This is a rush transcript from "Tucker Carlson Tonight," July 23, 2020. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

TUCKER CARLSON, HOST: Good evening and welcome to "Tucker Carlson Tonight." The President announced this afternoon that the Republican Party has canceled its traditional nominating convention in Florida next month. The reason: coronavirus.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: This afternoon, my political team came to me and laid out our plans for the convention in Jacksonville, Florida. It's a place I love. I love that state.

But I looked at my team and I said the timing for this event is not right. It is just not right with what's happened recently, the flare-up in Florida. To have a big convention is not the right time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Well, that news will certainly inconvenience some people. It's without precedent in recent history. But in the end, it's hard to believe that canceling a political convention will affect the outcome ultimately of this year's presidential election.

Yet it is very likely that the coronavirus lockdowns themselves will affect the outcome. And here's why. The most basic question political polling never changes, is your country on the right track or the wrong track? In a reelection campaign especially? That is always the central question and every political consultant in America knows that.

There is no poll the Biden campaign pays closer attention to than the daily right track, wrong track numbers, especially now. The presidential election in fact, believe it or not, is almost here.

In some places early voting begins in just over a month. The results of that voting will define the country's future. If Democrats take both the Senate and the White House and they could, you will not recognize America a year from now.

Think about how much things have changed just over the past six months. Now, imagine what would have happened if there had been no meaningful opposition to the mob, if Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had been able to impose her plans without any restraint. That's exactly what they intend to do if they win. They're not hiding it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN, D-MASS.: If Mitch McConnell tries to do what he did to President Obama, then we should get rid of the filibuster.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Raise your hand if your government plan would provide coverage for undocumented immigrants.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS, I-VT.: That is why we will implement legislation based on the principles of the Green New Deal.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you proposing taking away their guns and how would this work?

BETO O'ROURKE, D-FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I am if, it's a weapon that was designed to kill people on a battlefield.

Hell yes, we're going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, D-N.Y.: It's funny because when people ask me, what does a world where we defend the police, where you know defunding police looks like, I tell them it looks like a suburb.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Well, say what you will about the people you just saw, they are not moderates. This is not the Democratic Party you remembered. Dopey liberals with flaccid ideas that you probably had contempt for, but in the end could live with.

No, these are radicals. They despise the country they seek to govern. They plan to remake it completely. These people want power with an intensity that you as a normal well-adjusted person cannot even begin to understand. They will do anything for control.

So the question is, what are they doing to win? Well, they're working the right track wrong track numbers. Democrats understand that the unhappier Americans become, the more likely they are to win. Unhappy people want change. It is not complicated.

So every ominous headline about the state of the country makes it more likely that Donald Trump will lose his job. The more that people suffer, the greater Joe Biden's advantage.

Democrats have a strong incentive, therefore to inflict as much pain as they can and that's what they're doing.

On March 1st, New York State confirmed its first case of the coronavirus. At the time, you may not remember, the media was still attacking the President for taking the Wuhan coronavirus too seriously. They said his travel ban on China was hysterical and xenophobic.

Two days later, citing the pandemic, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine banned spectators from a sporting event, and "The Washington Post" scoffed at him. The paper called DeWine's restrictions quote, "radical." On that day, March 3rd, more than 40 percent of Americans thought the country was headed in the right direction, and for the Biden campaign that number was way too high.

Then within a week, higher education began to shut down and life really started to change for many people. Hundreds of thousands of idle college aged kids returned home. Stores began to empty. Hand sanitizers, cleaning supplies disappeared.

On March 12th, the National Hockey League cancelled its season. Major League Baseball followed suit. They ended spring training. Suddenly there were no sports.

Movie theaters closed, so did bowling alleys. And yet still, 40 percent of Americans continued to believe that their country was headed in the right direction and that was bad news for the Joe Biden campaign.

So then came the shutdowns. The C.D.C. recommended canceling all public events with more than 50 people present. Public schools closed, so did bars, restaurants, gyms and churches.

Critically, millions lost their jobs when businesses were shuttered. The unemployment rate rose to the highest level in nearly a century. Now, at the time, they told us that mass quarantines were essential. They were a public health measure. We were saving lives with our suffering. Most people wanted to believe that because most Americans are decent people.

