'The Ingraham Angle' on Jeff Zucker

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Zucker ousting emblematic of the rot inside CNN

Two former CNN contributors speak out on 'The Ingraham Angle.'

This is a rush transcript of "The Ingraham Angle" on February 2, 2022. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST:  Great show as always. I'm Laura Ingraham. This is THE INGRAHAM ANGLE from Washington tonight. The rise and fall of the branch Covidians. That's the focus of tonight's 'Angle'.

Now, CNN says, that it forced Jeff Zucker out for an undisclosed office romance. But the fact is, he should have been forced out for a different affair. His relationship with fake news on Russiagate; the casual smearing of figures like DeSantis; and all the COVID fearmongering. Well, Zucker's team didn't just flirt with damaging lockdowns, they fought for them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: We might be opening early. And a lot of people, Chris, are frightened about this.

DON LEMON, CNN HOST: It's far too early to let down our guards right now; far too early for states to be reopening.

MEGAN RANNEY, EMERGENCY PHYSICIAN: It seems premature and even dangerous to reopen the country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Now, from the start of the pandemic Jeff Zucker, CNN, fed its audience a daily menu of fraudulent COVID narratives. They didn't do real reporting. They simply repeated as gospel whatever Fauci said, rarely questioning his logic, or challenging his conclusions.

CNN kind of became the cult of Fauci, relishing ever perceived contradiction between him and President Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Dr. Anthony Fauci is on the cover of the new issue of Time Magazine. There it is as one of the 100 most influential people of 2020. Well deserved from my perspective. He does amazing work.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Couple of viewers emailed in saying, they're worried about you. You look tired. I'm sure you're exhausted. We appreciate you taking the time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: And all the while, Zucker oversaw CNN coverage that dismiss promising COVID therapies, and of course, the doctors who are successfully using them with patients. Republican governors who rejected the Fauci mantra were cast as anti-science kooks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEW DOWD, DEMOCRATIC POLITICAL ANALYST: Governor DeSantis and Governor Abbott of Texas have caused more unneeded deaths in those two states than any immigrant ever has done.

PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Shame on Governor Noem, who has a terrible COVID problem in her state.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: But now, two years later, the general public is finally told that whoops, the lockdowns that turned their lives upside down, they didn't work. States like California, New York, Illinois, Michigan, they kept their restrictions in place for far too long, didn't do any better at preventing COVID deaths than those that opened up or stayed open all along.

Now, of course, you didn't need Johns Hopkins to do the study to know that lockdowns were a disaster, because you were told the truth from the beginning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: If we wait for Dr. Fauci's seal of approval to reopen America, we may not have an America to reopen. At least not one we recognize.

The schools could be shut down for years. Lockdowns don't work. The damage they cause is catastrophic to our economy, our children's education. We're all seeing that, mental health and our safety.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: But CNN's branch Covidian sold you panic and lies. They sold them by a public health sector that hated Trump and love the idea of using COVID to create a new normal. A medical superstate to control the little people.

So of all of Zucker's transgressions, his hiring of arrogant, sanctimonious anchors and contributors was among his worst. And of all their COVID blowhards, pushing the lockdowns, one particular host really enjoyed his leading role.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS CUOMO, FORMER CNN HOST: Look at these fools. Fools. I know they want to be out there. Fools.

Things will get worse. I don't care how you reopen. What are we rushing back to? Think about what you are so anxious to get back to in terms of normal, and what you're going to lose that we've gained in this pandemic? OK. Think about it. Be careful what you wish for. The time with family, the time together, pictures of what we see in Venice of clearer water and clearer skies that they're showing us all over the world. I know we can't do nothing forever. But we can think about how to be together, better.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Of course, night after night, Zucker cheered the Cuomo double-box routine. Chris and his Governor brother, Andrew, chewing over the pandemic fat and yucking it up as the love gov was sending effective seniors back to their convalescent homes.

The mission of Zucker's branch Covidians was to ignore or smear any medical opinion that questioned their cultish outlook on lockdowns and mandates. Now, among their targets were doctors who authored the Great Barrington declaration, who appeared regularly on the 'Angle'.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAY BHATTACHARYA, PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE, STANFORD: Denying herd immunity is like denying gravity. Even if you have a vaccine, it's still herd immunity that protects people against the virus. Lockdown costs will in law - in even in the short and intermediate term have larger or longer health consequences.

