night of this incident was calm. He was cordial and really displayed a cooperative nature.
Secondly, even though Mr. Brooks was slightly impaired, his demeanor during this incident was almost jovial.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Jovial? You just watched the tape. Calm and cooperative are probably the first words that came to mind, especially the part where Brooks grabbed the cop's taser and fired it at him.
Just two weeks ago, this very same prosecutor, the one you just saw, Paul Howard, noted at a press conference and we're quoting, "A taser is considered a deadly weapon under Georgia law." Whatever. That was then.
By the way, it was a taser, it could very easily have been Officer Rolfe's gun. Brooks would not have known the difference between a pistol and a taser in the middle of a brawl.
Had that been the case, Officer Rolfe would be dead right now, and you never would have heard the story because no one in the media would have cared enough to tell you.
So, the prosecutor would like you to know that Mr. Brooks was cordial and no threat at all.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HOWARD: Mr. Brooks, never presented himself as a threat. At the very beginning, he was peacefully sleeping in his car.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Just a guy peacefully sleeping in his car and now, he is dead. So, why were the cops hassling a man who was just peacefully sleeping?
Well, the prosecutor suggested why. Take a guess.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HOWARD: Officer Rolf actually kicked Mr. Brooks while he laid on the ground, while he was there fighting for his life.
Officer Brosnan actually stood on Mr. Brooks's shoulders while he was there struggling for his life.
The demeanor of the officers immediately after the shooting did not reflect any fear or danger of Mr. Brooks, but their actions really reflected other kinds of emotions.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Oh, it reflected other kinds of emotions. Got that? We know what's coming next. Guaranteed. They're going to tell us this was a racially motivated killing, and maybe they can prove that it was, we're always open minded.
But at this point, we very much doubt it. There is zero evidence of that so far.
In the absence of evidence, Paul Howard should not say things like this at press conferences. It makes people hate each other. It tears the country apart, which is the last thing we need right now.
Atlanta's police department is 58 percent black. That's a higher percentage of black people than the City of Atlanta itself.
To explain how systemic racism is responsible for the shooting and speak slowly so we can understand.
Cops in Atlanta know exactly what's going on and what's likely to happen next. There are reports tonight that many of them have walked off the job at the beginning of their shift. No doubt many will retire from the force and leave.
The Police Chief has already quit. Who would want to enforce the law in a political environment like this? You make less than a plumber. Everybody hates you. You could very easily get killed. You try to defend yourself and they charge you with murder.
No way. No normal person would want that job. So, who is going to take the job? Going forward, we are going to get a lot of very bad people becoming police officers. And that's one of the many things ironies here.
Pressure from the mob will not stop police brutality, it will almost certainly increase police brutality as the worst kind of people become police, because who else would want it?
For now, though attacks on law enforcement mean that many of us have no police protection at all. Recently, the Black Lives Matter riots came to Charleston, South Carolina. Police disappeared. What happened next?
This hasn't been widely reported, but we thought we'd share it with you. It's a transcript of a 911 call from a restaurant in downtown Charleston near the Battery. This is a quote.
"It's the Macintosh restaurant. I called earlier, but it's gotten worse. The riots broke into the restaurant and they are stealing all the money, the alcohol. They're tearing up the seats. Thirty employees are stuck in the courtyard. They're barricading the doors, and they're trying to break in. I called maybe 15 minutes ago and there are still no cops and there are 30 people in danger." No evidence the cops ever came.
Ken Schneider owns a wine bar nearby in Charleston. Black Lives Matter rioters came for him, too. He and his staff repeatedly called the police for help, but no one came.
Ultimately, Schneider told the local television station that he told dispatchers quote, "Forget it. It's too late. My place is destroyed."
Schneider later said he was completely in disbelief that the police didn't come. Schneider should consider himself lucky by comparison. People are losing more than just their businesses in this environment.
In New York City, murders are up 25 percent just this year and that's despite the lockdowns. In just the past month, the number of murders recorded in the city has literally doubled compared to this time a year ago.
It's not really surprising. We saw the same thing happen in Baltimore after the Freddie Gray riots. When you politicize law enforcement, innocent people inevitably die.
That is not a partisan point. The expectation that the police will come and protect you is not ideological, ask any liberal who has ever called the police in crisis and had them not show up.
It's terrifying. No matter who you vote for. Protecting the public from criminals is not some feature of government we hope for. It's why we have government. It's the whole point of government. There is no reason to have government otherwise. It's the reason we pay taxes.
