Tucker: Why Biden administration is targeting blue collar men

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Tucker: Why Biden administration is targeting blue collar men

'Tucker Carlson Tonight' host examines the supply chain disaster

This is a rush transcript of "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on October 27, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

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

We want to take you back a couple of Februaries ago, not that long, but really a different time.

February 2019, an American C-17 cargo jet takes off from an Air Force base in Florida. It is bound for South America. The media are covering this. It's a big story that day.

Inside the plane, pallets of wheelchairs and crutches. These are gifts from the people of the United States to the long oppressed population of Venezuela. Venezuela's socialist economy famously had collapsed utterly by that point. There was no toilet paper in Caracas. People were eating zoo animals to stay alive. The average Venezuelan had lost more than 10 pounds from starvation.

So the point of sending humanitarian aid to Venezuela was to show the world that Americans are decent, but more than that, that the American system works. This country is so rich that we can afford to send crutches and wheelchairs to our enemies.

Again, that was 2019. It wasn't the Berlin airlift, it was the other day.

But a lot has changed. We're not shipping any more crutches or wheelchairs to Venezuela or anywhere else for that matter and we're not because we don't have enough for ourselves.

Less than a year into the Joe Biden administration, the United States faces massive and potentially dangerous shortages of just about everything. Just this week, one of the largest healthcare providers in the Western United States, it is called Intermountain Healthcare began soliciting help from its own patients.

According to a local news report, officials at Intermountain Healthcare were urging people to quote, "check their closets, attics, and garages for used metal crutches and other walk assist equipment." Dr. Joseph Kamerath runs Intermountain's physical rehab operation in the State of Utah. "I've never seen this," he said. "I've practiced healthcare in various continents. I recently moved from the Middle East. Every time I come back to practice healthcare in North America, I'm so grateful for our supply chain that we take for granted, and now all of a sudden, we can see that we can't order anymore."

Can't order anymore -- not a small thing when you run a hospital.

Multiply that story times an entire continent and you begin to understand the current state of the American economy, hospitals begging for medical equipment. Essential goods unavailable everywhere. Supply chains frozen just months before Christmas. It's not improving, it could get much worse - - very quickly.

Here is a snapshot of where we are tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MADISON ALWORTH, FOX BUSINESS CHANNEL CORRESPONDENT: The supply chain issue could be hitting your Thanksgiving table this year. Grocery stores are warning that they are expecting a shortage of turkeys.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stores are starting to see shortages of items such as pet food, frozen food, and diapers.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice over): Doug Fabbioli has spent nearly two decades in Loudoun County as a wine maker, but a lack of bottles nationwide could put his supply at risk.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A shortage of catsup is impacting restaurants around the country. Quantities of single serve packets have dwindled during the pandemic, leaving the tomato based paste in short supply.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But there are certainly shortages of everything from bread to potato chips, and even toilet paper.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Suddenly, you just can't buy the stuff you want.

Book publishers are having trouble getting paper, car companies can't buy computer chips, builders are having trouble getting lumber.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Container ships in port are waiting for days to be unloaded.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Yes, it's everything. Diapers, pet food, catsup, bread, et cetera et cetera et cetera.

Now the ports, particularly the Port of Long Beach, ports on the West Coast have gotten a lot of attention recently, but the problem is bigger than that. It is not just crowded ports. The problems begin thousands of miles away.

Over the past year, the average time it takes for a container to reach the United States from across the Pacific, from Asia, has jumped by nearly 50 percent. It was 51 days, now, it's 74 days. That's unlikely to change anytime soon.

Now, among other things, that means that most of what you buy in the store or order online is about to become much more expensive.

As FOX's William La Jeunesse reported recently, so much of our retail economy now depends on the cost of shipping goods from China.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM LA JEUNESSE, FOX NEWS CHANNEL CORRESPONDENT: A record 159 ships, 63 in port, but 96 offshore waiting sometimes weeks to dock. Longshoremen say they are ready to heed the President's call for 24/7, but when the ports ask truckers to work the 3:00 to 7:00 a.m. shift, not enough showed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have three shifts -- first, second, and third. They choose not to work the third because no one comes to pick up the cargo in the third shift because on the other side of the supply chain, there is no place to take the container.

