Tucker on Rittenhouse trial: Actions like this threaten America's judicial system

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Tucker: Actions like this threaten America's judicial system

'Tucker Carlson Tonight' host makes the case for why Kyle Rittenhouse is not receiving a fair trial

This is a rush transcript of "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on November 18, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS CHANNEL HOST: Good evening and welcome to TUCKER CARLSON TONIGHT.

The Judge in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial has just sent the jurors home for the night to think about the trial for yet another day. So far, deliberations in this case have lasted about 20 hours. In a normal proceeding, we'd have the jury's decision in about 20 minutes.

The essential question in this case is really clear: Did Kyle Rittenhouse have good reason to believe dangerous men were trying to murder him? And the answer is also clear and unequivocal, yes, he did. These people were definitely trying to murder Kyle Rittenhouse.

So Rittenhouse's response to that threat was the definition of self-defense -- desperate split-second decisions made in the face of unwanted aggression in an attempt to save his own life. That's what happened. Every person who testified at the trial on both sides confirmed that. No honest person doubts it.

So Kyle Rittenhouse never should have been charged in the first place and yet, he was, and the reason he was is very simple. From the beginning, this case was driven by politics and ever since, it's been tainted by government deception and incompetence.

For example, we're just learning now, relevant new evidence in the case -- really? This is evidence the jury should have seen before it began deliberation, obviously, on the basis supposedly of all-known facts.

So needless to say, this is not how our legal system is supposed to work. Here is what we've learned.

One of the charges that Kyle Rittenhouse faces is a felony count for quote, "recklessly endangering" the safety of a man who until today had never been identified. Video footage from the night of August 25th shows this man kicking Kyle Rittenhouse in the face and knocking him down. Rittenhouse responds by firing his rifle twice and both times he missed.

Tonight, the jury is considering whether Rittenhouse acted recklessly when he fired those two shots and yet, and here's the point, the jury has no idea as it deliberates who this man is, because the prosecution never identified him.

Prosecutors claimed they didn't know his identity and they had no way to find it out, so that means that Rittenhouse's defense attorneys never got to cross-examine this man or introduce any evidence about his behavior that night. That's not a small thing.

According to "The Daily Mail," new reporting today that man's name is Maurice Freeland. Freeland has admitted that he attacked Rittenhouse moments before another man, a domestic abuser called Anthony Huber started bashing Rittenhouse in the head with a skateboard.

So who is Maurice Freeland? Well, according to "The Daily Mail," he is a career criminal. He has open charges for domestic abuse, disorderly conduct, and criminal damage to property. In one case, a woman reported to authorities that Freeland quote, "threw her to the ground and kicked her in her lower right ribcage." So what we learn here among other things is that every single person Kyle Rittenhouse shot or shot at on August 25th in Kenosha had a lengthy and violent criminal record.

Well, that seems relevant, but the jury doesn't know it. Thanks to an ethical behavior by the prosecution, Maurice Freeland never had to testify in court, and yet, apparently, Freeland told prosecutors that he wanted immunity before he would agree to appear on the stand.

The Assistant District Attorney in the case, Thomas Binger, refused to provide that. That means the state knew all along exactly who Maurice Freeland was, but they withheld that information from Kyle Rittenhouse's lawyers and as a result of that, Kyle Rittenhouse was deprived of his constitutional right under the confrontation clause to challenge his accuser in open court.

That's not supposed to happen, it can't happen and that's not the only relative evidence that was withheld from Kyle Rittenhouse's lawyers during this trial.

We're about to show you some drone footage. It aired on this show the night of August 31st, 2020. At the time, we were interviewing a lawyer called John Pierce who was then representing Kyle Rittenhouse.

Take a look at the pictures on the right hand side of your screen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: That's a really a tertiary charge anyway because there are other - - let me ask you about the first shooting of Joseph Rosenbaum.

JOHN PIERCE, ATTORNEY: Sure.

CARLSON: The second two, one man was shot in the arm, the other was shot in the midsection and died. Both of them clearly, and it's obvious on video attacked Rittenhouse, but the first shooting, was Rittenhouse fired upon before he fired? Did he believe he was fired upon? What are the circumstances of that shooting?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So that drone footage that you just saw, it's right there, that aired on this show has become part of the Rittenhouse case. Prosecutors claim that footage shows Kyle Rittenhouse raising his rifle in a provocative manner at an accused arsonist called Joshua Ziminski. Now, the footage doesn't actually show that, if you look at it carefully, but that's what they're claiming anyway.