But as summer approached, it became clear that the people telling us that were lying. Science had nothing to do with this. Studies from around world showed that being outside was far safer than staying at home. That was conclusive.

And yet governors continued to maintain mandatory shelter-in-place orders. In Michigan, which coincidentally is a swing state, Democrats banned citizens from visiting their own weekend homes or using outboard motors. In New Jersey, people were arrested for going to the beach.

After a while, the authorities issuing these orders stopped trying to pretend that they were backed up with reason or data. Anthony Fauci, who for a long time, seemed like a serious man of science announced that it was very dangerous to shake hands with the people you love, but it was fine to have sex with strangers you meet online.

Like Anthony Fauci himself, the coronavirus lockdowns were revealed to be capricious and transparently political. Above all though, and this was the point, they made Americans miserable. Prescriptions for antidepressants rose 21 percent in a single month.

By the end of April, the right track wrong track number inverted. Just 22 percent of those polled believe the country was on the right track, and yet for the people pushing Joe Biden for President, that number was still too high. So, we had riots.

As the entire country watched in real time, mobs looted and burned a police station in Minneapolis. We saw Americans dragged from their stores and beaten unconscious on camera, some were killed.

Most people watching were horrified by this, of course, but professional Democrats were thrilled by it. They slashed police budgets to ensure it would continue -- and it did.

Crime rates soared. The crackdown on normal people accelerated. Your kids weren't allowed to have graduation ceremonies or get married. But hundreds of thousands of confirmed Joe Biden voters were allowed to flood the streets and break things.

And then mid-summer camp. With the election just months away, America's suffering had to be intensified. It was a political imperative. So schools across the country announced they would stay closed in the fall. No one bothered to explain the science behind this because there wasn't any.

Schoolchildren remain nearly immune to the fatal effects of the coronavirus. To this day there is not a single recorded case in the entire world of a student passing COVID-19 to a teacher, not one case. But schools shut down anyway.

Desperate parents wonder what they were going to do with their kids in September. Good luck, they were told. Figure something out.

Residents of Washington, D.C. were told they would be required by law to wear masks everywhere they went for the foreseeable future. And yet, the people who made that law exempted themselves from it. They already know they're voting for Joe Biden.

Everyone else in the country became dramatically unhappier. Nearly three quarters of Americans now say their country has become a much worse place than it was.

Doctors have prescribed so much Zoloft, the antidepressant that it is now on the Federal drug shortage list. In fact, it is likely that Americans have never in the history of this country been as unhappy as they are right now.

It's a tragedy, but for Democrats, it's a win. According to polls, Republicans may now lose once safe Senate seats in Iowa and Montana, just to name two.

So say what you will with the destruction of America, but as a political matter, it's been a stroke of genius.

Dr. Marty Makary is a Professor of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. He joins us tonight. Professor, thank you so much for coming on.

I want to ask you specifically about the fall -- the intended fall school shutdown. Schools across the country are planning on remaining shuttered for at least part of the fall term, and I'm wondering if there's any valid science to justify that decision?

DR. MARTY MAKARY, PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC HEALTH, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY: Well, Tucker in low risk areas, it makes no sense at all. As a matter of fact, some parts of the country -- New Jersey, Massachusetts, even Fairfax, Virginia, have talked about delaying school, when probably the more scientifically logical thing to do is to move it up before a potential fall spike later on.

Now, look, if school is in the middle of a massive surge in the middle of an outbreak, then there's broad consensus -- you even heard it from the President today -- that that school should then take all the precautions and maybe be closed. We've done that with influenza in the past.

But right now, unfortunately, people are not recognizing that 14 kids, albeit tragic have died from coronavirus. More kids will die from substance abuse, child abuse or the lack of access to nutrition in schools. You know, cases reported to Child Protective Services are way down. Why is that? It's implausible to think there's less abuse. It's because there's no more eyes on the kids. There's no more detection in the school. And we know 73 percent of mental health in schools is delivered through the school counselors.

So that's an important pulse that we need to have on kids if we want to optimize health outcomes.