LA JEUNESSE: Cost of a shipping container from China to LA is $16,000.00, up 330 percent from a year ago, and once here, the trucking rate per mile is up 23 percent, not including fuel.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So trucking costs -- just one link in a very long and quite complex chain trucking costs up nearly 25 percent, not including fuel. But of course, in real life, we do include fuel. Fuel is one of the biggest expenses for Americans who don't live in the urban core, that's most people.

According to AAA, the average price of gasoline per gallon is now $3.30, so to refresh your memory, just a year ago, it was about two bucks.

Now this country has immense energy reserves. Up until recently, we bragged about being quote, "energy independent." That was going to free us from our dependence on the Middle East and all those pointless wars that killed so many Americans and drained our treasury. We are proud of that.

How did we get energy shortages in a country that has more energy than it can consume? Well, that was not accidental. It was entirely intentional. It was the result of policies that came from Washington, and maybe that's why Joe Biden does not seem upset about it when asked.

Now, cars may be a threat to the global climate, but more pressing, cars equal physical autonomy. They are yours. You can take them where you want. And by this point, we know very well where this administration stands on the question of physical autonomy.

So watch Joe Biden as he is asked about this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Do you have a timeline for gas prices of when you think they may start coming down?

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My guess is, you'll start to see gas prices come down as we get by -- going into the winter. I mean, excuse me -- into the next year, in 2022. I don't see anything that's going to happen in the meantime that is going to significantly reduce gas prices.

I don't have a near-term answer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Gas prices. That's not some kind of esoteric question. Again, for most people who don't work at non-profits or in Washington or have signing careers at McKinsey, gas prices are essential. They determine how much money you have day-to-day, and yet Biden's response, the most blase imaginable, "I don't have a near-term answer."

"I don't have a near-term answer," but that's not always his answer. It really depends upon what the question is. So for example the administration felt that it had to import thousands of unvetted, unvaccinated Afghan refugees, Biden did have a short-term answer. In fact he described it as a national emergency. It couldn't wait, not one moment.

And so the Biden White House mobilized the entire U.S. government to get those people into your neighborhood. That was very important to them.

But your household budget? How much money you have? Whether you can take your kids out for dinner? Who cares? Deal with it, legacy American. You have no right to expect more. That's their position.

So say goodbye to cheap gasoline, probably forever. That was the basis upon which our modern society was structured. That's why we have suburbs that by the way, the administration hates, but most people enjoy living in.

Can't live in suburbs with gasoline that you can't afford, and it's not just gasoline. Heating oil, too, and jet fuel, and natural gas, and all the other immoral hydrocarbons. Cheap fuel is over in this country, and it's intentional. Permanent shortages ahead.

And by the way, it is not just fuel. Go ahead and try and build something right now, we dare you. The following construction materials have now been listed as quote, "delayed," meaning very tough to get. They include adhesives, appliances, copper, drywall, electrical equipment, fabricated metals, furniture, HVAC equipment, lumber, PVC pipe, steel, and so on -- essentially pretty much everything. Good luck fixing your house, or for that matter, filling your fridge.

Many common goods, the ones you bought in the grocery store last year without thinking about are now effectively luxury items.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The statistics are staggering, showing food prices rose 4.6 percent this year compared to last year, and when it's broken down to specific food items, the numbers are even higher with dramatic increases in meat, poultry, fish, and eggs ringing in at almost 10.5 percent more.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So, what's going on here? We'll be honest. Joe Biden didn't do all of this. A lot of things are going on here and they're happening all at once. The main driver of this is that over time, we've become completely through various administrations, both parties, we've become completely dependent on China.

The Chinese Communist Party effectively is our new OPEC. With their word, they can shut down our economy. At the same time, the ideologues in the White House are raising energy costs, just in case we thought maybe we could make up some of the gap of domestic manufacturing. That's impossible with energy costs this high.

You need cheap energy in order to have a manufacturing economy. Period. Ask anyone in the business.

And then to add to this, there is a labor shortage. Once again, the result of long-term sad trends, but that has been dramatically exacerbated by policies from the Biden White House, and that labor shortage is hitting paradoxically at exactly the moment when there's an unemployment crisis.

That is bizarre and it's scary.

Take a look at this one measure. This is the labor force participation rate. Tonight, it's 61.6 percent. Now, what does that mean? For perspective, in the middle of the 2008 meltdown, when we felt the foundation shaking and people thought the entire U.S. economy was going to crater, the labor force participation rate was five points higher than it is today.