The prosecution's theory of the case is that Joseph Rosenbaum, the child rapist, began chasing Kyle Rittenhouse after Rittenhouse pointed his rifle at Ziminski. So apparently, the pedophile was defending the honor of the accused rapist, that's their claim.

Conveniently for the state, however, Joshua Ziminski, like Maurice Freeland never testified in this case. Why? Because prosecutors made sure he couldn't. Prosecutors charged Ziminski with arson and then delayed his trial so he would not be available to testify in the Rittenhouse trial.

By the way, and this is relevant, too, authorities say Ziminski brought a gun to the riot and fired a shot before Kyle Rittenhouse ever pulled his own trigger. How's that for relevant. But jurors never got to hear Joshua Ziminski explain that.

So here's the problem. The drone footage we aired on this show was never provided to Kyle Rittenhouse's defense team; instead, they got a blurrier lower grade copy of the tape. Look at the images you're seeing on your screen right now. You're seeing the high quality image on the bottom and the low quality image on the top.

There is no comparison between the two. The defense had no way to analyze the high quality footage during the trial and provide it to their video experts. They couldn't verify that the footage is accurate or make any arguments about what it shows. They just had to accept the prosecution's version.

Now, the defense only realized this after one of the prosecutors admitted it out loud, apparently by accident, he admitted that his version of the drone footage was quote, "much clearer than the footage the defense had." Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This isn't the same quality as our version so --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our version is much -- our version is much clearer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: According to one of Rittenhouse's lawyers, the defense copy of the drone footage was nearly three times less clear than what the prosecutors had.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I confirmed that this file that he said was directly provided to the State Crime Lab was an 11 millibyte file -- megabyte file not four, so the information contained in the flash drive has -- was over double the size, almost three times the size as to what was e-mailed to me.

Every other piece of evidence from the State Crime Lab in this situation has been provided to us via Dropbox. Dropbox provides an exact forensic copy of what they have. The file title name in this situation should have been exactly the same as the one provided to the state if it was the exact same copy.

The file name was nowhere near similar.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So how to account for this? Well, the prosecutors explained they just got this footage the last minute, a few days ago. They said they immediately sent it to defense and they had no idea the defense would get such a low quality copy of it. It was a technical glitch, they said.

But that doesn't really make sense actually and the Judge seemed to understand that. He asked why the prosecution waited more than a year to get this footage.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES KRAUS, ASSISTANT DISTRICT ATTORNEY, KENOSHA COUNTY: The defendant's first attorney, after he was charged with this case appeared on an interview, appeared alongside the high definition version of this footage.

JUDGE BRUCE SCHROEDER, KENOSHA COUNTY CIRCUIT COURT: If you know Tucker Carlson has got it, you could have subpoenaed it, no?

KRAUS: We didn't know that until I think, today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: It doesn't matter what the explanation is. There is no excuse for this in a criminal trial. The prosecution has a legal obligation to obtain evidence in a timely manner and then provide it to the defense the moment it's available. That's the law.

In this case, the prosecution waited until after the trial began to give the defense a low quality version of the drone footage, so you have to ask, is this deliberate prosecutorial misconduct? And actually, as a legal matter, it doesn't matter. Kyle Rittenhouse is constitutionally entitled to see all the evidence against him at the trial and he didn't.

So by definition, Kyle Rittenhouse is not getting a fair trial. By the way, outside the courtroom as well as inside. Yesterday, as hundreds of National Guard Troops idled nearby, a fight broke out between protesters with an earshot of jurors.

Today, we learned that a freelancer for MSNBC followed the jurors' bus to the courtroom. He blew through a red light to keep up with the bus. Now, why would a quote, "journalist" follow jurors before they've reached their verdict?

Well, the Judge seemed to understand exactly what was going on. This morning, he banned anyone associated with MSNBC from the courthouse.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCHROEDER: The police when they stopped him because he was following in a distance of about a block, and went through a red light, pulled him over and inquired of him what was going on and he gave that information and stated that he had been instructed by Miss Bayan in New York to follow the jury bus.