CARLSON: So the numbers that you're citing, are they obscure? Are they esoteric? Do you need a PhD to find them? They're available, aren't they? Presumably, the people making these decisions have access to them, so why are they making these decisions?

MAKARY: Well, I think it's reactionary. Unfortunately, we've seen the politicization Have this virus and sometimes it's magnified by those who just want to make a point when the President said he wants kids in schools. You saw this sort of reaction.

But when the American Academy of Pediatrics had said, two weeks prior, there was almost sort of, you know, a praise and a hailing. You don't have to go far to look up the number of deaths from influenza, pneumonia, viral meningitis, and each of those conditions has claimed the lives of more kids than coronavirus to date.

CARLSON: So if you're making a decision based on political considerations that the numbers show will hurt more than it help, then you're committing a foul act, aren't you?

MAKARY: We want to maximize the number of lives preserved and saved, and the way to do that, scientifically, is to look at the consequences of closed schools and I believe ultimately, will save more lives when kids are in school in areas where there's no active outbreaks. That's most of the country, I don't know how they're making decisions now without the data.

The data has come out, and we've got to evolve our strategy accordingly. Look, when we told people to stay at home, we should have told them to stay outside. When we told people to, you know, wash their hands like crazy, we should have told them to undergo universal masking.

So we've got to evolve our strategy. Remember contact tracing? We were told that's the path out of coronavirus. Well, guess what? New York, Massachusetts, many of these areas managed their infection not from contact tracing, but from undergoing good behavior and ultimately, what drives the transmission is whether or not people in our community take it seriously.

CARLSON: Yes. Well, they're taking the election seriously, obviously. That's what this is about. Dr. Makary, thanks so much for joining us tonight. I appreciate it.

MAKARY: Thank you, Tucker.

CARLSON: So you remember back a few years ago when the claim arose, and the President amplified it that the F.B.I. had been spying on the Trump Organization, people in Trump's orbit and he was denounced as a nutcase, as a conspiracy theorist. This is totally false.

Well, newly declassified documents suggest it's not false at all. It's true. The Federalist's Sean Davis has that story for us tonight. We're happy to have him. Sean, what is this?

SEAN DAVIS, THE FEDERALIST: Right. So today, thanks to the Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe, we had declassified some F.B.I. documents about a lot of their shenanigans and antics in 2016 and one thing we learned from the hand of one of the F.B.I. agents involved in the spy campaign against the Trump campaign, was that they used a defensive briefing on foreign Intelligence threats like Russia who was trying to interfere in our election.

They used that briefing not to tell the Trump administration or the Trump campaign what was happening. They used it instead to spy on the Trump campaign and the agent they sent in said he was there to actively listen to and look at mannerisms from the people involved in case he needed to use it against them later during their spy campaign.

CARLSON: So I guess, a compound question, why is this different from what happens in China and how is the F.B.I. not acting as Barack Obama's secret police in this case?

DAVIS: Those are really good questions. You know, they told us when Trump first said, you know, they were spying on me. Oh, no, that's not possible. He is crazy. We'd never do that.

And what they were actually doing was they were spying on him. They were using wiretaps, national security letters, confidential human sources, and in some cases, they were taking their own briefings of campaigns in which they were supposed to tell the campaigns, hey, these are the real threats against you.

And they were using them as operations to dig up dirt and spy on them. And if that isn't a reason to distress the F.B.I. and assume that everything they're doing is political, I'm not sure there's a reason you can ever give to doubt what that agency is up to.

CARLSON: It's a reason to dismantle it. And by the way, it turns out, in retrospect, some of the more outlandish sounding things the President have said have turned out to be the truth. He's not paranoid enough. So why have -- I mean, this is maybe a question without answer, but why hasn't anybody systematically tried to reform the F.B.I. Here we are at the end of Trump's first term, and it seems the way it was four years ago.

DAVIS: It does. I think the most disconcerting thing is, given everything we know about the illegal spying, the fabrication of evidence that nobody has been charged, not a single person has been charged with any of the crimes that we know occurred, and if they're not even going to come in and charge people who obviously violated our laws in order to spy on and then overthrow a presidential administration, why on Earth would we expect them to go and reform the agency?