MARTIN KULLDORFF, HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL PROFESSOR: The school closings, rich parents or middle class parents can do to a higher tutoring. The working class children, they don't have those options. So they're the ones who are suffering the most.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: They were right then and they are right now. But Zucker sent out the zombie squad to tear them all down.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM HASELTINE, FMR PROFESSOR, HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL: I'm extremely concerned that the President is being advised by people who speak of herd immunity. Herd immunity is another word for mass murder. That is exactly what it is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Naturally, they were all following the cues of branch Covidians' supreme leaders and longtime friends of CNN. Internal NIH email show that the devious duo of Francis Collins and Tony Fauci were scrambling for a plan to smear the few doctors brave enough to stand up to them and the entire medical establishment.

In one email, Collins wrote about the work of three fringe epidemiologists that seems to be getting a lot of attention. He then called for a quick and devastating published takedown of its premises.

And Fauci's network Covidians, well, they gave him airtime in order to laugh off the fringe doctors.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NIAID: When we should be doubling down in implementing the public health measures that we've been talking about for so long.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: At a time of crisis when everyone needed the opportunity for a full and fair airing of the options, all of them that were available to us, Zucker's CNN took every opportunity to call for extreme lockdown measures that hurt millions of American families and wrecked our economy.

They trashed scientists and doctors, who simply wanted Americans to hear the other side of the story. They launched ugly attacks against President Trump and his team who eventually helped obtain the very vaccines that CNN now celebrates.

So from beginning to end, the Zucker Covidians saw the pandemic not as a tragedy to be managed, but as an opportunity to be exploited. It is one of the most shameful periods in the history of American journalism. Maybe, just maybe post Zucker, CNN will begin to escape the cult it built. And that's the 'Angle'.

Joining me now is Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Stanford Medical School and one of the authors of the aforementioned Great Barrington declaration. Dr. B, first of all, I can't believe you've been coming on the show for this long. I keep looking at those clips. I was like, was that really October 2020? And indeed, of course, it was.

Your thoughts on CNN's roll and pushing the smear of doctors who dared question the lockdown's effectiveness?

JAY BHATTACHARYA, PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE, STANFORD: You know, in four days after we wrote the Great Barrington declaration, Francis Collins wrote an email to Tony Fauci calling for a devastating published takedown of his premises. And the press started attacking us, smearing us, arguing that we wanted to let the virus rip when what we wanted to do is protect the vulnerable.

And CNN, I think, has played a really malign role in this. It's created a very hostile environment for people like me to try to advocate for same policies. And what's happened is that so many scientists stayed silent as a result of it, even though they had the same reservations that the - we are - the authors of the Great Barrington declaration had.

It's been a devastating time to be a scientist. It has been a devastating time just to be here, because the lockdowns have created so much damage. I believe that there are many, many people who are now passed away that should have survived this, because of the harms in the lockdown. There should - the evidence on the international data alone.

In March of 2021, 228,000 children, that's what the UN estimated would die from starvation caused by the lockdowns in South Asia. In the U.S., we just had a report that we've topped over 100,000 people dead from type 2 diabetes. That should be managed. But we - the lockdowns prevented managing even basic care, delayed cancer treatments and delayed cancer screening. We - the psychological harm, the school closures, the lockdowns with--

INGRAHAM: But Dr. Bhattacharya, isn't the role of journalists, especially from this storied brand of CNN, isn't it their role to question and insist on data and justification, transparency on all these things? And yet at every turn, when we asked, when you asked for the data, the transparency, the justification, you're dismissed as anti-science, or you just - you're going to be responsible for the deaths of millions of people, thousands of people. It was an immediate castigation. Was that shocking to you coming from Jeff Zucker's CNN?

BHATTACHARYA: I was absolutely stunned. I mean, I think the idea that that we have a novel virus work through the society, that there's a scientific consensus on exactly what the right thing to do is, so much that we can suppress and censor people who just disagree with the consensus, the ideas of Dr. Fauci, that is absolutely amazing to me. What should have happened was a good, deep conversation between scientists who agreed and disagreed. We would have come to some conclusion that would have been far better than what we had.