I have instructed that no one from MSNBC News will be permitted in this building for the duration of this trial.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Now you don't have to like Kyle Rittenhouse or what he did to see this as scary and wrong and a threat to all of us. It doesn't matter who you voted for, it doesn't matter what you thought of Donald Trump, that's irrelevant. Withholding evidence in a criminal trial, intimidating jurors, these things threaten not just Kyle Rittenhouse, they threaten America's system of impartial justice, which by the way is the best thing we still have in this country.

So what is interesting is who has no problem at all with any of this, and we can't help but notice that the very same people who love pointless foreign wars and devastating drone attacks on civilian populations think that Kyle Rittenhouse should rot in prison.

Now watch this guest on CNN, one of the silliest and dumbest people in public life explain that actually Rittenhouse's attempts to save his own life at a Biden rally filled with violent criminals was quote, "political violence."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAX BOOT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: I mean, I think we're in a frightening situation, Don, because I think what we're seeing is growing political violence. You have Kyle Rittenhouse on trial right now for taking the law into his own hands and shooting several people. Remember, you had mass shootings during the Trump presidency at a Walmart in El Paso, at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, you had the storming of the Capitol with people who had gallows with them on January 6th, and Republicans are really playing with fire.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So you've got to wonder if people who talk like that, and there are an awful lot of them all of a sudden, believe what they say on television. Did they watch the trial? Do they understand the facts? Do they even care what really happened that night in Kenosha?

Now, we'd like to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, even Max Boot, but honestly we're starting to wonder.

George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley joins us now. Professor, thanks so much for coming on. So this is 20 hours of deliberation and so far, what does that tell you?

JONATHAN TURLEY, FOX NEWS CHANNEL CONTRIBUTOR: Well, you know, Tucker, I think that there's a lot of rules of thumb that lawyers use, if it's a fast jury or a slow jury. Whatever the truth of that is, I don't think it applies to high profile trials. I think they tend to have their own trajectory.

And so, I think all of these assumptions about the jury really are likely unfounded. I mean, consider the fact that that the Cosby trial went five days and then it had a hung jury. Phil Spector in his first trial went 12 days and ended up as a hung jury. The Menendez brothers, three days and it was a hung jury. Conversely, Paul Manafort was convicted after four days.

So it's hard to say that the length of time is really that telling. A lot of things can be happening. One thing that has not clearly happened is that the defense did a good job in showing how these counts have a cascading failure, that once you decide he acted in self-defense with regard to Rosenbaum, they did a good job in saying well then, you've got to -- you discount this count and they went through them.

That clearly hasn't happened. They probably could have done that right off, but it can be that they reached an agreement on some counts and they have deadlocked on others. One of the things you sort of look for with a deadlocked jury is if they send out a question that seems more like an intervention question that is to try to get the Judge to help break things up.

So sometimes, you'll see a question like, you know if we find X, should we do Y, and it sometimes reflects just an impasse in the jury or they can actually send out and this could happen tomorrow, a notice that they're deadlocked. They could say well we've reached agreements on three counts, but not the others.

Every judge that I know will send them back to deliberate. They never accept that first deadlock, and they just say, you all just have to try harder.

And interesting enough, they often do reach, they often do break through the deadlock when they get that.

Well, we can look for those things, but I don't think you can tell as I'm hearing a lot of people say, well this is clearly now a hung jury or they're clearly -- this is clearly a pro-prosecution jury, I don't think you can really say that.

CARLSON: I'm confused as a non-lawyer by how the prosecution was allowed to withhold the identity of one of the pivotal figures in the case, the man who knocked Kyle Rittenhouse to the ground by kicking him in the head. Rittenhouse is charged with reckless endangerment for shooting at the sky. The prosecution apparently knew his identity, they negotiated with him about testifying and they withheld that from the defense. Is that allowed?

TURLEY: You know, I'm a criminal defense attorney and I have to say, there are points in this trial where I would have been apoplexic. I mean, referring to the silence of the defendant, which is the court -- the Supreme Court has said over and over again is a violation of constitutional rights.

CARLSON: Of course.

TURLEY: But this is also one of those glaring omissions. You know, you're referring to somebody in the charge without a name by the color of their pants, you go through an entire trial where this is one of the key counts and all along, the prosecutors knew the identity.

If they did not reveal the identity to the defense counsel and allow the defense counsel to call that person, I think it is a very serious violation.

CARLSON: It sure seems it. I mean, you know, anyone can understand why that's unfair and shouldn't be allowed.