I mean, yes, Barr and Durham could do this overnight. They've been doing it for a year looking at it, and they haven't. So why would we expect Congress to go through the legislative process and reform something that clearly needs to be reformed from the bottom up.

CARLSON: Yes, I know, we're all supposed to have respect for the Attorney General. But mine is waning, I would say. Sean Davis, great to see you.

DAVIS: Thank you.

CARLSON: Well, the Mayor of Portland, Oregon, Mr. Ted Wheeler showed up to last night's riots to cheer them on, but the mob chased Mr. Ted Wheeler out anyway. Some of the greatest footage you're going to see in a long time.

Plus, Dr. Siegel's interview with the President was everywhere today. CNN was especially fascinated by the President's cognitive ability test. So Don Lemon, who is a world famous anchor on that decided to take the test himself on live television, which is maybe the greatest thing ever to happen on live television. We'll have a report on that after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: One thing about revolutions -- and this is the good news -- in the end they consume themselves, always. Ask Robespierre. Oh, you can't, he's been beheaded.

Last night -- and we're getting to the point -- the Mayor of Portland, Oregon, a character called Tom Wheeler got a taste of that himself. He joined his cities ongoing riot. He was there to express solidarity with the mob.

When he arrived though, he was not greeted as a hero. He was booed. His name is Ted, not Tom by the way. He was booed. He was told to resign. He was handed a list of demands by the angry children and then he was teargassed by Federal law enforcement. Here's part of it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GROUP: Quit your job. Quit your job. Quit your job.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Well, the Mayor ended up scurrying away like a little rodent, fleeing on foot, but he was safe because he was surrounded by five taxpayer financed bodyguards with guns. Do you have those? I don't think so, Ted Wheeler does. He wasn't harmed, thanks to them. Thanks to you for paying for them.

Here's some footage of the riot that Wheeler had showed up to support.

[VIDEO CLIP PLAYS]

CARLSON: Well, the Portland Police Department maybe the last organization in the city that can at least kind of tell the truth, describe what you just saw as a riot. They would know.

The administration has sent Federal law enforcement, as we said to the city to try and calm things down, maybe save some property, maybe save a life. The President just announced a new operation to combat violent crime in American cities. So it's getting broader.

Stephen Miller is a Senior Adviser to the President and we're happy to have him on tonight. Mr. Miller, thank you so much for coming on.

STEPHEN MILLER, SENIOR ADVISER TO THE PRESIDENT: Thanks, Tucker.

CARLSON: So I just cannot resist asking you about Mayor Ted Wheeler who has been encouraging violence now for months. He shows up at a riot that he helped create with five armed bodyguards. Is there anything the Federal government can do to strip the taxpayer funded armed bodyguards from people like Ted Wheeler?

People of Portland have to live with this violence. Ted Wheeler protects himself at their expense. Is there anything that the administration can do about that? It's too outrageous.

MILLER: It's a really great question, it's certainly worth looking at. But I will make this point, the Democratic Party for a long time historically has been the party of secession. What you're seeing today is the Democratic Party returning to its roots.

These are mayors and governors that are saying the Federal law, the U.S. Constitution doesn't apply within the confines of our city, and our citizens will be held at the mercy of the mob and the administration of justice, the Federal Courthouse will be allowed to fall under siege. And that's what's happening right now in Portland.

CARLSON: Yes, that's pretty -- it's been happening. I mean, cities across the country for the last four years have declared themselves exempt from Federal immigration law and with respect, you know, no one has done anything about it. So this has been a slow moving disaster that no one tried to stop.

MILLER: Well, the mayors of these cities that have engaged in these kinds of lawless rebellions against Federal law, against immigration enforcement have engaged in unprecedented activity, and this administration, for the first time in history has taken action to restore immigration enforcement after five decades of bipartisan betrayal of the American worker.

You know this better than anybody, Tucker. For half a century, American workers were sold out, betrayed by politicians, had their jobs shipped overseas and had cheap foreign labor imported to drive down their wages, and take away the wealth that they need to support their families. And we've stood up to that and this President has stood up to that.

