This is a rush transcript from “Tucker Carlson Tonight," September 11, 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. Massive wildfires, unprecedented in their scope continue to sweep across huge portions of the West tonight.
In Oregon, half a million residents have been forced to evacuate their homes. That's one of every 10 people in the entire state. Dozens are dead, including small children. But the fires still are not close to contained. Watch this report from Fox's Jeff Paul.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEFF PAUL, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Months of tinder dry conditions added to days of high winds and hot temperatures creating a perfect firestorm across the West. California is one of the hardest hit with a record breaking three million acres burned and nearly 4,000 homes and buildings lost so far. A 12-year-old boy and his grandmother are among the latest deaths.
The flames are spreading so fast, it really doesn't give people much time to get out.
The fires also taking a toll in Washington State where more than a hundred homes are gone, and a one-year-old boy died as his family tried to flee the flames.
And in Oregon, more than 35 fires are burning with at least five small towns destroyed. Resources across the west are stretched thin.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: It is awful and it continues as we speak right now. Walls of flame consuming everything in their path, homes, thousands and thousands, untold numbers of animals, and of course, as we said human beings, too. It is tragedy on a massive scale.
When something this terrible happens, decent people pause. They put their own interests aside for a moment. They consider how they can help.
We've seen that kind of selflessness before in this country. This is, remember, the anniversary of 9/11. But there are others for whom altruism is an unknown concept. Self-interest is all they know. These people do not pause, they never do. They relentlessly press forward for any advantage under any circumstances.
They see human suffering as a means to increase their personal power. These are the people who turn funerals into political rallies and feel no shame for doing it.
As Americans burned to death, people like this swung into action immediately. They went on television with a partisan talking point. Climate change, they said, cause these fires. They didn't explain how exactly that happened. How did climate change do that? They didn't tell us but they just kept saying it.
In the hands of Democratic politicians, climate change is like systemic racism in the sky. You can't see it, but rest assured, it's everywhere, and it's deadly. And like systemic racism, it is your fault. The American middle class did it. They caused climate change.
They ate too many hamburgers. They drove too many SUVs. They had too many children. A lot of them wear t-shirts to work and didn't finish college and that causes climate change, too.
And worst of all, some of them may vote for Donald Trump in November. And if there's anything that absolutely definitively causes climate change, and literally over a hundred percent of scientists agree with this established fact, it is voting for Donald Trump. You might as well start a tire fire in your yard.
Joe Biden has checked the science and he agrees with this. Yesterday, the people on Biden's staff who understand the internet tweeted out an image of the wildfires along with this message, quote: "Climate change is already here and we're witnessing its devastating effects every single day. We have to get President Trump out of the White House," end quote.
So once again, by voting for Donald Trump, you are causing climate change which causes devastating fires. You by your vote have made hundreds of thousands of Oregonians homeless tonight. You've murdered people.
Joe Biden's closest friend in the world, a prominent kite surfer on Martha's Vineyard called Barack Obama echoed that message with his trademark restraint. Obama declared that your life depends on voting for Joe Biden.
Now, hold on a minute, you might ask, doesn't this very same Barack Obama own a $12 million spread right on the ocean in Massachusetts? At a time when sea levels are rising so fast we are about to see killer whales in the Rockies. Well, that doesn't make sense. It doesn't seem like Barack Obama could be very concerned about climate change.
And by the way, didn't Obama go to law school? When did he become a scientist? Those seem like reasonable questions.
On the other hand, lawyers pretending to be scientists are now everywhere in the Democratic Party. Here, for example, is the Governor of Washington State, Jay Inslee. Inslee is a proud graduate of Willamette University Law School. He is explaining he has already figured out the cause of the fires. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. JAY INSLEE (D-WA): And these are conditions that are exacerbated by the changing climate that we are suffering. And I do not believe that we should surrender these subdivisions or these houses to climate change exacerbated fires. We should fight the cause of these fires.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: So I mismanaged my state, now it's on fire. You're required to give me more power. Right? You see how that works.