Jonathan Turley, appreciate it. Professor, thank you.

TURLEY: Thank you.

CARLSON: So it is interesting, inflation is obviously going up. They say it's a little over six percent, it is obviously, clearly much higher than that in some places with some products. No one likes this except people who have massive amounts of debt that is certainly suddenly costing them less to pay off, but the average person is hurt by this and hates it.

And maybe that's why the people who know better than you are suddenly telling you that inflation is great. It's good that everything costs more.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You do make a really good point that inflation as a product demand has an upside, correct?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right, to the extent that it's coming from a strong economy, a strong consumer, that's not -- you know, that's not a bad thing.

CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: This is the fastest recovery right now in recent memory. Demand is high, wages for the bottom 40 percent of workers are rising very fast, fast enough to help overcome what is the big central problem that everyone is rightly discussing right now -- inflation.

STEPHANIE RUHLE, NBC NEWS HOST: While nobody likes to pay more, on average, we have the money to do so. Household savings hit a record high.

JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: So Republicans want you to believe the economy isn't doing well, that it is terrible. But in reality, unemployment is at its lowest point since before the pandemic began.

So the economy isn't bad, it's just that people are mad because everything is late and things cost a little bit more.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: These people are so partisan, they'll literally say anything. They'll look right into the camera and lie as long as it helps their political candidate, in this case Joe Biden.

I mean, you've got to think, if people started to starve to death, they would tell you it's good because the country is too fat.

Over at CNN, one of their anchors just tweeted a picture of a refrigerator stocked with milk. He said that is proof there is no supply chain crisis because of course, we import all of our milk from China. These people are too stupid to be real.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden's nominee to a top Treasury post, a communist sympathizer called Saule Omarova is refusing to say whether she believes high gas prices are bad for the country. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BILL HAGERTY (R-TN): Dr. Omarova, do you think that higher gas prices are good for America or bad for America? Yes or no answer will be fine there.

SAULE OMAROVA, NOMINEE OF COMPTROLLER OF CURRENCY: Senator, that's a tricky question because I do remember higher --

HAGERTY: Are higher gas prices good for America or bad for America, Doctor?

OMAROVA: It's probably bad for America. It's not -- it's not my expertise, I'm not sure exactly what you're asking.

HAGERTY: Mr. Chairman, I'd let the record reflect that this witness is having a hard time acknowledging that higher gas prices are bad for America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Are higher gas prices bad for America? Well, it's a tricky question, I guess, they're bad. She doesn't care, none of them care. They are for higher gas prices. They're for ending the energy industry, which by the way is our last functioning sector of the economy in the United States.

There will be real poverty if they succeed in doing that.

In the meantime, they just don't care about its effect on you, obviously.

J.D. Vance is running for senate in Ohio where people do care about gas prices. He joins us tonight. J.D. Vance, thanks so much for coming on.

So they are telling us that inflation is up because there is no denying it, you can look at consumer prices, but then it's a good thing, we can afford it and maybe we can live more like Europeans, which will make us more sophisticated and we deserve it. Like what do you make of their justifications for a crashing economy?

J.D. VANCE (R), OHIO SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I think it's funny how for the last six months they've acted like inflation isn't happening and now that it's obvious to everyone, they are trying to convince us that it's actually good for us. But to me, we have to keep our focus on the people who are actually harmed by this stuff.

Like you know, I think a lot about the people who have had, let's say a child killed by the drug epidemic, taking care of grandchildren that they weren't planning on, do you think they care about higher gas prices? Of course, they do.

Do you think they care about the fact that they can't put food to feed their grandchildren on the table? Of course they do.

This inflation hurts people who have made good decisions. It hurts savers, it hurts people who have retired on a fixed income, who are preparing for their golden years, and of course, the Biden administration doesn't care because it looks at these people as deplorable, as evil, as unacceptable.

And so we have to, as a movement, stand up and fight for them and say you know, it is a real problem that our energy sector is a disaster, it is a real problem that Americans are paying more for the basic things that they need and that they use.

CARLSON: It's the only revolution ever aimed downward, to hurt people who are already struggling. The class beneath you must be exterminated. I mean, has there ever been a revolution like this in history?

VANCE: I don't think so, but man, it's going to be really, really rough because what they don't anticipate, what they're not dealing with is that the sectors of the economy that actually work for normal people that employ people in middle class wages, the energy sector, the transportation sector, those are the parts of the economy that are being slammed by this inflation.