If you went to a restaurant and they refused to serve you food, you probably wouldn't pay the bill. If the restaurant tried to make you pay the bill, you would resist and you have every right to resist. No one should be forced to submit to theft, and taxation without protection is theft. It is the definition of it.
The rest of us have a right to say that, in fact, an obligation to say it and don't let them distract you or confuse you with slogans or rioting.
This is not about the shooting death of one man outside Wendy's. It's about something much larger and much more important to every American no matter where you live.
It's about whether we're going to have a justice system that treats all American citizens equally, regardless of what the mob demands. It's about whether we can live peacefully in our own homes with our families without fear. Confident that we are protected by the government that we pay for.
If the government will not protect us, we should stop paying for it and that might finally get their attention.
Danny Coulson is the former Deputy Assistant Director of the F.B.I. He joins us tonight. Mr. Coulson, thanks so much for coming on. You've been in law enforcement all your life. You talk to people who are still in it. Why would anyone --
DANNY COULSON, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF THE F.B.I.: Thank you very much, Tucker.
CARLSON: Why would anyone want to enforce the law right now?
COULSON: Well, that's a great point and what you're seeing in Atlanta, and I know this for a fact that officers are walking off the job.
You know, Tucker, Lady Justice is supposed to have a blindfold on, but in this case, Lady Justice is looking to the eyes of a corrupt politician and answering to the mob and it's a travesty.
Also, I think there's an important case here that we need to point out and that is that the Georgia Bureau of Investigation was asked to investigate this case, and this prosecutor announced charges before the investigation was even done.
So, where's the process? Where's the rule of law? We don't have it now. And it's a travesty. And I'm in contact with police officers literally every day of my life, and all of them are looking to leave or retire, or get out of the business.
And that's really too bad because frankly, they are some of our best trained, most loyal, courageous people we have in our society.
CARLSON: I keep thinking when I watch these videos, and I work in a business that's on video, so I know that video can distort the truth. And I've certainly seen other stories, including recently where the video doesn't really tell you what's happening.
Here's my question to you as someone who has been around it all your life. If the prosecutor had more evidence that this was in fact a murder, and not just a tragic shooting, and he had evidence that there was some bias behind the shooting, he would have told us today at the press conference, correct?
COULSON: He doesn't have it, and frankly, it looks like to me that that officer was just fine doing what he did. Every policeman in the country is trained that if you you're opposing an individual with a taser, that's like that individual having a firearm. In fact, that's the law in the State of Georgia.
So, he is not doing the right thing here, and he doesn't want the facts. He doesn't want to be confused about having a factual rendition, and he should be removed. He should be disbarred, removed and let us do an investigation.
Let the Civil Rights Division come in. Let the Georgia Bureau of Investigation do it and let's find out what happened. I think we're going to find that those lives of those officers were imperiled by the actions of this individual.
CARLSON: I keep hearing from people I know in Atlanta that the prosecutor likely felt he had no choice. This is the view among people in Atlanta because if he didn't charge this police officer with murder, the city would burn. What kind of society do we live in where we follow the demands of people who set buildings on fire?
COULSON: Well, that's mob rule. That's exactly what we don't want. Again, it gets back to the sails of justice, and Lady Justice, she is supposed to be blind to that.
You saw it in Baltimore. That prosecutor there indicted those officers without any evidence to answer the call of the mob. She even said that. I hear what you're saying. And she indicted those policemen. They were all acquitted.
Now, what's the result? Policing in Baltimore is at an end. They are just letting go. They're not going to go on and risk their lives or careers and prosecution because of some prosecutor that answers to the mob. That's not what we're all about.
CARLSON: No. And we saw this ironically, in the south, you know, 70 years ago, and we said, we were against it, but we're applauding it now for some reason.
COULSON: No --
CARLSON: Danny, great to see.
COULSON: Thank you. It's always a pleasure. I enjoy your show.
CARLSON: Thank you. Heather Mac Donald has spent years studying the subject. She's the author of "The War on Cops" and we're always happy to have her on the show.
Heather, thanks so much for coming on. So, it does seem like our leaders have kind of given up on the idea of equal justice, something that I think we hired them to defend, it is the most important thing we have in this country, but have you seen any defend that idea?