But as a factual matter, this is a crock. There is not a single scientist on Earth who knows whether or by how much these fires may have been quote, "exacerbated" by warmer temperatures caused by climate change. All we have is conjecture from a handful of scientists and many politicians, none of whom has reached a definitive conclusion.
Daniel Swain, for example, he is a climate scientist at UCLA conceded recently that it's, quote, "hard to determine whether climate change played a role in sparking the fires." Okay. That's what science is. It's gradual. It's incremental. Often, it's tentative. We don't say things we don't know for certain.
It's the opposite of politics. They have nothing in common.
Meanwhile, back in the material world, investigators have determined that the massive Eldorado Fire in California which has towards nearly 14,000 acres, was caused by people setting off some kind of fireworks.
And then on Wednesday, police announced that a criminal investigation is underway into the massive Alameda Fire in Ashland, Oregon, the southern part of the state. The Sheriff there said it's too early to say what caused the fire, but he did say human remains were found at the suspected origin of it. So nothing is being ruled out tonight, including arson.
As always with these things, the more you know, the more facts the more details you know, the more complicated it becomes. So serious people -- and there are still some -- are just beginning to gather evidence to figure out how this started and thinking through how to prevent it going forward.
But at the same time, unfortunately, our media are giving voice too deeply unserious people, partisan people and they are on television drowning out nuance. Don't worry about the facts, they say, just trust us.
The sky is orange over San Francisco because households making 40 grand a year made the mistake of voting Republican. Therefore, you must give us total control of the nation's economy. The Green New Deal, it's mandatory now. Watch amateur arson detective, Nancy Pelosi explain.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): Mother Earth is angry. She is telling us -- whether she is telling us with hurricanes on the Gulf Coast, fires in the West, whatever it is that the climate crisis is real and has an impact.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Mother Nature is angry, please. When was the last time Nancy Pelosi went outside? Could she identify a single tree? No one asked her, of course. All we know is what she said, climate change caused this, and of course it did. Because no matter what the natural disaster is -- hurricanes, tornadoes, acne, whatever -- climate change did it.
In other words, you did it. And to repent for doing it, you need to give us full control of your life.
Now keep in mind, the person telling you this, Nancy Pelosi owns at least two subzero freezers. She showed them to us on television. Each one costs $10,000.00. They use a lot of energy. And like Barack Obama, like Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi constantly flies around the country privately, between her multimillion dollar estates.
So if she cared about climate change, of course, she wouldn't be doing that. She doesn't, and neither do her supporters. Otherwise they'd be masked outside of her estates in anger. They wouldn't be trying to destroy the hair salon that exposed her hypocrisy.
But it's not about science, it's certainly not about the Earth. Again, these are people who don't go outside who know nothing about nature. It's about blaming and ritually humiliating the American middle class for daring to elect someone they don't like.
Joe Biden knows that the Pennsylvanians would be financially ruined by the fracking ban he supports are the same Pennsylvanians who flipped Pennsylvania red in 2016 for the first time in a generation. Think they're holding a grudge? You bet they are.
One of the reasons Joe Biden doesn't go outside because his handlers won't allow him is because when he does, he has a tendency to show pure undisguised contempt for the middle class he supposedly care so deeply about. In 2019, you'll remember, he openly mocked coal miners. He suggested they just get programming jobs once they're all fired. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN (D), DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I come from a family where an area where there is coal mining in Scranton. Anybody could go down 300 to 3,000 feet in the mine sure in hell can learn how to program as well.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Learn to code. Hilarious. Joe Biden should learn to code. Keep us posted on how that goes. But there isn't time for that. The world is ending. There's no time to pause and savor the deep layers of hypocrisy here. Stop. We're too busy.
We're measuring our lives in minutes now. Last summer, Sandy Cortez did the math on all of this. She is good at math, and she calculated we only have 12 years left to live.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): The world is going to end in 12 years if we don't address climate change. Like this is the war. This is our World War II.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Yes, that sounds bad, and we're starting to wreck your night on a Friday, but actually, it's worse than that. Much worse than that. Consider this.