But let me tell you about Portland, you have a hundred brave D.H.S. officers standing up against that lawless mob. They should be celebrated. They should be celebrated as heroes.

A number of them have been injured, 16, I believe have been injured. Three I.C.E. officers with a strike response team have been seriously wounded in the eye by the use of lasers pointed at their retinas and they may never fully recover their sight. We don't even know.

But this is a lawless assault urged on by this mayor and this administration won't stand for it just like we won't stand for the lawless murder of civilians in the City of Chicago.

CARLSON: So what are you going to do about it in Portland?

MILLER: Well, in the case of Portland, number one is, we will not let that courthouse be burned to the ground. We will hold that line, and we will enforce Federal law, US Code Section 4315 that allows us to protect that building or 1315, I should say.

I would note by the way, that the same politicians condemning the Department of Homeland Security voted for that law, voted for that law in 2002 and that law says shall -- shall protect Federal property, and that's what we're doing.

Just like in Operation Legend to fight violent crime, different issue than mob violence, but to fight violent crime. It's the largest surge that has ever occurred to deal with the problem of violent crime.

Now that responsibility still falls mostly on the shoulders of police departments in our local communities, but this government is still going to step up and use D.E.A., F.B.I., A.T.F. and D.H.S. to try to keep our citizens safe.

CARLSON: Good luck. A lot of people are rooting for you in that, for sure.

MILLER: This is about the survival of this country and we will not back down.

CARLSON: You shouldn't. Thanks so much for that. Appreciate it.

MILLER: Thank you.

CARLSON: Joe Biden doesn't talk too much in public these days, but when he does, he is a very quotable man, much to the agony of his staff. We have some of his latest quotes after the break. Stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Well, Joe Biden has been chained to the radiator in his basement for the past few months by his handlers and as a political matter, it has worked. His poll numbers have gone up. They'd like to keep him there.

But unfortunately, a presidential campaign requires that you talk and so now he is on a limited basis. Here he was yesterday trying to attack the President for suggesting that the Wuhan coronavirus, which likely escaped from a Chinese lab came from China.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, D-PRESUMPTIVE DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: It makes me so angry when I find the people based on the color of their skin or their national origin are somehow viewed in a different way.

And look at what he is doing now? He is blaming everything on China. He is blaming everything on the Chinese. He is blaming everything -- and people don't make a distinction as you well know, from a South Korean and someone from Beijing.

They make no distinction. It's Asia. And that's the way -- and he's just using it as a wedge.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Yes, it's a wedge. It's wrong to say what's true. It's also weird. In Joe Biden's America, people get their news from record players and nobody knows the difference between China and South Korea.

But the interview got better, the 77-year-old candidate also revealed scintillating new details about his medical situation. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: I have a nurse at -- nurses at Walter Reed Hospital who would bend down and whisper in my ear, go home and get me pillows. They would make sure they actually -- it's probably nothing ever taught in -- you can't do it in the COVID time, but they'd actually breathe in my nostrils to make me move, to get me moving.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: They breathed into his nostrils? That sounds like a resuscitation attempt. We'd like to speak to anybody who has blown air into Joe Biden's nostrils. We are on live every evening at eight o'clock and we will give you a chance to tell your story, to unburden yourself.

You have suffered. You deserve a chance to talk about it, so call us.

Well, the 13th Amendment banned slavery in America, thank God, but some big corporations like Nike have found a way to get around it. Just use Chinese slaves.

This footage from Western China shows Uighurs -- that's an ethnic minority group -- blindfolded, tied up and forced to board trains. Some, according to reports may wind up staffing sweatshops. Nike profits immensely from this. They sell $500 shoes to pay their CEO $14 million a year. Kind of a scandal. Not covered much in the American media.

Ned Ryun has paid close attention to it though. He is CEO of American Majority. We're happy to have him on tonight. Ned, thanks so much for coming on.

So I just want to be sure we're not overstating the case here, but is it established, do you believe that slave labor, political prisoners, ethnic minorities in China, their labor benefits American companies?