The parts of the economy that are doing well right now, who doesn't require cheap energy? Big Tech and Big Finance. Those happen to be, of course, the donors to the Democratic Party. They also happen to be the people who have gotten the richest over the past 10 or 20 years, so the Democrats are pursuing a set of policies.

They say the economy is good, but their policies are actually rewarding their friends in the technology and in the finance sector. It is slamming everybody else.

And look, if there is a real revolution in this country, it will come because people can't afford the basic necessities. Of course, that's terrible for everybody.

CARLSON: What if we levied say an 80 percent tax on server farms or private equity profits? Do you think they'd be in favor of that?

VANCE: No, I think then they'd really worry about the fact that the things that they use, the things that they need are actually more expensive. But maybe we should do that because it's time to penalize the folks who have gotten rich off of devastating the American middle class and the American worker.

Again, the only sectors that have done well just so happen to be the biggest donors to the Democratic Party. That's not a coincidence, Tucker.

CARLSON: Yes, let's crush cops and oil field workers and coal miners. I mean, these people are just -- this is class war, obviously. It always has been.

J.D. Vance, great to see you tonight. Thank you.

VANCE: Thank you.

CARLSON: So we brought you the story last night of JPMorgan discriminating against people who have got the wrong political views in the way it offers its banking services. The State of Missouri is fighting back against that.

Now, the bank has announced, it is reversing its decision, so a minor victory, but we celebrate every one of them. We've got details coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: There is no sector of American life that hasn't been thoroughly politicized at this point. We've watched with mounting horror as banking services have been denied Americans across the country on the basis of their politics. Yesterday, we told you about the latest example.

WePay, it's the subsidiary of JPMorgan Chase recently denied payment services to a conservative organization in the State of Missouri called the Defense of Liberty. Now, WePay informed the group that the company quote, "is no longer able to process payments for your account as we are unable to process payments for hate, violence, racial intolerance, terrorism," or that quote, "encourage any of those things."

Well, this is insane because Defense of Liberty doesn't encourage hate or terrorism. It's not a terrorist group. What the hell? These are Americans.

So we reached out to JPMorgan Chase to find out why they would do this. Why would you deny banking services to Americans because you don't like who they voted for? And they call it terrorism.

So after our inquiry and a threat from the State of Missouri, here is how JPMorgan Chase responded quote: "After further review, we've determined that this organization didn't violate the terms of service and we're reaching out to the client to discuss reinstating the account. To be clear, we have never and would never close an account due to a client's political affiliation," end quote, which is obviously a complete lie.

Accusing people of terrorism when there is no evidence they are for terrorism? American citizens? Like what the hell? They should be ashamed and they've been brushed back a little bit. Sometimes that works.

Well, I went to the Patriot Awards in the other Hollywood last night, Hollywood, Florida, dragged me up on stage with no script, so of course I started talking, went on and on and on.

The producers put part of it in this video. Here you go.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: What we're celebrating is the people of the country and if you have my job, it's kind of easy, it's one of the reason I'm so happy to be here right now. It's kind of easy to lose track of that because you're solely focused on the people who run stuff and I often think to myself, never has a better country been run by worse people.

[LAUGHTER]

CARLSON: And, no, it's true it's true.

[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]

CARLSON: I'm sorry. I'm not being mean. I don't want to be negative, but that is true. Yes, that's one of them, exactly.

But you can lose sight, if you focus too narrowly on the people who are making the bad decisions, you can lose sight of everyone else, which is the overwhelming majority of people in this country.

So what do I notice about Americans? So I'm 52, so that's -- that put me on the kind of the back nine as they say, the downward slope of the experience. I've lived on both coasts. I've lived all over the country. I spent a lot of time on the road as a writer in the earlier part of my life, so I feel like I have a tangible sense of the country.

Why are Americans different? So here are a couple of things I noticed about Americans and I really noticed it tonight. As I was hearing the stories of the people on this stage, all of whom were heroes, I thought, wow, that person is a lot more impressive than I am, and so is that person, so is that person, and then it got to like 100 percent of the people, which is fine.

Yes, right.