HEATHER MAC DONALD, AUTHOR: We're living through a civilization crushing failure of our elites, Tucker. This is an absolutely terrifying moment.
Across the board America's elites, whether it's in the political class, media, education have embraced a patently false narrative about systemic police bias. That narrative is easily disprovable by looking at the most basic facts about policing and crime.
But by embracing that false narrative, they are undercutting the legitimacy of law enforcement of our criminal justice system, and in so doing, they're putting thousands more lives at risk. They're putting black lives at risk, who will be taken now through unchecked criminal behavior, gang banging, drive-by shootings when officers back off of proactive policing. We saw this in 2015-2016, an additional 2,000 blacks were murdered thanks to cops backing off from what I call the Ferguson effect.
But we're also putting officers' lives at risk because by so undermining the legitimacy of law enforcement, you're going to increase the type of resistance to arrest that we just saw in Atlanta, because people hate the cops even more, that is going to result in officers themselves escalating their use of force, possibly to lethal levels, and we're going to enter a vicious cycle, where both suspects and officers lives are at risk.
Instead, if the elites cared about black lives, if they cared about all lives, they would be sending an unequivocal message, don't resist arrest. Follow an officer's lawful command. If you have a disagreement with those commands, you take it up after the fact.
And now, the violence that we've seen in the last couple of weeks thanks to another failure of our elites to enforce law and order during the wholesale wanton, brutal and sadistic destruction of property and livelihoods is going to repeat itself because there has been absolutely no deterrent message sent.
CARLSON: I heard an elected official say today that the appropriate police response would be to say to Rayshard Brooks, just walk home.
You're passed out drunk in a drive thru-lane at Wendy's, but just walk home, so we're not penalizing drunk driving anymore? Does MAD know this? Like, when did this change?
MAC DONALD: And what if he had walked home and gotten hit by a car? Then the officers would also have been accused of murder and indifference to black life.
The fact of the matter is, cops across the country condemned unequivocally the George Floyd arrest. This is a different case entirely. It bears no resemblance.
Somebody who grabs an officer's equipment, fights him and uses it against him is putting him on notice that he is going to try to kill that cop.
CARLSON: That's exactly right. Heather Mac Donald, thank you for that.
MAC DONALD: Thank you, Tucker.
CARLSON: Demonizing law enforcement has consequences and as always the consequences fall most heavily on the vulnerable, not in Aspen, not Martha's Vineyard, but in places where people are poor.
In New York, a shocking video shows an elderly woman shoved to the ground by a man who it turns out had been arrested 103 times and was let out every time. We've got details ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: Last fall, we welcomed New York Mayor Bill de Blasio onto the show. He insisted that New York City was better than it's ever been. Maybe New York was holding steady because de Blasio was busy with his doomed presidential run and wasn't there to destroy it, but he's back now.
Coronavirus and the government have combined to unleash a crime wave in the city. Chief breaking news correspondent, Trace Gallagher has an update on the condition of New York tonight. Hey, Trace.
TRACE GALLAGHER, FOX NEWS CHANNEL CHIEF BREAKING NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Tucker. You know back in March when New York Governor Andrew Cuomo issued a statewide order demanding jails and prisons release inmates to abide by COVID-19 social distancing guidelines, the NYPD says it did not object to releasing older defendants and those with underlying conditions.
It did object to the wide scale release and now we know why. Of the 2,500 inmates released from Rikers Island, 250 of them have reoffended, and those 250 had been arrested 450 times, like 27-year-old Jonathan Martinez, who was convicted in 2014 of strangling his girlfriend.
Since his release a few months ago from Rikers Island, he has been arrested for six new crimes including forcible touching, robbing a makeup store and robbing a person at knifepoint.
After each new arrest, he is given a court date and released and speaking of repeat offenders, 31-year-old Rashid Brimmage was walking in Manhattan when a 92-year-old woman walks past him. He pops her in the face, she falls to the ground, hitting her head on a fire hydrant.
He kept walking, but was later arrested for the 104th time, including sexually abusing a 13-year-old girl and 10 other sex offenses, which is supposed to disqualify him for early release, and yet, here he is.
The 92-year-old woman is recovering physically, but mentally says she will never again walk alone in Manhattan.
Finally, over the past 28 days in New York, there have been 38 murders. That's twice as many as the same time period last year.
Overall in New York, murders in 2020, up 25 percent over last year. One NYPD official says the trend is the worst in seven years -- Tucker.