And then look closer at the numbers. Something called the Prime Age Male Labor Force Participation Rate, which let's be honest is the essence of this whole thing. Now, that measure includes men aged 25 to 54, in what we used to call the prime of their lives. Currently, that rate is about 88 percent. What does that mean?

Well, for perspective, let's take you back to 1976, which if you were alive and living in America then, you will remember as a pretty grim time economically. Inflation was wreaking havoc on the economy. We were worried about energy prices again. Even then, the labor force participation for working age males was nowhere near as low as it is today, it was about 94 percent.

So to be very clear about these numbers, they have no precedent. Right now, at exactly the moment when we need hundreds of factory workers, thousands across the country, you are seeing scenes like this -- factory workers walking off the job.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, this is certainly no small showing by members of the local union as well as other GE employees who say they're not just frustrated by the vaccine mandate, they also feel betrayed by the company they say didn't give them enough time to choose.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These factory workers have done a great job of working through COVID and I think this is a slap in the face to them.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have been essential for 18 months, and now, we went from heroes to zeroes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: More than 200 Schenectady employees walked out on their General Electric jobs in protest, Friday.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So take three steps back. What is going on here? Well, this administration has targeted a very specific portion of the population, targeted them for ideological and political reasons. Blue collar men. They are our new Kulak class. The idea is they supported the wrong party, they have retrograde attitudes, they engage in wrong think and we're going to crush them.

And so systematically, they have. The mandates are only one way in which the Biden administration has decided to hurt this specific group of Americans. The problem is, and this might not be evident to the geniuses who work in the Biden administration, you can't run a country without these people. They are the ones who know how to do things, not just report to the H.R. Department, but fix things, build things, keep the power grid going, fly your airplanes, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and it's exactly this group that is being ground to dust beneath the heel of the ideologues in the Biden administration.

So what does this mean for you? Well, it is going to have massive ramifications for your life. You can't buy a refrigerator if there's no one to build it, if there are no materials to assemble it, if there is no one to put it on a truck, and drive it to your house, so it's a problem for consumer goods, but it's bigger than consumer goods.

At some point soon in this continental country that relies on its vital transportation grid, you may have trouble getting a flight. Southwest Airlines, we brought you this story repeatedly, is continuing to see cancelled flights. We just got this text from someone at the company, quote: "Southwest still canceling or severely delaying over a thousand flights daily due to crew non-compliance. As an example, this past Saturday, saw 1,352 cancellations or delays. In Dallas alone, we have over half the baggage handlers not coming to work."

Again, these are the people who are being targeted for pain by the administration, and because no one like this works in the American media, there is not one person at CNN or MSNBC who has any link to this part of the culture or these kind of people, this story is essentially going unreported. Why are things not working? Because the people who know how they work are being fired or pushed to the point where they're walking off the job.

So here we are at the end of October, think ahead a little bit. What is this going to look like in say six weeks when the entire United States decides to get on an airplane and visit their relatives for the Holidays? Well, we've got Tuesday's numbers from the website, FlightAware. Southwest just named one example. At 863 delays, that was the most of any carrier. This is a huge problem and it is almost certain to get worse.

Now, the White House has been asked about this, about the transportation stoppages across the country. We played you this tape before, we're going to play it again because it tells you everything about their attitudes. Here is Joe Biden's chief flack being asked why can't people buy things in stores anymore. Here's her response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: People couldn't get dishwashers and furniture and treadmills delivered on time, not to mention all sorts of other things. So why is --

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The tragedy of the treadmill that's delayed.

QUESTION: Right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: You see the little smirk? That's freshman year dorm room in Oberlin. Your treadmill. Yes, well, it is not just treadmills, it's bread, it's dog food, it's catsup, it's building supplies -- it's everything. It's the flight to go see my ailing grandmother.

But these people have no tactile sense of what the country is like and so instead of answering these most basic problems when you're running a country, you care if people can take flights across it, or if they can afford to drive their own cars or by catsup, instead of answering any of these questions, they are lecturing us about how we should be delighted that we have a new four-star trans admiral. That's the prize they are bringing to us.

You voted for us, here's your trans admiral. Be happy.

Among other things, these are totally unserious people. They are purely ideological. They do not care if the actual country, the physical country comes apart at the seams as long as the population dutifully repeats the correct slogan. Once you understand that, you understand why every day we get some frivolous new announcement about some social justice goal that in the end will not improve the life of a single American citizen.