[LAUGHTER]

CARLSON: But I thought to myself, yes, these people have taken greater risk than I have. They are more impressive than I am, but they're still recognizably American in the way that they are impressive. They're not like some person from outer space who arrived here to outshine the rest of us, they are Americans raised up in the culture we're all products of, who are exhibiting essentially American attributes.

So what are they? They are humble. They're not that interested in talking about themselves. They're competent, that's one thing I always notice when I leave Washington and New York, people outside the big cities actually have skills.

[LAUGHTER]

CARLSON: No, I'm serious. I'm not being mean, but they can actually do stuff. You know, they can make things. If it breaks they can potentially fix it. They don't have to necessarily order another one from China over Amazon.

[LAUGHTER]

CARLSON: They have usable skills, which by the way at some point might come in handy. They are nice. That's the first thing I notice about Americans. They are nice. They are kind people.

And if you've been to other countries and I like -- I'm about as aggressively American. I couldn't leave even if I had another passport, you know where would I live? I have about a million children, that's a problem, too, but I couldn't live in any other country just because I'm just thoroughly American.

But I do like to travel and the first -- and there are a lot of cool countries around the world, but one thing I always notice is that no one is on a gut reflexive level, just wake him up in the middle of night from a dead sleep, no one is as nice as Americans.

[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]

CARLSON: They're just kind people. They cry at dog movies, I do, too. How many other countries have like dog movies where everyone cries? Probably not too many.

Well, exactly. Don't get me going. Don't get me going.

That's one of my obsessions but I'm not going to lecture. Anyway, we are out of gas. In any other country, in a rural area, and find out what happens to you. Do it in this country and all of a sudden, you know the first person drives by, "Can I help you?" You don't speak the language, you have no local currency, you have no idea where you are. You're in the middle of some big American state, and the person will get out of his car and make certain that you get what you need.

[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]

CARLSON: There is no other place like that. There is no other place where countrymen root for each other so passionately as they do here. Americans love to see other Americans succeed.

[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]

CARLSON: Your success is my success. You're impressive and I'm thrilled by that. I'm not envious because the fact that you are succeeding says something great about this community that we call the country, the United States.

There is something wonderful about that. That is not universal at all. It is uniquely ours.

So I have to say having seen this my whole life, sometimes I hear people describe a country that I just don't recognize at all. Maybe if I was living in some, you know, angry, filthy, crumbling city that would be my view of America, but even in the angry, filthy, crumbling cities there are a ton of nice people.

So I actually don't recognize the descriptions of the country that I hear so very often. That it's deeply rotten or it is terrible, we need to burn it all down and build back better. No, we don't, actually. It's already pretty great.

In fact it's the best expression --

[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]

CARLSON: This country is the best expression of human decency in the history of the world, and if you don't believe that's true, tell me what is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Boy, can I go on. I guess, that's why I'm a talk show host, but me yapping was not the highlight of the night last night, The Patriot Awards, it was the people who are being honored, the people in the crowd, great people, really great people.

You can watch the whole thing on FOX Nation and tuckercarlson.com, it's right there.

So the QAnon Shaman, the Chewbacca man, the guy with the horns on January 6th was just sentenced to three and a half years in prison for wandering around the capitol. How dare he? Our next guest sat down with him for a remarkable interview, a documentary part of which was featured in our Tucker Carlson Originals, "Patriot Purge." We'll show you what he found.

Well, you can head over to tuckercarlson.com during the break to get our brand new merch. We do not have supply chain issues. Click "shop."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: So of all the threatening people in this country and there are quite a few, we talked about some earlier in the show, Jacob Chansley is not one of them. You might know him as the QAnon Shaman, Chewbacca guy, he was the guy you're seeing on the screen in the Viking horns, the fur who wandered around the Capitol on January 6th. Well, he has got three and half years in prison for that.

Now, we know a lot about Jacob Chansley, it turns out, because we did months of reporting for our three-part series, "Patriot Purge," which is on FOX Nation. Now, a filmmaker just secured a remarkable sit-down interview with Chansley as part of his documentary. It is called "Q Sent Me." Here is part of it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JACOB CHANSLEY, QANON SHAMAN: Elected officials and traitors literally sold us out to foreign nations. I had no hesitation whatsoever in walking through those doors. I did not feel like I was doing anything wrong at all.

In fact, I felt like I was doing what was right, what was needed.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jacob Chansley faces a six-count Federal indictment with two felonies and four misdemeanors.