Instead, we had media outlets like CNN, essentially demonizing anyone who disagreed with Fauci, serving as the propaganda arm of Dr. Fauci. And it's one of these things where like, I look at it - look back at it, and I just cannot believe it actually happened. What should have happened, what I believed would have - would happen and it placed what I thought was America was free speech, free discussion, a discussion between scientists who may disagree but we're--

INGRAHAM: But Dr. B, there's - it's still happening. This is still going on. And it continued today on CNN, where now Dr. Peter Hotez is looking - is using the misinformation description to again try to silence different points of view. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETER HOTEZ, TEXAS CHILDREN'S PEDIATRICIAN: The Biden administration has to realize that anti-science is a killer, disinformation. It's not even just disinformation. This is an anti-science empire right now. And we need Homeland Security. We need the Justice Department. We've really got to figure this out. And Health and Human Services will not be able to figure this out on their own.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Again, they want to shut down speech, call it disinformation, kill any opposing viewpoint. He was one of the biggest critics of the Great Barrington declaration, physicians and researchers.

BHATTACHARYA: I mean, he wants to use the Department of Justice. He wants to criminalize scientific debate. Just think about that for a moment. I mean, I think people who are confident in their ideas are not afraid of discussion and debate. What you have is a group of people, a small group of people. Hotez is actually funded by Fauci's group. He's - much of his funding comes from the NIAID led by Fauci.

I think you have a small group of people, who have wanted to create an illusion of a scientific consensus that does not exist and did not exist. They've yet pulled the wool over the eyes of the American people, and the American people should demand better.

INGRAHAM: And they're doing it now with a vaccine for infants. They're pushing the same kind of failed ideas and unproven theories. Dr. Bhattacharya, thank you very much, as always.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERIC FLANNERY, CO-OWNER, THE BIG BOARD: He is a Navy veteran, a guy who served for 10 years. I know what this is. I never thought that in the capital city of the United States of America, it would be somewhat controversial to open up a bar where everybody was welcome.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: That was Eric Flannery, owner of The Big Board bar in DC on this show Monday night. And petty tyrant Mayor Muriel Bowser has just revoked his liquor license, after he defied the city's mask and vax mandates.

Now, the day after his appearance, queen Bowser went one step further. She just shut down the bar.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FLANNERY: I really don't know. When people ask me, where are you going to get on the other side of this? I don't know. I just know that I'm doing the right thing. And this place is supposed to be open.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Eric Flannery, the owner of The Big Board bar is back with us exclusively. Eric, it's - it doesn't surprise me sadly now in Washington, DC. But your thoughts now that the bar that you love and you've put so much blood, sweat and tears into, not to speak of money, is closed.

ERIC FLANNERY, CO-OWNER, THE BIG BOARD: I'm really sad. But you know what I'm really sad for is all my workers. They've been here for 10 years, Laura. They come in, they come to work. My cook that was cooking food last night, he was here on the day we opened. The bartender who was serving non- alcoholic drinks last night, he's been here for 9.5 years.

I - they want to be working. They came down here through the whole pandemic, while everybody was staying in their house. They came down here and worked. So that's really the saddest part for me.

INGRAHAM: Now, Eric, Mayor Bowser swears she didn't want to shut down your bar. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MURIEL BOWSER, DC MAYOR: I like the business to comply. And we don't want to shut anybody down. And that's how we've approached this throughout this 20-some months of this pandemic. We want to give people support, advice, supplies, help, whatever they need. But we do need them to follow the regulations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Now, did anyone shut her down for the multiple times she violated her own mask mandates? I mean, come on. Eric, how much help did her administration give your business before they actually - they first revoked your liquor license then you - they shut you down.

FLANNERY: Yes, they came down and they do some things. The health department was down here. They came for a random inspection as somebody who had willfully opened up the door and walked in, was worried that the servers and bartenders weren't wearing masks. They came in.

Before they even did our follow-up inspection, where I had fixed every thing that they were there, and I have the report that shows everything that they asked me to fix was fixed. They already had the door placard that they were going to put on to close us down.

INGRAHAM: Eric, at this point, what do you say to other restaurant tours and bar owners in DC that they are complying? They're asking for a vax card. People show them their vaccine cards and they go in and presumably they have a good time. I mean, do you think this should be a period of resistance? Because we know restaurant reservations are down in DC.

FLANNERY: I - from a customer who told me the restaurant reservations were down 60 percent from 2020 and 2021, what do I say to them? Well, they're not doing it anyways. Everybody knows that. There are people come talk to me every day and say, Oh, yes, I got all these places and nobody's doing it.

The mayor just wanted to come. Well, maybe not the mayor, but the city health administration decided that this was a place that they wanted to target.