Just four months after she gave us that warning, Sandy Cortez tweeted that we only have 10 years to cut carbon emissions in half. So think about that. We lost two years in just four months. At that rate, we could literally all be dead unless Joe Biden wins in November, which is of course, what they're saying underneath it all.
On Tuesday, California Governor Gavin Newsom pretty much said it out loud. Newsom has abandoned science completely. He did it long ago. Science is too stringent for Gavin Newsom, too Western, too patriarchal.
Newsom is now a man of faith. He has decided that climate change caused all of this and that's final. He's not listening to any other arguments. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): I have no patience, and I say this lovingly not as an ideologue, but as someone who prides himself on being open to argument, interested in evidence, but I quite literally have no patience for climate change deniers. It simply follows completely inconsistent that point of view with the reality on the ground.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: I'm not an ideologue, but anyone who disagrees with me must be ignored and eliminated. I don't want to hear any countervailing facts or evidence. None. But I'm not an ideologue.
So people like Gavin Newsom has announced they don't want to listen to climate change deniers which raises the central question, what is a climate change denier? Well, a climate change denier is anyone who thinks a ruling class has done a very poor job running their states, running their country, protecting the people they were hired to protect and watch over.
So are we climate change deniers if we point out that the State of California has failed to implement meaningful deforestation measures that might have dramatically slowed the spread of these wildfires? Does that make us deniers? Because in 2018, the state oversight agency in California found that years of poor or non-existent forest management policies in the Sierra Nevada forest had contributed to the fires.
One of the few Republicans who still holds elected office in that state, State Assemblyman, Heath Flora, last year called on using the state's $22 billion budget surplus, probably the last one in its history to implement vegetation management because fires don't obviously spread as well if they're not connected by huge forests, which function as kindling.
All of that is obvious, which means you can't say it out loud. The natural world facts nature itself is anathema to ideologues like this, the same people telling you they are protecting nature hate nature, everything about nature.
Presumably you're also a climate change denier if you point out that six of the Oregon National Guard's wild firefighting helicopters aren't in Oregon anymore. Where are they, you might wonder? They're in Afghanistan.
So instead of dropping water to suppress the blazes, this helicopters are busy supplying a war effort that's been going on for nearly 20 years for no reason. So how did that happen? And what's the effect of it? Those might be good questions to ask of, I don't know, Gavin Newsom, Jay Inslee, and the Governor of Oregon. Does anyone even care? And the answer, of course, is no. Nobody cares about the details at all.
They don't care about the lives of the people they govern. They don't care about facts. They don't care about science.
It was just last week that the mayor of Los Angeles Eric Garcetti admitted on the record that LA has become completely third world, which it has, unfortunately. Of course, Garcetti didn't blame himself for the degradation of one of the great American cities that he runs. No, he blamed you. You did it, quote, "It's almost 3 p.m." Garcetti tweeted, "Time to turn off major appliances. Set the thermostat to 78 degrees or use a fan instead. Turn off excess lights and unplug any appliances you're not using. We need every Californian to help conserve energy. Please do your part."
Oh, you've got to wonder if you were able to go to Garcetti's house which are not, can't get past the bodyguards you pay for. But if you were, is he following these recommendations? No. But it's not about him. It's about the people he is supposed to be helping. The ones he is now blaming.
He wants them to suffer to fix a problem that he and his fellow Democrats in California created. Even now as residents are facing sweeping power outages in addition to the wildfires. In the meantime, Gavin Newsom has vowed that 50 percent of the energy in California, percent of their grid will be based on quote, "renewable sources" within a decade. That means sources like wind and solar power.
The truth is, you can't dial up wind or solar in moments of extreme demand. Moments like right now, during the heatwave sweeping California.
Gavin Newsom was asked last month whether he would consider revising his stance given that the blackouts have left millions of Californians without power and presumably killed people, because that's what happens when you don't have electricity. And Newsom responded this way, quote: "We are going to radically change the way we produce and consume energy." In other words, no, we're not changing.
In other words, the blackouts will continue until morale improves. So will the wildfires. Get used to it.