The Judge said Jacob Chansley was a symbol of what had occurred at the U.S. Capitol.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is active participation in a violent insurrection.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The Judge, she's a Democrat [bleep] --

CHANSLEY: I figured that was the case, sitting here in solitary confinement. They nailed me to the wall. They nailed me to the freakin' wall.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: A violent insurrection. The guy was wearing a Viking hat, proving among other things, these people have zero sense of humor. They're self- serious. They're hysterical. And they're mean as hell.

Jason Rink is the filmmaker who did "Q Sent Me." He joins us tonight. Jason, thanks so much for coming on.

So, you've talked to Jacob Chansley. I haven't. Is the sense you get from him that he is a violent insurrectionist? He doesn't -- he seems kind of harmless. What's your view?

JASON RINK, FILMMAKER, "Q SENT ME": No, Tucker, not at all and it is important to know that he was not charged with insurrection or sedition, and didn't plead guilty to a violent charge. He pled guilty to essentially trespassing in Congress.

And yesterday, at his sentencing, Jake even said, hey, listen, without law and order and accountability, there is no freedom. So he wanted to, you know, pay his debt, any law he broke. However, the question is, you know, should he have spent 317 days in solitary confinement, and now another, you know, whatever, 41 months less time served from this point on.

And, you know, we were able to interview him on January 7th, amazingly. And then he was locked away 48 hours later. So, we really got his initial reactions and story of the whole experience right when it was still fresh. And before he knew that he was in any kind of trouble at all.

CARLSON: So, a lot of people are applauding this punishment, "National Review," supposedly a conservative site ran a piece today basically saying he should have gotten more time. Does Chansley have any sense of how many violent criminals who are voting the correct way are just walking out of jail right now? Does he have any sense of how disproportionate the sentence is?

RINK: Oh, absolutely. And you know, when you put this into context, I think that's something that was present for Jake when he went into the Capitol, is that we had seen a summer of rioting in 2020. And we'd seen other types of demonstrations that it seemed like to some people that was actually being, you know, cheered on.

And then here, this event happened. And, you know, I would absolutely say that the real story has not been told. I mean, when we posted our movie trailer just a week after interviewing Jake, I was suspended from Twitter and Facebook permanently just for posting a documentary trailer. And I was really shocked by that. But it really shines a light on I think what the narrative was going to be needed to be.

CARLSON: Well, that's very obvious. I have to ask. So, in the footage all of us have seen, Chansley is in the chamber with a cop right there. He is kind of chatting with him. No hostility, presumably the cop is armed.

If he was a violent insurrection -- oh, there it is right there. It's on our screen. Why did none of the police seem threatened at all or do anything about it? There are two of them, I guess, in this video?

RINK: Yes, well, and that's the thing. You know, I actually after he was in the Capitol, Jake's image hit the internet. Well, we had interviewed him in December, actually, on another film we were making, and so he had a cell phone number.

And so I actually ran into him a few hours later, and he was walking around on the streets of D.C. still in his makeup. People were talking to him. And so I ran into him. I was like, "Hey, Jake, good to see you. Do you want to interview with us? I'd love to hear your whole story." And, you know, he agreed to it. But he didn't even realize at that point, just a few hours later that he was in any kind of trouble, and then when we interviewed him, he still didn't think he was in any kind of trouble.

He had no idea when he called the F.B.I. that he was going to get arrested.

CARLSON: Should have gone to Ecuador.

RINK: Well, you know, I would like for people to check out the full trailer at qsentmemovie.com. We've got a lot of footage nobody has seen, and we just want people to know the real story of what's happened with Jake, who he is and what he is like and make their own decision about it.

CARLSON: Amen. Thanks for helping us by the way. Jason Rink, I appreciate it.

RINK: Thank you.

CARLSON: So as you probably figured out by now, virtually everything that Liz Cheney and Nancy Pelosi have told you with rising hysteria about January 6 is a complete lie -- a complete lie. We know because we spent months looking into the facts of that day. They're assembled in a Tucker Carlson Originals piece called "Patriot Purge." You can watch it free for 90 days, tuckercarlson.com.

So up next, OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration just suspended its enforcement of the vax mandates, which are not only immoral, but now apparently illegal. We've got details from Alex Berenson, the authority on this.

We'll be right back.