CARLSON: Trace Gallagher, thanks so much for that. If you can't protect old ladies as they walk alone, then you're failing. Karol Markowicz is a columnist for "The New York Post" and "The Washington Examiner." We're happy to have her on the show tonight.
Karol, thanks so much for coming on. So, there's so much lying about every enemy right now. Very hard to get to what's really happening, but give us, if you would an accurate snapshot of crime in New York right now.
KAROL MARKOWICZ, COLUMNIST: It's been coming for a while. In December, I wrote about how the quality of life crimes in New York were going on punished and how that was obviously going to spiral into a bigger situation and the crime spike is really not a surprise for anybody that's been following it.
In December, when I wrote that article about the quality of life crimes, I was told, well, it's not murder. So, you know, what's the big deal? But the big deal is now here, and I think we've let the leftist activists and politicians divide us into the camps of either you're pro-police or you believe Black Lives Matter.
But the truth is, if you are pro-police, it's because you believe Black Lives Matter, and if you look at the recent crime spike, it's happening primarily in black neighborhoods. And that's why these white activists have this -- pushing this defund police idea, because it's not happening in their neighborhoods. If it was, they'd want triple the police on their streets.
CARLSON: Yes, Aspen and Martha's Vineyard are still very safe. Is anyone pushing back?
MARKOWICZ: Right. You know, I am seeing somewhat just on social media and I see -- I'm a lifelong New Yorker. I have a lot of friends in New York of all political stripes, and I am seeing this movement among New Yorkers to say we don't want to defend the police. We want the police on our streets. We feel safer when the police are there.
And I think, it is growing because these crime numbers, they're not going to go ignored. And again, when they're happening in white neighborhoods, you're going to see these liberal white people decide that they do like the police after all.
CARLSON: Do you think anyone -- I mean, it's it seems like New York has to learn the same lesson every 30 years or so.
MARKOWICZ: That's probably true. I think that that's part of the thing is like lifelong New Yorkers like me understand that we can't just rest when the numbers are good, and when it's only quality of life crimes happening.
I think a lot of the new arrivals have a really misplaced idea of what New York City is like and what it's been like and they don't know what time when it didn't feel safe to walk around and they don't understand that there was a time when New York was bad.
CARLSON: They think history started yesterday. A lot of people are going to leave New York. It's sad, obviously. Karol Markowicz, thanks so much for coming on tonight.
MARKOWICZ: It is.
CARLSON: It is sad.
MARKOWICZ: Thank you for having me.
CARLSON: Well, our cultural revolution is in progress, as you know, and the main signifier of that artwork is being destroyed for ideological offenses, just like in Mao's China or the Taliban's Afghanistan.
Where will it stop? Will any part be left by the end? That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: Political cults all have one thing in common, they just tried to destroy history and culture to conform to their vision. It's always Year Zero for them. We've seen it all over the world throughout history.
In Afghanistan, in 2001, the Taliban dynamited a 1,500-year-old giant Buddhists. They call them idols. They destroyed them.
Mao's Red Guards desecrated the graves of Emperors and destroyed ancient art by the truckload.
Now, that same impulse to destroy art has come to the United States. It started with Confederate statues, but moved very quickly to, for example, statues of Abraham Lincoln. One in Boston, apparently is coming down. The man who signed the Emancipation Proclamation is now too racist to be represented in art. Columbus statues are being dumped in lakes.
A Georgia law professor wants to destroy Stone Mountain, an irreplaceable work by the man who carved Mount Rushmore and speaking of which, how long do you think it will be before they bomb Mount Rushmore?
Art is being destroyed on a greater scale than any time in American history. No one is defending it. So, we asked Jerry Saltz, he is a Pulitzer Prize winning art critic, a man who appreciates and writes about art for a living what he thought. Here's his reply.
"There's no issue. A revolutionary wave has swept across this country that has basically said enough with racism. This isn't about left and right. It's about right and wrong."
So, the man who won a Pulitzer Prize writing about art is all on board with destroying art in the name of revolution. That's the country we live in tonight.
Ryan Girdusky is the author of "They're Not Listening: How the Elites Created the National Populist Revolution." He joins us tonight. Ryan, thanks so much for coming on.
So, when a Pulitzer Prize winning art critic ...
RYAN GIRDUSKY, AUTHOR: Thank you for having me.
CARLSON: ... won't defend art. When it's left to a right of center talk show hosts to defend art. What kind of country are we in?