Here is today's example: The State Department has just announced it will issue the first passport ever with an X gender marker. Huh? First of all, who cares? Second, why is the U.S. government trying to pretend that gender isn't real? It's the realest thing in human society. It's the basis of civilization, but whatever. They lectured us today, quote: "This is for those who don't identify as male or female."

So, you won't be able to get on a plane because no one is working at the airlines anymore, but at least you won't get misgendered. Okay.

Here's another example. There is an ongoing House Intel Committee hearing with the heads of the C.I.A., N.S.A., and D.N.I. not on how the Intel Agencies have been weaponized against American citizens, no, that would be too germane. That might actually do something for you if they stopped reading your texts.

I thought you post what you wanted on Facebook. No. This hearing was about DEI -- that's not a new Intel Agency. It's a new cult. It's called Diversity Equity and Inclusion.

So the hearing began with Adam Schiff complaining -- and this is a key problem for most Americans -- that all the Intel briefers he deals with are white men.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): I can't help but notice that the large majority of IC briefers, though uniformly excellent who appear before the committee are often white and male. We need to recruit officers with diverse backgrounds into the IC and then we need to show them that there's a path for them to advance and grow their careers to top leadership positions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Oh yes, I just can't help notice all my intel briefers are white men. Has that been a problem for you recently? As you're trying to like fix your garage that's falling down, but you can't get joists? Is it a problem for you every time you fill up your truck for $3.30 a gallon? If only we had more diverse Intel briefers, this would be a better country. That's what they think. That's what they're spending their time on and you're paying for it.

The White House just issued its first ever National Gender Equity Inequality Strategy. That happened on Friday. Did you miss it? Maybe you were waiting in line trying to buy food. Well, one of the highlights from that plan, the White House says it will work to end cash bail. Oh, that'll make your life better.

But that's not all.

The White House also announced it wants to -- and we're quoting -- "Seek to eliminate barriers that prevent immigrants from accessing government-funded services." Oh, that's the whole game right there.

So you're getting poorer, gas prices are going up. We've completely lost control of the infrastructure in the country. What are the chances we're going to have blackouts this summer when people dare to turn on the air conditioning? About a hundred percent.

The White House, instead of spending a single moment trying to fix actual problems that actually affect your life has turned the entire force of the Federal government on this question: How can illegal aliens get more free stuff from the government?

That tells you everything.

So tonight, we want to premiere a trailer for a documentary we've been working on for about six months. It's about January 6th. We believe that it answers a lot of the remaining questions from that day. Our conclusion: The U.S. government has in fact launched a new war on terror, but it's not against al-Qaeda, it's against American citizens.

Nothing like this has ever happened in the history of our country. This is an attack on core civil liberties and it's essential that you know what's happening, and that you resist it.

What you're about to see is part of our soon to be released three-part series for "Tucker Carlson Originals." It's called "Patriot Purge." It debuts November 1st. Here is the trailer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TEXT: Tucker Carlson Originals presents 1/6: The War on Terror and the Plot against the People.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The domestic war on terror is here. It is coming after --

TEXT: Patriot Purge.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Half of the country.

CARLSON: The helicopters have left Afghanistan and now, they planned it here at home.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The left is hunting the right, sticking them in Guantanamo Bay for American citizens, leaving them there to rot.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are dealing with an insurgency in the United States.

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Terrorism from white supremacy is the most lethal threat to the Homeland.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've been called that I'm a white nationalist, me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: F.B.I., put all your hands up.

CARLSON: They've begun to fight a new enemy in a new war on terror.

BIDEN: Not al-Qaeda, white supremacists.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: False flags have happened in this country, one of which may have been January 6th.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: It's called "Patriot Purge." We are proud of it. Three episodes we believe answers those unanswered questions from January 6th. That day will affect your life, there is no question.

We hope you'll watch it. The first episode will be out Monday, November 1st, exclusively on FOX Nation.

So we had disturbing footage taken last night. We watched part of it, but we didn't fully understand what was happening. The President of the United States appears to projectile spit into the face of a terrified woman. Joe Biden, a threat to public health. We've got the pictures to prove it. Straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: So last night, we showed you live pictures of the President of the United States panting maskless on strangers at a Terry McAuliffe rally in Virginia. It was repulsive, it was also dangerous by the standards the White House has imposed on the rest of us. But upon further reviewing the tape, and we got this from an eagle-eyed viewer, we noticed something pretty remarkable.