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CARLSON: So almost a year in, here is what we know. Here is what science tells us about the COVID vaccines. There is some evidence that the vaccines lower the incidence of hospitalization and death. There is no evidence whatsoever that the vaccines prevent infection or transmission of COVID.

In other words, the unvaccinated pose precisely no risk to the vaccine. The vaccinated don't pose to the unvaccinated. Period. So there is no justification -- scientific justification for the vaccine mandates any more than there is justification for mandated colonoscopies or prostate exams. It's insane.

And now, it's been suspended. OSHA has suspended its enforcement of Biden's vaccine mandates for private employers. The move comes after a Federal Appeals Court blocked that mandate.

So, Alex Berenson has been on this with a clarity and honesty and grasp of the science that virtually no one else possesses. He is of course a journalist, author of the new book "Pandemia: How Coronavirus Hysteria Took Over Our Government, Rights, and Lives," and we're always honored to have him on the show.

Alex Berenson, thanks so much for coming on.

ALEX BERENSON, AUTHOR, "PANDEMIA": Thanks, Tucker.

CARLSON: So as it factual legal matter, these mandates are not enforceable now. Tell us what this means.

BERENSON: Well, so the mandates were set to go into place on January 4th, and the Fifth Circuit, which is Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, issued a very strongly worded order, actually two orders last week, saying we think that this is unconstitutional, we are issuing an emergency stay. And at the end of the second order, they said hey, OSHA, don't even bother trying to implement this.

So the Biden administration, there have been a bunch of suits over this mandate and they have now been consolidated to be heard by a different court, the Sixth Circuit, which is in Cincinnati, I believe in Ohio. And what everyone expects is that this will get appealed to the Supreme Court.

Now, given that the Supreme Court was not very interested in the Biden administration's efforts to stop property owners from being able to evict tenants back in August, it seems quite possible that they will agree with the Fifth Circuit on this and that these mandates will be tossed before they ever took effect.

But there's a couple other points -- sorry, go on.

CARLSON: Can I just ask you the core points? So, now, unless I am misreading the science, and please correct me if I am, but it sounds like the vaccinated are at no greater risk from the unvaccinated as vice versa. The vaccinated can spread the virus as efficiently as anybody else. So what is the justification for these mandates at this point?

BERENSON: I mean, there is no medical justification for this. And one of the things that the Fifth Circuit said, which is fascinating is, if this is such an emergency, you issued this order, back in September. You said you were going to issue it in September. It's not taking effect until January, what kind of emergency is this that takes four months? What kind of emergency is this that employers have to -- if you're over a hundred employees, you have to do this, but if you're under a hundred, it's not an emergency for you?

So there is no medical justification for this. I would say you summed up the rules or the science quite nicely. I go even further than that. There's now some evidence that six, seven, eight months after you get your second dose that you might actually be at higher risk of infection if you're vaccinated. There is a good Swedish study that has some evidence of that.

And by the way, in Germany and Austria and all over Central Europe right now, those are very highly vaccinated countries, they're seeing unprecedented numbers of infections, so much so that they're going back into lockdown.

So there's just no evidence that the vaccines halt infection or transmission in any way. And there is some evidence, as you said, that they may help you avoid a severe case or death. I would say the evidence for that over time has been weakening. But even if that's true, as you say, that's your own personal choice then, it's like getting a colonoscopy. It's like riding a motorcycle. It's your choice to protect yourself in that way.

So I think you're right about all of it. As for the politics, I don't really understand why the Biden administration is doing this. You know, they got spanked in Virginia, they nearly lost New Jersey, you would think that would -- you would have thought that would have woken them up a little bit, but it doesn't seem to have.

One last thing, "Pandemia," 12 days, I think it will open people's eyes, even if they follow this and I hope -- I hope you read it. I hope everybody reads it.

CARLSON: I've already read it. You sent me a copy and I loved it. Alex Berenson --

BERENSON: I know, I know.

CARLSON: Thanks. Good to see you.

BERENSON: Thanks, Tucker.

CARLSON: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Sad news, we are out of time. Here's the upside though, our brand new and pretty amazing interview with Dr. Scott Atlas is available on FOX Nation. You can watch it for free for 90 days by going to tuckercarlson.com.

Have a great evening. We'll be back tomorrow at 8:00 and every day weeknight.

Now, we're going to introduce you now to someone we saw in the flesh last night, in-person and we can affirm that Sean Hannity is doing great.

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