NED RYUN, FOUNDER AND CEO, AMERICAN MAJORITY: Oh, there's a study out of Australia from this spring that actually "Forbes" covered, Tucker, that showed that these woke corporations like Nike, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and I posted this at the top of my Twitter feed if you want to read all 83 corporations that are involved in slave labor in China. They're benefiting off of it.

And then to add to that irony, Tucker, they are then taking that money and funding to the tune of now estimated upwards to $2.7 billion the Black Lives Matter Global Network.

So these social justice networks that decry racism in America and say America was founded on slavery are actually getting funding from the corporations that originated with slavery, and we know why the corporations are doing this, Tucker. We know why they're paying off billions in indulgences of racialized political payoffs, because they don't want to have to talk about what they are doing right now, what they say they deplore.

CARLSON: Right.

RYUN: And the amazing part is, they are literally abusing the weakest of the weak and they're doing it in Asia. We all know why, because they don't want to have to pay real wages to American workers.

So I will say this, they can posture all they want to at home, but a lot of these corporations are the equivalent of modern day slavers. And I will also say this, Tucker, making goods and products off of slave labor is not capitalism, and it's certainly un-American.

CARLSON: It's totally immoral, and yet our time is occupied with these pointless debates over historical figures who died 150 years ago. And at the same time, this is going on.

Let me -- I mean, let me ask you, where are the labor unions in this? I mean, you used to see these big public relations campaigns against so called sweatshops, and they were driven by American labor unions who pointed out correctly that these sweatshops are undercutting American workers. I haven't heard any labor union say anything about this. Why?

RYUN: Well, I mean, this is the shame of it. You can see -- you can definitely see a lot of the blue collar union workers who are actually pro- Trump, whereas the bosses are definitely not pro-Trump, for political reasons. I mean, it all comes down to politics and funding and all sorts of things.

But Tucker, it gets even worse on this front with these corporations. Not only are they complete hypocrites on this idea of racism and slavery. You think about Walmart, Costco, Best Buy, all of these, Amazon included, not only are they hypocrites, they're also selling these smart devices that are platform on Chinese companies like Tuya, I mean, it looks like there's about 10 million American homes that have these smart devices on a Chinese- owned controlled platform that by law is required to feed data to the Communist Party and the military on demand.

So not only are these American corporations hypocrites on this issue of slave labor, they're also helping Trojan horse the American people on behalf of the Chinese. You can't make this stuff up.

CARLSON: It's beyond belief. But before you go, I've never gotten personal with you in the air, really with anybody, but I want to ask you about your father who is in the news.

RYUN: Yes, no, I appreciate that, Tucker. I want to give a shout out to my dad, the great Jim Ryun, former world record holder in the mile, three-time Olympian, former Congressman.

Tomorrow, he is going to get the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award from President Trump, and I couldn't be happier. I couldn't be prouder. I couldn't be more grateful to Trump.

My father is a man among men and he is so worthy of this award and I'm looking very much forward to tomorrow. So, I appreciate you saying something.

CARLSON: Well, I appreciate how much you love your dad. And if you're going to divide the world into two camps, it really is divided between people who love their dads and those who don't. It makes a huge difference.

RYUN: That's right. Thank you, Tucker.

CARLSON: Ned Ryun, thank you.

RYUN: Thank you.

CARLSON: So the President talked about his cognitive exam the White House physicians gave him. He did it on the show last night. Don Lemon, international TV star over at the Cable News Network, try to take that exam on the air, and it's just so great we're going to have to play for you, after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: So if you saw the show last night, you saw that Dr. Marc Siegel asked the President about the cognitive ability tests White House physicians have given him and amazingly, the President was happy to talk about details. Here's part of it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: It was 30 to 35 questions. The first questions are very easy. The last questions are much more difficult. Like a memory question. It's like you'll go person, woman, man, camera, TV. So they'd say, could you repeat that. So I said yes, so it's person, woman, man, camera, TV. Okay, that's very good.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So guess who else was watching that? The weightlifter over on CNN and his buddy, Don Lemon. So the weightlifter, the governor's brother decided to administer the test the President has taken to international TV star, Don Lemon, and here's what happened next.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: When do you take that? That looks like something for middle school?