California State Assemblyman James Gallagher represents Paradise, California where fires have destroyed thousands of structures this week. He joins us tonight. Mr. Gallagher, thanks so much for coming on. First. I'm so sorry about what has happened to your part of our biggest state, a beautiful state, my state. But let me ask you since your community has suffered, do you blame climate change for what's happened?
JAMES GALLAGHER (R), CALIFORNIA STATE ASSEMBLYMAN: Thank you, Tucker, for having me on. And yes, you know, our community is reeling once again from a devastating wildfire. And you know what troubles us the most, what angers us the most is that these fires are a disaster 40 years in the making, and you hit so many points in your monologue there that are right on.
The Democrats who control this state who have been in charge of the legislature, who hold every statewide office have failed to take care of Forestry Management in California, and we have overgrown forests with brush piles 10 feet high, in some cases, dead and dying trees. And it's a tinderbox waiting for a spark.
And we've had these wildfires that have killed my constituents, incinerated their homes and left our communities devastated. And then as you said, as you were talking about, we have Governor Newsom coming to my community today, and we were treated to Bernie Sanders last year when he was running for President who come and tell us that the problem is climate change, deflecting from the 40 years of mismanagement of our forest, of bad policies, of kowtowing to the big special interest in California, the Sierra Club, who said, we don't want one tree cut.
It's this radical policy that is the cause of these fires and that is leading to people dying. And so you could imagine why, yes, we are very upset with how this policy has been carried out and the excuses, the deflections that are made that somehow it's our fault, right? That somehow it's because we live where we live.
There were even people saying that we should, that Paradise should not rebuild. They should never live there in the first place, even though it's been a community for over a hundred years. There's people who chastise what kind of cars we drive, the lifestyle that that we live that that somehow that's our fault and not their policies, which have clearly been the cause of these devastating fires.
CARLSON: What you're seeing is what you're seeing everywhere on every issue, which is class war. It's the people with the most deflecting all the blame downward toward the people with the least. And I'm sorry, you're on the wrong end of that tonight.
James Gallagher, Assemblyman from California. Godspeed. Good luck, and I'm sorry again.
GALLAGHER: Well, thank you, Tucker.
CARLSON: Thank you.
Well, the "Tribute in Light: Memorializing 911" in Manhattan tonight, up next we'll talk to our own Rick Leventhal. He was on the ground on Church Street in Lower Manhattan that day, 19 years ago, when the Twin Towers collapsed. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: Hard to believe, but 9/11 was 19 years ago today. You may have woken up and thought where was I 19 years ago? Rick Leventhal knows for certain where he was. He was in Manhattan -- Lower Manhattan as the Towers came down. He joins us now to discuss today's Memorial in his own experiences there on Church Street 19 years ago. Rick, good to see you.
RICK LEVENTHAL, FOX NEWS SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Tucker. Thank you. The worst day of most New Yorkers live certainly the toughest day of reporting I've ever experienced and today's ceremony obviously a bit different because of COVID.
Family members and politicians gathered once again at Ground Zero to mark the moments the planes hit the towers and recognized the names of all the nearly 3,000 victims of the terror attack, but this year people stood six feet apart. They skipped the speeches and wore masks for the first time since first responders used them to protect themselves while clearing rubble from the smoking pile back in 2001.
The twin Blue Beams known as the "Tribute in Light" are shining over the city again tonight. The 9/11 Memorial had said it would cancel that this year but quickly reversed that decision after hearing outrage from firefighters and police unions, and victims' families.
As you said 19 years ago this morning, I raced down in Lower Manhattan while the Towers were still on fire and I had to run for cover when the first building fell and then again for the second.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEVENTHAL: Oh yes. Oh, there it goes. There it goes. There it goes. Oh --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When it comes down.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We do need to put it down now. I think we need to put it down now. Here we go.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEVENTHAL: It was chaotic. The phones weren't working. The information was scarce. It was incredibly unsettling because it felt like the world was ending, and one of the moments I'll never forget was interviewing Artie Forman who was working on a roof working on a roof across the street and witnessed both planes hit both towers and the unimaginable horrors that followed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEVENTHAL: What's going through your mind when you see this happen?