Joe Biden spat on a woman live during our show. You can see the moist projectile on your screen right now. It was a spit and run operation. You'll notice the terror in the woman's eyes as the spit comes at her.

Now, we don't know this woman's name, this Patient Zero, if you will, but we would love to hear her story, so she is invited on our show to relive the trauma.

Dr. Joseph Ladapo is the new Surgeon General of Florida and a genuinely interesting free-thinking person. He went to Harvard Medical School. You'll hear, he is obviously in full command of the details of his job, so of course he is hated and is being attacked from every side, all of a sudden, and so we thought it would be really interesting to talk to him tonight, and now we are.

Doctor, thanks so much for coming on, it's great to see you. So you are the Surgeon General of the State of Florida, which is a cool job, but it's not typically a job that gets you a lot of political flack. You're under attack. Why do you think that is?

DR. JOSEPH LADAPO, SURGEON GENERAL OF FLORIDA: You know, thanks for having me on, Tucker. You know, I'm not sure why I'm sort of constantly under attack, it seems. I guess, we could ask the people who are attacking me, but regardless of the attacks, what will remain unchanged is the fact that we're going to be making database decisions about public health in Florida.

We've had a tremendous amount of success already, thanks to the Governor's leadership, and nothing anyone says is going to change the approach that we take to public health, which is to say that we're not going to be senseless, which just characterizes what this past year and a half have been.

CARLSON: Can you give -- and it's so reassuring to hear that because you clearly mean it. It is not a talking point. Can you give us an example of a decision of, as you put it, a data-based science-based decision the State of Florida has made recently that differs from say what other states are doing.

LADAPO: Oh sure. Thanks, Tucker. I mean, I think a really good example is this obsession with masking kids in school, and when you look at the evidence for mask mandates in schools, it is actually -- it's very weak.

You know, the highest quality evidence we have in fact for masks basically shows -- and this is what the highest quality evidence shows, that you know that there is really no evidence of a health benefit as in an improvement in a child's health outcome by implementing these mask mandates, and there is not even any solid evidence for cloth masks.

So you know, where benefit has been shown, it has primarily been with surgical masks. But you know, Americans have unfortunately been just slammed constantly with this message that you must mask these children, but you know, we haven't asked enough about the high quality data, and it's just -- it doesn't support it.

CARLSON: And we're --

LADAPO: And we don't do it in Florida.

CARLSON: No, well much to the gratitude of the people who live there. Doctor, I am grateful you came on tonight. I hope that -- I trust, we will see you again. Thanks very much and you know, don't let them -- don't let him change your course. I know you won't, thank you.

LADAPO: Thank you.

CARLSON: So let's talk to someone we've wanted to talk to you for a couple weeks now, a reporter from ESPN who has just left that company because of unreasonable mandates. She is one of thousands of Americans who has been forced to choose between earning a living and taking medicine she doesn't want. She has got good reasons for the decisions she made and she'll explain them to us next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Recently, ESPN, like a lot of big companies around the country informed its employees that they would have to bow to Joe Biden's vax mandates or leave, and some people did leave. One of the people who left was a reporter called Allison Williams. She had good reason for that. She has thought about it deeply and so we've been wanting to talk to her for quite some time, she joins us tonight to explain why she did what she did.

Allison Williams, thanks so much for coming on. So I was so struck by your story because you were successful in what you were doing. You were in the job you wanted to be in and so, you gave up an awful lot to do what you did. I should say you're now at "The Daily Wire." I should have added that.

So, I'm just interested in why you gave up so much in order to make this choice?

ALLISON WILLIAMS, FORMER ESPN REPORTER: I felt like I had no other choice, honestly, Tucker. This was the most difficult decision I've ever had to make in my life.

There were a lot of sleepless nights. There were a lot of tears shed in leading up to making this decision, but ultimately, I had to do what was best for my health individually and I had to consider where my husband and I were at in our family planning and this wasn't a vaccine that I was comfortable with receiving at this time given our desires to grow our family.

I knew I wasn't at high risk for COVID. I then got COVID. It was a very mild illness for me, so there really was no compelling health reason for me to get this injection. It really just came down to keeping my job.

And I want to make it clear, I'm not anti-vax, but I am absolutely anti- mandate. These are wrong. It violates bodily autonomy.