INGRAHAM: And they wanted to make an example out of you. Eric, maybe Virginia for you, but fight on because I think ultimately they're going to break on this mandate nonsense. We appreciate it. Best of luck to you, sir.

And Joe Biden's Supreme Court pick is now in a complete state of chaos. Professor Jonathan Turley and Senator Tom Cotton explain in moments.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: Like everything else, Joe Biden touches his Supreme Court selection process is in shambles. Candidate Biden, he thought he was being really woke and so cool by pledging to nominate an African-American woman to the High Court. But of course, he was also effectively discriminating against the vast majority of the adult population.

And now even liberal websites like Slate thinks he has himself in a bind, claiming that Biden's pledge has backfired and needlessly tokenized future nominees. Likewise, Politico is fretting about the fact that so many Democrat consultants and insiders can't stop talking about the nomination as an off ramp to relocate Kamala Harris.

"Intense skepticism within some parts of the party about Harris' ability to win a presidential race if Biden does not run for reelection and a desire to open the field to other possible successors." Ouch.

And given the radical views of some of the potential nominees, huge pressure will be put on so-called moderate Democrats, who are up for reelection this year. So they vote against Biden's pick. Think about it this way. If Montanans want to protect their Second Amendment rights, they better demand that Senator Jon Tester block Biden's pick. The same goes for Mark Kelly in Arizona.

Neither they nor the other moderates should believe anything Biden promises about the qualifications of his High Court pick.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: What I'm looking for is a candidate with character as well as a judicial philosophy that is more one that suggests that there are unenumerated rights in the Constitution.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Sorry, given the fact that the entire left-wing legal establishment believes that the Constitution has no fixed meaning, it doesn't matter what the nominees' professional experience is.

Anyone that Biden picks will have to believe that the court isn't bound by the plain language of the statutes or the Constitution. And what does that mean? It means bye-bye free speech, it's all misinformation now. Bye-bye religious liberty and even parental rights.

So wake up, senators Lindsey Graham and Mitt Romney. But there's a new development that could further complicate Biden's plans. The terrible news that New Mexico Senator Ray Lujan suffered a serious stroke. We wish the senator a speedy and complete recovery. And we offer prayers to his family in very challenging, difficult time.

But there's still the question of how this might affect a confirmation vote in a 50-50 Senate. Joining me now is Jonathan Turley, George Washington University law professor. Professor Turley, this was supposed to be kind of a slam dunk. But how is the situation evolving? Tell us one of the words that they like to apply to the Constitution as far as this nomination process goes.

JONATHAN TURLEY, GWU LAW PROFESSOR: Well, what's astonishing is this is not just unprecedented, but unnecessary for the President to say that he would not consider any other candidates based on their race or gender. He would only consider black females.

Diversity issues have been raised by presidents in the past, but they have been raised as sort of preferences, not exclusionary rules. Indeed, the Supreme Court has declared exclusionary rules like this one to be unconstitutional or unlawful, when applied to schools, or businesses.

And so, you have this inherent conflict that he's created, where this nominee will sit and hear arguments in two cases on the constitutionality of this type of exclusionary rule. Now, that doesn't mean that this could be reviewed or that his choice will be reversed. But what's odd is that many of the media outlets are saying, well, other presidents have done this. And that's just not true.

They say that Reagan did this. That when he appointed O'Connor, Reagan said, he would give one of his first positions, one of the vacancies to a woman. But the White House stressed that was not a guarantee. And when O'Connor was selected, Reagan had a shortlist with the majority of men on it.

Trump, when he said that he would be putting a woman on Supreme Court, had already spent months and months with a public shortlist that they've been vetting. Barrett had been a front runner in the previous nomination. And when he said he was going to put a woman on the court, it was days before he was going to announce her name.

What these presidents didn't do is, they didn't say that they would not consider anyone else beyond people with this race, this gender as specified in an exclusionary threshold rule. It's just--

INGRAHAM: And I just want to get in - get this point in, Jonathan. It's not even popular. If it's a political move, it's not popular. Recent ABC News poll found that 76 percent of Americans want him to consider all nominees regardless of race or gender, only 23 percent supported Biden's pledge.

So they don't want diversity to be the driving factor in a court pick. People are fine with nominee of any color, but that that's the driving factor above all else? I think that also points to a larger problem the Democrats have with the issue of race.