ARTIE FORMAN, CONSTRUCTION WORKER: You see bodies flying out of the sky and you can't do nothing about it. You tell me. You tell me what you think. I mean, my heart and my mouth. I mean, I pray for these people. There's no words to describe what's going on out there. I mean, you see bodies just coming -- a half hour later, they're still coming out of the goddamn sky.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEVENTHAL: Of course, America responded with courage and strength embodied by the words of then President George W. Bush, who joined workers on the pile at the World Trade Center site.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I can hear you, the rest of the world hears you and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEVENTHAL: Two months later, I was on my way to Afghanistan for the first of several trips there and to Iraq to cover the brave Marines and soldiers fighting the war on terror. It's so amazing that it's been 19 years, Tucker. It feels like a lifetime ago and it feels like yesterday.
CARLSON: I was thinking that exact thing. It brought it all back. I can't imagine how you feel watching that. Rick Leventhal, thank you so much for that.
LEVENTHAL: Thank you, Tucker.
CARLSON: As you know, it is the 19th anniversary, Brett Eagleson will never forget that day. He lost his father on 9/11. He is part of a group of victims who lost family members that day who have sued Saudi Arabia for that country's alleged role in the attacks.
A 2012 F.B.I. report found that Saudi officials provided financial support to two of the hijackers. Well, yesterday, it has been going on a long time -- but yesterday, a Federal Court in New York unsealed an order requiring Saudi officials including members of the Saudi Royal Family, including the longtime Saudi Ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar to provide testimony about this report.
This seems like a major legal win, and so we wanted to speak to Brett once again and we're doing that now. Brett, thanks so much for coming on tonight. Do you see this as a victory? Tell us what it means.
BRETT EAGLESON, LOST FAMILY MEMBER DURING 9/11: Tucker, thank you again for having me on. And first and foremost, I just want to say my heart and prayers are out to all fellow 9/11 family members, first responders, and military. We love you. We appreciate you and thoughts and prayers are with you all.
But Tucker, importantly tonight, we need to talk about a groundbreaking ruling that happened yesterday. It's earth shattering. It's monumentous for our case, we are winning. We are winning very, very hard right now. And the judge just granted us -- and this is a Federal judge, Tucker. So she does not take lightly the fact that she granted us the opportunity to depose 24 witnesses of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
We're talking about members of the Royal Family, princess, Prince Bandar, Prince Aziz, the head of the Islamic Ministry -- you know, Islamic Ministry of affairs. That's equivalent to a Mike Pompeo or an A.G. Barr. So this is groundbreaking stuff. It's -- we are on the offensive for the first time in a long time.
And you know, Tucker, I just want to say one thing, if I can, I'd like to address the President of the United States tonight, because I know he loves to watch your show. And, Mr. President, if you are watching, first and foremost, I want to thank you for having us at the White House last year. You're the first President that's ever done that, by the way, and I stood there and I shook your hand and I looked you in the eye and we told you our troubles and we told you everything that we're going through.
And you said to us, Mr. President, keep going. Hit them hard. I'm behind you. I'm right with you all the way.
Well, Mr. President, we did just what you said. We did keep going. We hit them hard. And we're at the point now where we've got the Saudis on the ropes. We're David and we've got Goliath on the ropes. And, Mr. President, we need help one last time. Help us get us over the finish line. Declassify these remaining documents, and I promise you, you will be a hero, not only to the 9/11 families, but to all of America for exposing the swamp for what it is.
President Bush and President Obama gave us no help. They actually hindered us. President Obama vetoed JASTA, believe it or not. He tried to kill our lawsuit for this horrible Iranian deal. So Mr. President, you're our last and only hope. And please, please do the right thing. Make the Saudis see the light.
You know, Mr. President that the Saudis want to have good relations with the United States and let this be a turning point for these relations, and please help us.
CARLSON: I'm rooting for you. But I wish we had more time. If you ever find out why the U.S. government has continued to hide documents that would explain what happened in 9/11, I hope you'll come back and explain it to us because it's something I'm really interested in.
EAGLESON: Tucker, and if you ever -- if you knew of any of that, Tucker, we are just flabbergasted as to why they kept them.