GIRDUSKY: Yes, I think we need to look at these people the same way that loyalists of Chiang Kai Shek looked at Mao. This is to quote Peter Hitchens, "a regime change" that they're pushing, and they've realized the anti-racist movement has realized that the institutions that was supposed to safeguard tradition and history and art have really given up and they are kowtowing now to them.
And we have this strange post secular Michel Foucault vision of the world where we're starting at Year Zero, as you said that everything must be viewed as it is today and the vanguard is today. And, you know, Camille Paglia always said, "Better Jehovah than Foucault" because at least with an organized religion, with a real religion, with Christianity or Judaism or what have you, you get things like, ethics like forgiveness and salvation.
You don't get that. You have a Penal Code in the anti-racist movement. You can sit there and be guilty of having white privilege and being born white, but you can never get salvation for it. You can never get redemption for it.
And in this new -- and you could never be woke enough -- and in this new age of reason, we're in a very bleak period because as Sir Roger Scruton always says, "Good things are hard to create and easy to destroy," and we're destroying a lot of them.
CARLSON: Exactly. They have become exactly what they've spent my whole lifetime, 50 years telling us they hated. They're advocating for segregation, for racism, for the destruction of art, and for the destruction of books.
NPR ran a piece about decolonizing your bookshelf -- burning books. This happened so quickly.
GIRDUSKY: Yes.
CARLSON: Are you surprised by it?
GIRDUSKY: No, but the thing is, it didn't really happen that quickly. And I cite this in my book that just was released that if you look at woke terminology and there's a great guy named Zack Goldberg. He's a PhD student, I believe, and he tracked how woke terminology has increased in major media outlets like "The New York Times" and "The Washington Post" since like 2006-2007.
So, it started with colleges saying you can't write -- produce Ernest Hemingway and make people read Ernest Hemingway because it's too masculine to the period that we're in right now.
And let's face it, there's two realities. There's the world of data, which shows it's better to be a black person in America today than ever before. Black incarceration rate is down 40 percent in 30 years. The killing -- shooting and killing of unarmed black men is down 80 percent in five years alone. The wage gap is diminishing.
The wages are going up under President Trump and if he would reform legal immigration and stop work visas -- mass work visas, they got even higher.
And then there's the world of the media and then there's a world of social media. You are nine times today to hear about a black victim of police brutality than a white victim. That does not mean that they are being disproportionally attacked.
CARLSON: And yet our elites are falling for it -- wholesale. And I'm sure your book explains why. Ryan Girdusky, a very smart man. Happy to have you on the show. Hope you'll come back.
GIRDUSKY: Thank you, Tucker.
CARLSON: Time for an update from the brand new nation of CHOP. Tonight, we look at CHOP's economy. Just how much foreign aid is getting into the Autonomous Zone? Is anything being created there? Does anyone have a job?
What is the NGO keeping CHOP afloat? We got to the bottom of that. The answer will surprise you.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: Thanks to coronavirus, extensive rioting, the disappearance of police, and now the creation of an entirely new nation in downtown, it is a tough time to have a business in Seattle, one store owner recently explained.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Walking through downtown Seattle is not like it used to be before the COVID-19 pandemic.
JOEY RODOLFO, STORE OWNER, SEATTLE: It becomes mind-numbing, quite frankly.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Store owner Joey Rodolfo who spoke to a few months ago, says downtown tourism has struggled for a while. He believes people are afraid because of a long list of violent crimes in the area.
JOEY RODOLFO, STORE OWNER, SEATTLE: Just a real bad taste for people to come down here, deal with panhandlers, deal with everything that's going on.
And so for us, as retailers down here, we've been hanging on and then all of a sudden COVID hits.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: That store owner, Joey Rodolfo will be on the show tomorrow night. Well, while people with jobs in Seattle are struggling, people who don't work and smoke weed and spray paint buildings for a living are doing better than ever. They have their own country now, CHOP.
The economy there is thriving, again, not because anybody does anything. Not a single person in CHOP works or has ever worked. Instead, like so many fragile emerging nations, they are propped up by a steady diet of foreign aid from NGOs.
Seattle radio show host Jason Rantz has spent another day at CHOP for us. Our CHOP correspondent joins us now. Jason, thanks so much for coming on.
So, we are getting reports from CHOP that the entire nation's economy and its critical infrastructure, it's Porta-Potties among them is being supported by an NGO, an aid group, which?