TURLEY: That is also grossly unfair to the nominee. This worked for President Biden's advantage. Representative Claiborne came up to him during a break in the presidential debate, and said, you need to promise that you're going to appoint a black female. And he turned around and said it exactly like that.

And I think a lot of people, I wrote a column the next day, sort of, what, whoa - that you're not stating a preference, you're actually stating an exclusionary rule. And he is stuck with it. But it's unfair to the nominees. There are people on the shortlist. African-American women on that shortlist that have stellar backgrounds. You could disagree with whether they have the right jurisprudential views, but it's unfair to them for the President to say, Yes, you were selected on this threshold exclusionary basis.

And so, I think that this was, sort of, an error that the President repeated, all you have to do is do what his predecessors did, and state that he wanted to see--

INGRAHAM: Self inflicted wound.

TURLEY: --publicity on the court.

INGRAHAM: Yes. Another self inflicted wound. Professor Turley, great to see you.

And joining me now is Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton. Senator, Schumer was at the White House today to meet with Biden over the court pick. It's obvious they're feeling some pressure here. What are the state of things as you know them?

SEN. TOM COTTON (R-AR): Well, the President said, he's going to nominate someone by the end of February. There's been a shortlist that's been published in a lot of different outlets. I don't know who he's going to nominate. I'm frankly less worried, Laura, about the race or the sex of the nominee, than a radical judicial philosophy.

As a member of the Judiciary Committee, I've seen now dozens of his nominees to lower courts, and almost to a person, these are leftwing ideologues who believe that the Constitution is always evolving. Strangely, it is always evolving to left and to cater to the whims and the wishes of liberals at law schools and in big cities in the Democratic Party. So I have got pretty tempered expectations that Joe Biden is going to nominate anyone whom I can support or whom most Republicans could support because of the character and the views of the nominees he has put forth so far.

INGRAHAM: Well, the point that I was making in the lead-in to this, Senator, was that any of the nominees, I'm sure they are all great people, it's nothing personal, but to be on that list, it is not just skin color. You have to believe that the Constitution is malleable. It's silly putty that can be stretched or moved, and words don't really matter. Heller, the Second Amendment, individual rights case authored by Justice Scalia, there's no way they would greet with that. So anyone like Montana Senator Tester or Kelly, or any of the so-called moderates, a vote for that nominee is a vote to gut that Second Amendment. That's my point. And that's what the constituents in those states have to understand.

COTTON: I think that is almost certainly right, Laura. The left, especially the legal left in America does not view the Constitution as a law that has a settled meaning at the time it was adopted, at the time the amendments were added, and that it is our fundamentally law. They view it as something that is always subject to change, usually change in the liberal direction. And that means that Democrats who are up for reelection this year, like Raphael Warnock in Georgia, or Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire, are going to have to answer for the views of this nominee if, as you say and I suspect, this nominee is hostile to free speech rights of every American, to the rights of gun owners or any of the other cherished rights we have in this country under our Constitution.

INGRAHAM: Or religious liberty rights. Let's say there's another emergency. Should they still be able to keep shutting down churches and other houses of worship? There's no way any of those rights are going to survive the type of, quote, analysis any of these nominees would give it because the Constitution is always evolving.

COTTON: And that has been the history of those cases over the last two years, Laura, is almost every time any of the COVID lockdown cases have come before the court, the liberal justices on the court have always sided with these Democratic governors and mayors who want to consistently lock down our economy, close schools, keep people in masks indefinitely.

INGRAHAM: Senator Cotton, we will be watching, especially some of your colleagues on the Judiciary Committee. Thank you.

And Biden puts a one-man show on. And the "Not One Minute" campaign is gaining steam. Rimming Arroyo has it. "Seen and Unseen" is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: It's time for our "Seen and Unseen" segment where we expose the big cultural stories of the day. And for that we turn to FOX News contributor, Raymond Arroyo. Raymond, Biden actually had a big event today, for Biden, that is.

RAYMOND ARROYO, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: He did. Well, he is reviving what he calls the Cancer Moonshot that he launched about six years ago, Laura. This is an attempt to find something of unity that he can run on and maybe let those poll numbers. But at the event today, he resorted to enacting little dramatic scenes with himself in between the requisite confusion.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: -- told that patients don't want to share their data. They all want to share their data. Sometimes you all don't want to share what you know.