DON LEMON, CNN HOST: Well, you take that when usually -- listen, I'm not a doctor, and I'm going to let Dr. Reiner explain it a little bit.

CUOMO: Yes.

LEMON: But usually when there is some issue of some concern about, you know, your cognitive abilities.

CUOMO: Oh, what were the animal shapes?

LEMON: Well, it's a lion, a hippo and the camel.

CUOMO: Isn't that a rhino in the middle?

LEMON: A rhino.

CUOMO: You don't even know a hippo from a rhino. You've got no acuity, son. You've got no acuity.

LEMON: I'm looking at it backwards. I'm looking at it backwards.

CUOMO: What does it mean if you don't know an elephant from the rhino?

LEMON: An elephant --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: What does it mean if you don't know a rhino from an elephant? Well, you may not be a physician, but I think you know what it means. It means low acuity.

And that's not a surprise in the case of Don Lemon, a perfectly cheerful person, maybe the slowest person ever to appear on cable news. You never forget, and in case you have, we have the tape.

Mr. Lemon's Malaysia Airlines segment, the one in which he speculated that maybe the flight had vanished into a black hole.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Whether it was hijacking or terrorism or mechanical failure or pilot error, but what if it was something fully that we don't really understand? A lot of people have been asking me about that, about black holes and on and on and on.

Also referencing "The Twilight Zone" which has a very similar plot. That's what people are saying. I know it's preposterous, but is it preposterous, do you think, Mary?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Hmm. It turns out we know this because we have access to a scientific portal we call Google that the nearest black hole is about 3,000 light years away. Boeing 777s can't yet fly that far.

Now, just in case it seems like we're being a little cruel to Mr. Lemon or the Dark Dwarf King who employs him, let me just say that there is love at the bottom of this because Mr. Lemon combines almost supernatural slowness, with remarkable self-confidence.

And if you don't believe it, pull up again on Google, a magazine profile he sat for a few years ago in which he declared with total assuredness that the frozen dessert the rest of us call sorbet is actually pronounced sorbette. He was adamant about that. He's a news anchor. How can you not love a man like that?

Howie Carr read that. He watches Don Lemon. Mr. Carr is the undisputed radio king of New England. He joins us tonight. Howie, were you surprised by the results of that exam administered live on air at CNN?

HOWIE CARR, RADIO SHOW HOST: You know, having watched Don Lemon on New Year's Eve, in those celebrations, I think if he had been presented with silhouettes of different type of products, say bar room glasses, I think he would have done fine, you know, shot glass, cocktail glass, rocks glass, wine goblet. He would have been okay.

You know, I always thought that lawyers learned early on that you never ask questions in court of a witness unless you know the answer to them. And obviously, they didn't do too much prep work for that interview.

You know, they just figured, you know, if Trump -- if Trump says he didn't take the test, and they hit him, they say, why won't he take the test? What's he hiding? So he takes the test and then they make a sport of him anyway.

You know, I've taken this this test and, you know, I thought the President summed it up pretty well. I mean, you know, immediately whether you're acing it or not. You know, if they give you the face of a clock with no arms on it, and they say what's 10:10? And you get it.

I'd love to hear Don Lemon do some of those tests that they also give you. There's a same kind of test they give you in field sobriety test, you know.

CARLSON: But there's something -- he would pass because -- and I mean this sincerely. There's something really endearing about the fact that he's never embarrassed. This does not apply to the steroid head buddy on the screen with him.

But Don Lemon, nothing embarrasses him. Isn't there something kind of appealing about that?

CARR: I guess, there is. Wouldn't you love to see him, you know, Mr. Lemon, can you count backwards from 100? Counting down seven, or even better? Here's the one I really love, and I always love to do this when I get a chance to, you know, do a police report. Recite the alphabet backwards, Senator? Or you know, they never -- they never get much beyond M or N.

Wouldn't you like to see Joe Biden take some of these tests?

CARLSON: I would.

CARR: Maybe a couple of the -- yes, I mean, he did more though than you mentioned. He invented two new job classifications in the last 48 hours. You ever hear of a voter registration physician and a pay caregiver? And the disease that's, you know, put everybody in lockdown is not COVID-19, It's COVID-9.