CARLSON: You have a right to be because your government has let you down. It let all of us down.
EAGLESON: Thank you again for having us, Tucker. I really, really appreciate it. I'll be happy to -- I'll be happy to come back.
CARLSON: Thank you, Brett.
Well, tonight a foreign company is threatening to destroy the largest salmon spawning ground in the world. It's in our country, it's in Alaska. So for people who actually care about nature and the environment, and that should be all of us. It's not about climate. It's about the material land and water that we're sovereign over. You should follow this.
We're going to talk to a man who makes his living outdoors in Alaska after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: In Washington, strangely, the people who talk the most about the environment almost invariably are the people who know the least about the environment, who go outside the least, who care least about nature and are most likely to deny its imperatives.
But nature is vital. It's the source of so much human happiness. And here's something if you care about nature, you should know about.
Bristol Bay, Alaska, one of the wonders of the world, more salmon spawn there than any place on the planet. Now a Canadian company is trying to build an open pit mine there. An E.P.A. review found that mine would be devastating potentially for the ecosystem, for nature. There would be some mining jobs, but fewer than you think and they would be automated and time limited.
The mine if built is expected to create jobs only for about 20 years. Whereas the damage the mine cause could last forever. So at this point, the White House has delayed approval for building this mind, the Pebble Mine. Should the White House cancel it entirely?
Brian Kraft knows a lot about this area and a lot about nature. He is the owner of the Alaska Sportsman's Lodge. We're happy to have him on tonight. Brian, thanks so much for coming on.
BRIAN KRAFT, OWNER, ALASKA SPORTSMAN'S LODGE: Hi. Thanks for having me on, Tucker.
CARLSON: Tell us about this part of the world where you live and work. Why is it important?
KRAFT: Well, it's a remote part of Alaska, Southwest Alaska known as the Bristol Bay Area. It is home to salmon runs that are measured by the millions. There's no roads, no real infrastructure. It's in a pristine, completely intact nature functioning as it has for a millennium. So it's a perfectly functioning ecosystem with healthy fisheries.
CARLSON: So you run a business, presumably you're not against business. You're in rural areas where there aren't enough jobs. Presumably, you're sympathetic to the idea of creating more jobs. I'm assuming all of this, but I think it's probably right. So tell us about -- assess the argument that we need Pebble Mine because the economy needs Pebble Mine.
KRAFT: Well, the economy and Bristol Bay is driven by salmon and the salmon runs are very strong and very healthy. We've got a thriving commercial salmon fishery that feeds the world. We've got a thriving sport fishery that people come from all over the world to experience and we've got a thriving ecotourism industry as well.
And then you have the local people that have lived there for millions or thousands of years and are sustained by the salmon runs. So there is an economy that's functioning right now. And all we have to do is take care of it, and putting a big hole, a big mine at the headwaters of some of the salmon streams that originate and create this habitat is not a really good idea.
You know, and originally, Tucker, I was all for this. I first heard about this proposal. I am pro-business and just like many Alaskans up here, we understand resource development and resource extraction economy up here, by and large, so I got it, I understood that, hey, this could create jobs, this could be a good opportunity.
But then just like many Alaskans, the more we looked at it and the more we studied it, we found out this isn't the right location. Unfortunately, this location is too sensitive and I think that's what the administration has come away with, too.
They've looked at it. They've gone through the process. They've gone through the EIS Program with the Army Corps of Engineers, come to finally EIS situation where they go, you know what, there's adverse consequences to going forward with it as planned and we can't allow that to happen.
CARLSON: Amen. So many of these conversations, these debates about the environment take place between people who know nothing about it, and so we're just grateful to have someone like you, Brian, who lives there and spends his life there assess it for us. Thanks a lot for coming on tonight. I appreciate it.
KRAFT: Thanks for having me, Tucker. Big fan. Appreciate it.
CARLSON: Thanks. Well, a Los Angeles County Health official has admitted she does not want to reopen schools until the presidential election. There's a little science for you. She said that on tape. We will play it for you next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: Over the past several weeks, we showed you many videos of Joe Biden voters wearing BLM t-shirts terrorizing people in their homes.