Doc, all I need, can you do anything to give me just six more months to see the baby born. When I put together the Cancer Moonshot, when they found out I had NASA and a lot of other agencies looked to me, like, what is that matter with you? I said, guess what. NASA knows more about radiation than all of you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARROYO: NASA also knows better than to put "moonshot" and "cancer" in the same phrase, Laura. This is not working. I don't know if he thinks politically this is a help. But if Biden is really interested in cutting the cancer death rate, he should have been more proactive getting those hospitals to treat and cure for cancer patients. There's a study out of the University of Birmingham that found that one in seven cancer patients missed their surgeries due to the COVID lockdowns, and the last cancer moonshot we spent $1.8 billion on, Laura, it didn't move that death rate at all.

INGRAHAM: Yes, the lockdowns hurt follow up treatment and regular checkups for a whole variety of diseases. So we won't know how many lives were lost because of the lockdowns, maybe never. But we won't know for decades for sure.

ARROYO: Laura, today, as you know, is Groundhog Day when the eyes of the country turn to see if the groundhog sees its shadow. As you know, it is a little different in D.C., where each year, Punxsutawney Joe leaves his basement and looks out. We have the video. If he sees his shadow and returns to the basement, we will have six more months of inflation. It looks like he did see his shadow, Laura, and those prices are going to stay sky high.

INGRAHAM: You are so bad.

ARROYO: Punxsutawney will at least have lots of time for Wordle and the Olympics back at the White House, I guess. That will keep him occupied until inflation goes.

I think of that cute little groundhog, and it's adorable, and I thought when I woke up, is Anthony Fauci going to come out and see his shadow and there's six more months of COVID restrictions? No. Then my kids said, no, six more years, mommy. I said, OK, perfect.

Raymond, we launched a "Not One Minute" campaign to encourage people to skip even watching the genocide Olympics, so let's hope Biden tunes that out as well.

ARROYO: Well, people seem to be getting your message. Even Bob Costas has called out the International Olympic Committee for doing business with the Chinese given their human rights record.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BOB COSTAS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: The IOC deserves all of the disdain and disgust that comes their way for going back to China yet again. They were in Beijing in 2008. They go to Sochi in 2014. They're shameless about this stuff.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARROYO: According to a new report, Laura, in "The Washington Post," athletes from at least two western countries are planning to boycott the opening ceremonies in Beijing. Students for a Free Tibet are urging these athletes to stand with the persecuted Uyghurs, the Hong Kongers, as well as the Tibetans. This is a thing I think we are going to see gain steam. But a lot of these athletes are being warned by the IOC not to make a statement. They don't want any controversy here.

INGRAHAM: No. I think, the speed skaters, they are going to skate right back to their hotel and then right back to this rink because you can't go anywhere. It is basically all in lock down there. You can't even have your parents or family members, no spectators.

ARROYO: Laura, did you see this video today? We'll put the video up here. This is a Belgian Olympian, she tested COVID positive. They took her to an undisclosed location. So she put this video up, and they ended up taking her back to the Olympic village. This is scary with the Chinese people taking people wherever they want to go.

Now, before we go, I normally don't support boycotts, but I came across a TikTok video by a doctor that had me saying "Not One Minute."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Vaccinate, vax-vaccinate! Vaccinate, vax-vaccinate!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who is that girl talking about vaccines?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's me. It's me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who is that girl talking about vaccines?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's me. It's me. All right, all right, all right, all right, all right. C-O-V-I-D, COVID you can take knee.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARROYO: Laura, we have to ban all of these vaccine jingles, poems, minor theatrics. Healthcare professionals should warn us about something other than vaccines. I think we're all fed up with it.

INGRAHAM: You heard of poetry slam, slam poetry, poetry slam. This is a poetry jab. Come on, this is silly. It's the Super Bowl halftime show. Maybe they can try out. Raymond, thank you.

By now you have heard about CNN's head honcho Jeff Zucker's sudden departure from the cable laggard. But you haven't heard the stories from the inside. In moments, we speak to two former contributors about the larger rot inside that network.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Zucker has been a larger than life figure at this organization for nearly a decade, a pioneering figure.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jeff was a visionary leader for CNN during the last nine years of what can only be called a challenging news cycle. It's an incredible loss. Jeff is a remarkable person.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's certainly a clarity of mission and a clarity of vision for this network that will be missed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Awkward. Not only were the details of Zuck's office romance known for years, apparently it was reportedly common knowledge just among most staffers at CNN at any senior level. So the Zucker lieutenant involved is a woman named Allison Gollust. The details of their dalliance aren't really all that important at this point. But what is significant is that before coming to CNN she served as the comms director for former governor Andrew Cuomo. And according to "The Washington Post", Gollust and Zucker were instrumental in securing the Cuomo on Cuomo interviews, those double boxes with the Cuo-bros during COVID. So in other words, CNN was and is full of unethical, politically corrupt monsters.