When we allow corporations or governments to tell us what is best for our health, that is a scary place to be and I really felt compelled, Tucker, to stand up and speak out against these mandates because I think if we don't, we really are opening ourselves up to some long-term ramifications of which we probably can't even imagine at this time.

CARLSON: I think you're right and I'm grateful that you did what you did at such cost and that you're explaining why you did it, but as you explain it, I can't help but notice, everything you said is so reasonable, so non- extreme, so fundamentally American. I have to ask when you said this to your supervisors I suppose at ESPN, what did they say?

WILLIAMS: You know, initially, I was really encouraged by the conversations I had with my reporting manager at ESPN. It seemed like logic could prevail here. I was allowed to do my job throughout the fall of 2020 and nobody had a vaccine at that point, right? I tested weekly, I masked, and I safely and efficiently did my job.

And so he thought that there could be some accommodations for me to continue to report from live sporting events. The company did not see it that way. They required that all employees that travel to events as of August 1st be fully vaccinated, no exemptions, whatsoever.

So once I realized that, I knew I would have to walk away from the college football season and that was an absolute punch in the gut, but I hoped that I would still be able to contribute to the company in ways I had previously, hosting shows virtually, for example. I even offered to help -- kind of in a consultation role and help coach up some of the younger sideline reporters they had hired. I really felt like I could virtually do my job without being a risk to other people.

And so I applied for an accommodation and they denied it. They said that it would cause undue hardship to the company to accommodate my request to do my job without being vaccinated.

CARLSON: Undue hardship to the company? What about you? The employee who loyally served the company? I mean, I guess when they start hurting reasonable people like you, then you feel like, you know what is the agenda here exactly?

WILLIAMS: Yes, and I think that's what really alarms me throughout all of this. There seems to be just a lack of logic everything is being done in the name of public health and safety and that's why we need these mandates, right, to increase vaccination rates.

But let me ask you this: Are we safer as a community with less police officers? Are we better off as a community when our hospitals are short staffed because nurses are forced to leave their jobs over these mandates?

I am one of many across the country who lost their job because of a mandate. My impact on society, not that significant, right? I'm a sports broadcaster. I understand that.

But there are people who contribute and uplift and support this community, members of our military who are forced to walk away, good people who love their jobs are now deciding or having to decide between providing for their family and getting an injection which they aren't comfortable with. That is un-American. That is not what takes place in the land of the free.

CARLSON: No, you're exactly right. You speak for many and very articulately and thoughtfully. Allison Williams, I am grateful you came on tonight. Thank you. I hope we see you again.

WILLIAMS: Thank you, Tucker.

CARLSON: So all of a sudden you may have noticed under the pretext of public health, our democracy functions very differently from the way that it used to.

Mollie Hemingway has taken a very close look at the last election, a very rigorous fact-based look at that election. The book is called "Rigged" and examined what exactly happened. We had an amazing conversation with Mollie Hemingway for a brand new episode of "Tucker Carlson Today." Here's part of it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Changing the way we vote, which we did. Give us the overview of what that looked like in 2020.

MOLLIE HEMINGWAY, FOX NEWS CHANNEL CONTRIBUTOR: So, people have been fighting about the way we vote since before we were a country. You know, we've had a lot of changes in the way people vote. It used to be that you would go down in front of a judge and publicly say who you're voting for, for Town Council, but that people who owed money to other people could have their vote manipulated because it was so public, so we sort of slowly moved to secret ballot.

We also used to have elections on different days throughout the country and that causes problems in some presidential elections because the way the early states are voting affects the effects the other states.

CARLSON: Yes.

HEMINGWAY: Also, people are moving between states to vote in multiple elections and so we moved to one day, secret ballot, and we kind of stick there for quite some time. But then we moved a few decades ago into opening up to mail-in balloting or absentee voting.

We've always had some form of absentee voting for people who are away at war or other, you know legitimate reasons. We start just massively expanding it, and Democrats have for a long time wanted to move toward more mail-in voting. They have some problems with enthusiasm on Election Day sometimes and so they decide that if they can move to mail-in voting, they can kind of get rid of that enthusiasm gap.

They can put their army of you know, public employees or you know, union types out to make sure that everybody who is on their records is voting. They can harvest ballots, they can do other things associated with mail-in balloting, and so they're just pushing for these changes over a long period of time.