JASON RANTZ, SEATTLE RADIO SHOW HOST: Essentially, yes. So they are a proud people at CHOP and they don't really want to ask for help, and the good news is they don't have to ask for help because the City of Seattle, under the leadership of Mayor Jenny Durkan have decided to come in and provide a lot of the services there.
You've got city workers who are coming in, who are cleaning up. The Park cleaning up the space. They're doing the pickup after people who have decided to litter at Cal Anderson Park. They're cleaning of course, the Porta Potties that they have brought in, and they're doing just some of the basic necessities for any country that needs to run smoothly.
Usually you have the actual country doing it, or the city doing it. In this case, you've got the Mayor of Seattle doing it for them.
CARLSON: So it's a little bit like being a stoned teenager in mom's attic. You get high, she does the laundry.
RANTZ: Yes. Although, usually when you're a parent and you find your kid is getting stoned, you usually punish them and you maybe have them do some chores. Here, you actually do the chores for them.
Now at the same time, there seems to be a new leadership group coming forward. A woman by the name of Jaiden Grayson has stepped forward and she actually is doing what parents normally do, which is providing a time that everyone has to be at home. There is a deadline of be in your home if you live in the CHOP area by 10:00 p.m. because this is no longer about protecting the folks who live here. This is now purely about taking over the entire area.
So yesterday when I came on, we had this conversation about the compromise that was made to allow for one way streets. Well, about two hours after we got off the air, they decided -- the folks at CHOP to actually block the one way streets.
Now, one of them is back open as of today, but the other one remains closed.
CARLSON: Man, I feel like it idiot for working. We should burn a Wendy's and maybe Jenny Durkan will bring us dinner. Call me. Jason Rantz.
RANTZ: At some point, it does feel like, maybe that's what we should probably be doing.
CARLSON: Maybe we should. I don't think they're paying a lot of taxes.
RANTZ: No taxes by the way.
CARLSON: No taxes. Pretty good deal.
Thanks to coronavirus, the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo sadly were postponed. Major League Baseball may not come back this year either.
But fear not, sports fans. There is yet hope, thanks to a new athletic competition, the CHOP Summer Games. It's a brand new country, so it's fitting the games will have a whole new battery of sports to compete in.
There's the two man barrier push to keep the police out for those who value speed over strength. There is social justice streaking. There's a contest for the most egregious assault on an outsider. Here's the front runner for the gold medal.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're choking me.
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CARLSON: Pretty physical, but not all contests are feats of strength. The more sedate can try to meddle in pesticide free gardening using CHOP's precious piles of dirt and Dixie cups and marijuana seeds.
Those with vocal talent can compete in the loudest nonsensical screaming competition.
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DAN SPRINGER, FOX NEWS CHANNEL CORRESPONDENT: .. respond to our request for -- a request for information about what they plan to do next.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (shouting from behind): Who do you work for? Who do you work for?
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CARLSON: Then there's the prize for the most vulgar graffiti spray painted on a storefront, extra points for size. There's still time to sign up for the games, and if you want to participate, expect fierce competition.
Unlike the actual Olympics, there will be absolutely no drug testing of any kind. We can promise you that.
So what other events should the Chopestani people include in their first games? For that, we turn to author and columnist, Mark Steyn.
Mark, it's great to see you. I assume you'll be competing in CHOP.
MARK STEYN, AUTHOR AND COLUMNIST: Well, I will certainly be following it, Tucker. You reference the dope testing. That's not actually going too well at the moment.
After a couple of weeks of living out on the streets of CHOP, many of the Chopestani performers are in a bit of a bind because traces of urine have been found in their drug samples. So that's actually a bit of a problem right now.
CARLSON: And gross, if I can say.
STEYN: Mitt Romney -- Mitt Romney who as you know is, I believe the first U.S. Ambassador to the Chopestani people, he really fought hard for that job. And as you know, he ran the Winter Olympics. He is actually managed to import a couple of the top Winter Olympic sports into the CHOP Summer Games.
For example, we've got the two man luge. There's a bit of a difference. The guy on the bottom is one of the CHOP residents, but the guy on top is actually a statue of Christopher Columbus that they've toppled.
And so far in the preliminary rounds, I believe it's the Richmond Virginia Christopher Columbus statue that is in the lead. The Boston Christopher Columbus statue is close behind, but there's some technical dispute with the judges because that guy had his head decapitated, and it's not clear whether a headless Christopher Columbus is actually eligible for the two man luge.