Joining me now are two former CNN political commentators, Jeff Lord and Andre Bauer. Jeffrey, they spent years peddling lies to defame President Trump and his supporters over at CNN. So the fact that they were passing judgment on him on the fraudulent Russia-gate scam while the conflicts of interests teaming at that network, your thoughts tonight?

JEFF LORD, FORMER CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Laura, first of all, in the contest between Donald Trump and Jeff Zucker and CNN, Donald Trump won without any question here as of this day. I once asked him in 2014 when he was a private citizen, if he ran for president, would he take on the media which had been historically anti-Republican. And oh, my, on he went. Yes, he would take them on. He wasn't going to put up with this. This in our time resulted in the whole fake news situation.

Secondly, Jeff, I went back and dipped into Ted Turner's memoirs. He is the founder of CNN, and he quite specifically says in his memoirs that he thought that media of the day, and this is circa late 1970s, was biased. He mentions Walter Cronkite specifically. And he said he wanted a just the facts, ma'am, kind of journalism. Jeff moved CNN in the exact opposite direction. And full disclosure, I obviously benefited from that. I was a commentator. I was a Trump guy on CNN, which, of course, led eventually to my dismissal.

And thirdly, by the admissions of CNN's "Reliable Sources" and Brian Stelter, I find this very fascinating, no less than former anchor and fired anchor Chris Cuomo is out to burn seen and down to the ground. Wow. That is pretty incredible here. They've got a whole lot of problems over there, not the least of which is sort of sabotaging the image of the mainstream media as impartial.

INGRAHAM: I don't think anyone is going to look at CNN, anyone with any memory of all of this, is going to look at CNN for the same again because of what they did during COVID and what they did to Donald Trump and all of the conflict that were brewing within. Now, Andre, interestingly, Ted Turner back in 2018 made an interesting comment about that network he founded.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TED TURNER: I think they're sticking with politics a little too much. It would do better to have a more balanced agenda. But that is just one person's opinion.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Andre, is that a valid opinion, especially in light of what has happened, totally imbalanced network, and obviously not telling the truth about a whole variety of issues?

ANDRE BAUER, FORMER CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Absolutely. But if you go back, Zucker and the former, prior president Trump, they were friends. They had worked together on the president's TV show previously. And then when the president, then candidate, got into this race, one of the reasons I was hired early on is I was one of the first statewide officeholders as former lieutenant governor to endorse the president.

And they didn't just hire myself and Jeffrey Lord. There was Corey Lewandowski, Kayleigh McEnany, Paris Dennard, Rick Santorum, they went out and found people that supported the president and conservative issues, and their ratings went up. They had a lovefest. If you look back in 16 when the president didn't even attend the debate in Iowa, he went to a college. I went to it and held a rally, and CNN followed him. And they made a large profit and a large following over following the president.

As the years progressed, they have become a bigger and bigger detractor of his message and distorting his message. And I think it came to their demise. But this has been an ongoing love-hate fest for some time that started back in 16, and when they quit having the president to beat on last year, you saw their numbers plummet because they really don't have anything. They surely don't have a cause with the current administration to get excited about. So the one thing that really kept their ratings was President Trump.

INGRAHAM: That is gone. Yes or no answers only. Will CNN learn from this and become better? Jeffrey, yes or no?

LORD: Yes, with new ownership.

INGRAHAM: Andre, yes or no?

BAUER: Yes.

INGRAHAM: Wow, you are both optimistic. I hope you are right. Gentlemen, thank you.

And up next, Last Bite, the COVID tyrants that controlled public schools will not stop terrorizing your children. A shocking Last Bite next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: Loudoun County school outrage is continuing. An assistant principal is threatening kids who return to school unmasked.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Until you arrive, your children will be held in an in-school restriction situation here at school. It's important that I point out they are not allowed on campus or on Loudoun County public school property. Starting tomorrow, it will be considered trespassing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: That's a misdemeanor, $2,500 fine.


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