Democratic politicians in the media who help them pretend they don't encourage this. It's terrorism, obviously, but they're not for it. Notice they never condemn it though.
Well last month, in August, a Democrat running for the statehouse in Minnesota, a man called John Thompson made it a little harder to pretend that Democrats aren't for this. Thompson was videotape outside the home of the Minneapolis Police Union President, Bob Kroll. He was threatening Kroll and the city with violence. We played you the tape.
At one point, Thompson beat effigies of Kroll and his wife, he beat them like pinatas. Watch this.
[VIDEO CLIP PLAYS]
CARLSON: What country is this? This is totally cool though according to the Minneapolis newspaper, "The Star Tribune." Their Editorial Board remarked that Thompson was just quote, "stoked and amped up." Thompson may need to work on quote, "funneling his emotions," the Editorial Board conceded, but quote, "We can understand his tornadic style." Assuming that's a word.
Meanwhile, Ken Martin, he is the state party chairman, Democratic Party, said the party doesn't condone Thompson's rhetoric, but the party is, quote, "grateful for his work against racism." Apparently beating effigies is part of that.
In other words, maybe next time Thompson should beat only one effigy instead of two. Thompson is not alone. He's not an outlier by the way. He reflects his party and he reflects his base both of which routinely claim to be terrorized in order to justify their own terrorism.
That's not sustainable. You can't have a country like that. No party that tolerates this kind of terrorism belongs in government. Period. And today, a police union in Minnesota finally realized that and pulled its endorsement of several Democratic legislators.
If they don't want more people like John Thompson outside their homes, maybe more civic organizations should do the same.
Thompson isn't the only public figure who has been letting the mask slip recently. This week, a recording surfaced showing LA County Public Health Director, Dr. Barbara Ferrer saying that the state's largest county won't reopen its schools until -- guess -- after the presidential election. In other words, these are political lockdowns. Your kids are pawns of the Democratic Party. Listen.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
DR. BARBARA FERRER, LOS ANGELES COUNTY PUBLIC HEALTH DIRECTOR: We don't realistically anticipate that we would be moving to either tier two or to be opening K through 12 schools at least during -- at least until after the election.
It seems to us a more realistic approach to this would be to think that we are going to be where we are now until we get after -- until we are done with the elections.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
CARLSON: So officials in LA are saying no, Democrats. Oh, that's not a big deal. They're saying the Dr. Ferrer just happened to pick the election out of a hat. I just happened to pick it. Right.
Marc Siegel is a physician. He's a FOX News medical contributor. We're happy to have him on tonight to assess -- Doctor.
DR. MARC SIEGEL, FOX NEWS MEDICAL CONTRIBUTOR: Tucker, I call this election infection. The election is infecting, right, not the virus.
CARLSON: Yes.
SIEGEL: And in terms of Dr. Ferrer, she is not really a doctor. Like Tedros of the W.H.O., she calls herself a doctor, but she's not a physician. So I have three things I want her to think about tonight. One is education. The second is public health. The third is money.
Dr. Farrer, education, can you imagine starting in November? Let's talk about geometry. You start with the square but never get to the cube. How about American History, Dr. Ferrer? You start with the revolution, but you never get past World War I. And what about public health? What about the interaction between kids? What about having nurses look after the medical issues with kids? What about special needs? What about nutrition?
And then thirdly, what about money? Barons is studying the lost appearance, being out of work because of all our schools closing in the United States, it would cost $700 billion to the U.S. economy. Over here in New York, Tucker, we have Mayor de Blasio saying the schools are going to open, the schools are going to be open, but if you look next to him, you see an election countdown calendar. He has got the same thing going on here.
And meanwhile, teachers in New York are saying, hey, we've got no masks. Hey, we've got no protocol. We've got no plan in place. How can we possibly reopen? What are we going to do? We're not coming in, the teachers who saying.
So Tucker, I'm not a betting man. But I have a wager tonight that I'd like to share with you. I've got a special date in mind when the schools in New York might open and my bet, I want to see if you agree with this, my bet is November 3rd -- Tucker.