Mitt is also personally going to be judging the ice dancing. This is where members -- Chopestani citizens who were formerly undocumented Americans, they put on the spangley bolero jacket, and they dance around I.C.E. agents and oddly enough, they all skate even though they were scheduled for deportation.
So a lot of interesting new sports at the CHOP Summer Games.
CARLSON: I will see you --
STEYN: Mitt, by the way -- yes, Mitt is actually personally going to bring the blazing -- the Olympic torch from the nearest flaming Wendy's. It's been carried by Mitt running Wendy's to Wendy's to Wendy's, one flaming Wendy's to another across the globe until it finally arrives in the CHOP Olympic Stadium.
CARLSON: The torch having been rolled by Ziggy Marley, like three feet long.
STEYN: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.
CARLSON: Mark Steyn. Great to see you tonight. Thank you so much.
STEYN: Hey, thanks a lot, Tucker.
CARLSON: Well, the Democratic Party ideologically has left what we normally think of as sanity, and gone somewhere else, so fast we can barely keep up with it. Joe Biden is trying his best to keep up with it. He's agreeing all the way. Dana Perino on that, next.
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CARLSON: Joe Biden is at that stage in life where firm decision making becomes more difficult. What for breakfast? Muesli or a bagel? It can take hours.
So we know if elected, his presidency will be controlled by other people and those people are likely to be central figures in the woke faction of the Democratic Party. What will that look like?
Dana Perino hosts "The Daily Briefing" with Dana Perino and we're always happy to have her on our show. Dasna, thanks so much for coming on.
So, Biden has been described very often and to this day as moderate, but I don't see him pushing back very hard against the revolutionaries in his party.
DANA PERINO, FOX NEWS CHANNEL HOST: It's interesting, because usually, when a candidate gets to a General Election, they start to move back to the center because in the primary, they got pulled to the fringe -- right or left.
CARLSON: Right.
PERINO: But when it comes to Joe Biden, partly because he was so supported by the African-American vote and was able to propel himself into this position where he is now the presumptive Democratic nominee, he sort of went left, but not really and however, the energy in the Democratic Party is very much farther left than maybe he thinks he's ever been.
Now, moderate, it depends on how people describe it now, right? It's defined differently now.
You have somebody like Joe Biden, who has actually been pretty liberal over the years. But where he is now compared to where the rest of the party is, is quite the center.
So he is not as -- a very talented politician. I think we all know that. Maybe he is maybe even less of a talented politician than Hillary Clinton.
So one of the things that's happening is you have him being pulled by the far left, the Congresswoman AOCs of the world, and if you notice the other day, this 50 different environmental and liberal groups all got together, sent a letter to Joe Biden demanding what his position should be on something.
So, he is going to continue to get pulled in that direction while President Trump is out there doing his rallies and just being himself.
CARLSON: In a moment like this, weak people get overwhelmed immediately. Do you think there is any at his core principle that Joe Biden will defend against the left in his own party?
PERINO: Well, let's just take defund the police, okay. So, he said and he wasn't the only one in the Democratic Party, but he was pretty quick to say, yes, I'm not for that. You had Clyburn, Bass, Kamala Harris, others all come out and say, yes, we're not for defunding, we're for reforming the police.
So, I think there are probably some things where he would be able to do that. Now, it might be an interesting thing that if he were to win election, look, we've got five months ago, let's say he were to win. I think he would probably be able to withstand being pulled even further to the left, because he's even intimated that maybe he would just be a one term President. So, he wouldn't have that desire to try to move and help the base if that's the position.
We'll see. We got five months left, Tucker.
CARLSON: It's a long time, but it's moving fast. Dana Perino, great to see you.
PERINO: A lot can happen.
CARLSON: Oh, are you kidding? A lot has happened since Monday. I can barely keep up.
PERINO: I know.
CARLSON: Thank you. Good to see you tonight.
PERINO: Okay. Bye.
CARLSON: Speaking of fast that hour went fast, at least for us. Thank you very much for tuning in. We'll be back tomorrow night.
But in the meantime, we have a surprise for you. The Great Sean Hannity standing by in New York. Content and Programming Copyright 2020 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2020 ASC Services II Media, LLC. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of ASC Services II Media, LLC. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.
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