CARLSON: It's unbelievable. Howie Carr, thank you so much for coming on tonight.

CARR: Thanks, Tucker. I appreciate it.

CARLSON: We want to apologize by the way if you've been watching all the steroids videos on the side of the screen. We just have an enormous archive of them and sometimes we just can't control ourselves when we play them.

Well to a more serious topic, free speech that is an American birthright, it is the central right that we have and yet most Americans feel they can't exercise it. They're afraid to say what they think. We'll tell you why.

Also breaking news tonight, not joking, dead serious in fact involving Unidentified Flying Objects -- for real. It's just come in and we will bring it to you next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: This is a Fox News Alert. There are new findings tonight in the search for extraterrestrial life. The New York Times reporting that a secretive Pentagon unit tasked with investigating UFO sightings is quite likely releasing some of its findings soon and those findings could be stunning, particularly for people who have doubted the existence.

The Pentagon has been conducting classified hearings on UFOs for more than a decade. We know very little about what they found, but apparently just recovered are off-world vehicles not made on this Earth. That's a direct quote. We're not exactly sure what they mean by that. But some of it is self-evident.

So it's a big story, and we are scouring through the reporting on it right now. We'll bring you much more right here tomorrow night.

So Americans are allowed to say what they think. That's the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution. That's the lead in the Bill of Rights. This isn't China. It's a free country. That's what we tell ourselves.

But nearly two out of three Americans don't feel they can exercise that right. They've been intimidated into silence. That includes the overwhelming majority, 77 percent of conservatives. What does that mean? Why does it matter if you have a First Amendment if you can't exercise it?

Tammy Bruce hosts "Get Tammy Bruce," which is excellent on Fox Nation. We're happy to have her on tonight and pose that question.

So we have the First Amendment, but it seems irrelevant.

TAMMY BRUCE, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, it does and look compared to your previous segment, your reader there, I would welcome I think at this point, our new alien overlords considering what's happening here.

You know, the First Amendment -- the First Amendment matters. This is what makes the country the greatest country on Earth because we are able to discuss the issues. We're able to do so without fear of being arrested or put in prison. That is what the old world did to people. That's why the founders thought it was important to add into what mattered the first thing that mattered.

But of course, what we've got here are now years, a decade or even a generation here at this point where the left has been beginning to train us to feel guilty and afraid to speak about things and when you're afraid to speak about things, Tucker, it's dangerous to think about them as well.

So this is a classic leftist training, classic cultic training in many instances. And of course, now there's a new report out that in fact, yes, two in three Americans, over 60 percent are afraid to speak their minds.

But liberals over the last three years that has jumped by 12 points, because liberals at first thought, oh, that's only for the bad people. But in the last few years 2017 to 2020, it's been dangerous for liberals who are moderate or just normal to speak their minds as well if they are against the liberal orthodoxy.

CARLSON: So the traditional line from libertarians has been, look, the First Amendment protects you from government punishing you if you speak your political beliefs, but if you lose your job, if you're impoverished, if you can't support your family, then why is there a really a distinction?

BRUCE: Well, you see, that's it. There's -- of course, the presumption is only the government could ruin your life that completely.

CARLSON: Right, exactly.

BRUCE: And yet we now have in the private sector that action, right? So that was the concern -- it who could really ruin your complete life? However, you know, depending on how one votes, people who think that way then are in charge of the government.

Remember, we thought that a lot of people turned a blind eye because they thought it was only in the academy. It was only in schools and the real world and real life would knock them out of it.

Well, we're finding that didn't work, and so now of course, we have to be concerned about politics and business and everywhere else as well.

CARLSON: Very smart. Tammy Bruce, great to see you tonight. Thank you. "Get Tammy Bruce" on Fox Nation. Appreciate it.

BRUCE: Yes. Thank you, Tucker. Thank you, dear.

CARLSON: That's it for us. Out of time after a full hour. We'll be back tomorrow night, 8:00 p.m. The show that is the sworn enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness and groupthink.

To New York we go for Sean Hannity right now.

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