CARLSON: Unfortunately, Doctor, I'm not going to take that bet because I think you're probably right. Great to see you tonight. Thank you for that assessment.
SIEGEL: Thank you, Tucker.
CARLSON: Up next, the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange face up to 175 years in prison if he is extradited to the United States. For what exactly? Why are they trying to put Julian Assange in prison for life? We should know. Glenn Greenwald joins us after the break to tell us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange has been held in a high security prison since he was arrested last spring at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London where he effectively was held for many years in isolation. His extradition hearing is now finally underway.
Assange's lawyer estimates he could face 175 years in prison if he is extradited to the United States. He faces espionage charges here.
WikiLeaks exposed all kinds of things, some of which it was good to know, including corruption by the Democratic National Committee in 2016. So what is the story on Julian Assange? Why is the D.O.J. pursuing this case so aggressively?
Glenn Greenwald has followed this from the very beginning. He's, of course, a journalist, founder of "The Intercept" and we're happy to have him tonight.
So Glenn, thanks for coming on. I think a lot of people have heard for years that Julian Assange is a bad guy who hurt the United States. Now the United States is going to bring justice in this case. What's your view of this? Tell us what we should know in three minutes about Julian Assange?
GLEN GREENWALD, CO-FOUNDER, THE INTERCEPT: Let's remember, Tucker, that the criminal investigation into Julian Assange began by the Obama administration because in 2010, WikiLeaks published a slew of documents, none of which harmed anybody, not even the government claims that that was very embarrassing to the Obama administration that revealed all kinds of abuses and lies that they were telling about these endless wars, that the Pentagon and the C.I.A. are determined to fight. They were embarrassing to Hillary Clinton.
And so, they conducted -- they initiated a grand jury investigation to try and prosecute him for reporting to the public. He worked with "The New York Times" and "The Guardian" to publish very embarrassing information about the endless war machine, about the neocons who are working in the Obama administration.
To understand what's happening here, we can look at a very similar case, which is one that President Trump recently raised, which is the prosecution by the Obama administration as well of Edward Snowden for the same reason that he exposed the lies that James Clapper told. He exposed how there is this massive spying system that the N.S.A. and the C.I.A. control that they can use against American citizens and obviously this isn't coming from President Trump. He praised WikiLeaks in 2016 for informing the public.
He knows firsthand how these spying systems that Edward Snowden exposed can be abused and were abused in 2016. This is coming from people who work in the C.I.A., who work in the Pentagon, who insist on endless war and who believe that they are a government unto themselves more powerful than the President.
I posted this weekend a speech from Dwight Eisenhower warning that this military industrial complex, what we now call the Deep State is becoming more powerful than the President. Chuck Schumer warned right before President Trump took office that President Trump challenging the C.I.A. was foolish because they have many ways to get back at anybody who impedes them.
That's what these cases are about Tucker. They're punishing Julian Assange and trying to punish Edward Snowden for informing the public about things they have the right to know about the Obama administration. They're basically saying to President Trump, you don't run the country even though you were elected. We do and they're daring him to use his part in power to put an end to these very abusive prosecutions one which resulted in eight years of punishment for Julian Assange for telling the truth, the other one which resulted in seven years of exile for Edward Snowden, of being in Russia simply for informing the public and embarrassing political officials who are very powerful.
CARLSON: So in 30 seconds, the President could pardon Julian Assange right now and end this, is that correct?
GREENWALD: He could have pardoned him and Edward Snowden and there's widespread support across the political spectrum on both the right and the left for doing both. It would be politically advantageous for the President. The only people who would be angry would be Susan Rice, John Brennan, Jim Comey and James Clapper because they're the ones who both of them exposed.
CARLSON: Well, that's the most powerful summary I've ever heard of that story. Glenn Greenwald, thank you very much for that.
GREENWALD: Thanks, Tucker.
CARLSON: We're out of time, but on our way out tonight, into the weekend, we want to give you one last look at the "Tribute in Light" remembering every American, we lost thousands of them on 9/11 nineteen years ago today.
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