In the 2020 election, they actually had wanted it long before the 2020 year start. Once COVID happens though, it's the perfect excuse to just dramatically change the way we vote, to flood the system with tens of millions of mail-in ballots. They get some people to actually agree to just mail ballots to everybody who is on the roll which is interesting because like 10 of the population moves each year without changing their -- you know, they might go register to vote in their new state or their -- or somewhere else, but they stay on the rolls in the old state.

CARLSON: Yes.

HEMINGWAY: And so, all of these changes happen. Some of them are legal, some of them are illegal. The Constitution requires that all such changes be made by the State Legislature, but you start seeing a lot of these changes happening from other officials or from courts agreeing to make changes that the state legislature didn't agree to.

And so, it's just this chaos and intentional chaos. It is actually part of the Democratic strategy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So with the last election, it was really -- with someone who would go through forensically and figure out what exactly happened, Mollie Hemingway did that. The full hour of that conversation streaming right now on foxnation.com.

So Virginia is a Democratic state. Democrats always win there. Really? All of a sudden, it looks like a Republican could become governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia on Tuesday. A central issue in the campaign: Are your kids yours or do they belong to the teachers unions and Terry McAuliffe?

Glenn Youngkin is the Republican who may be elected governor of Virginia on Tuesday. He joins us after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: It's instructive when a political race comes down to a single philosophical question, the race for Governor in Virginia has. Here is the question: Do parents have a right to control what their children learn in school? Really simple. Now, the man running as a Democrat for Governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe says parents do not have that right. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TERRY MCAULIFFE (D), VIRGINIA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: I don't think parents should be telling schools what they should teach kids. You know, I get really tired of everybody running down teachers. I love our teachers.

And what they have done through COVID, these are real heroes that deserve our respect.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So when he said that, it seemed like a gaffe. Really? Parents don't have a right to influence what their children learn in school? Schools that they pay for? But it turns out, it's not a minority view.

Virtually the entire Democratic Party agrees. "The Washington Post" agrees with Terry McAuliffe, they published an op-ed entitled quote: "Parents claim they have the right to shape their kids curriculum. They don't."

Polls in Virginia show that parents disagree, so this has become a defining issue, not just in Virginia, but nationwide. The D.O.J. as you're well aware has launched criminal investigations into parents who dare to question their school boards. That's why on Capitol Hill today, several senators called on the Attorney General of the United States -- who is a total sleaze ball -- to resign. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TOM COTTON (R-AR): That letter and those reports were the basis for - -

MERRICK GARLAND, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: No. No, Senator --

COTTON: This is shameful.

GARLAND: That's wrong.

COTTON: Judge, this is shameful. This testimony, your directive, your performance is shameful.

GARLAND: That's not --

COTTON: Thank God, you are not on the Supreme Court. You should resign in disgrace, Judge.

SEN. JOSH HAWLEY (R-MO): Attorney General Garland, you have weaponized the F.B.I. and the Department of Justice. Your U.S. Attorneys are now collecting and cataloguing all the ways that they might prosecute parents like Mr. Smith because they want to be involved in their children's education and they want to have a say in their elected officials.

It is wrong, it is unprecedented to my knowledge in the history of this country, and I call on you to resign.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So Glenn Youngkin is running for Governor of Virginia as a Republican. He has found himself right in the middle of this debate. He could win on Tuesday. He joins us tonight.

Glenn Youngkin, thanks so much for coming on.

So, I don't think anybody at the beginning of this race thought it would be about this question: Do parents -- should parents have any influence over their own children? Were you surprised that there -- it turns out, there are people who think that parents don't have a right to influence their own kids?

GLENN YOUNGKIN (R), GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE FOR VIRGINIA: Well, Tucker, thanks for having me tonight and no, I'm not surprised because Virginia's parents and particularly in Loudoun County where it's been ground zero, they've been trying to stand up for their kids for the last 20 months. Open our schools. Stop teaching our kids what to think and teach them how to think. Make sure we understand what's going on in the classroom.

And my opponent, he stood there and said, no, parents do not have a right to know what's going on in the classroom and in fact he doubled down on and tripled down and quadrupled down on it and then just yesterday, you know he was with -- he was with President Biden yesterday and I'm sure they discussed this.

He could have told President Biden, President Biden I'm siding with parents because in Virginia, by the way parents have a legal right to make decisions with regards to their children's education. It's a legal right in Virginia.

And Terry McAuliffe told President Biden if he had -- if he could and he didn't -- they should change that, but what happened today was of course, Merrick Garland, he doubled down. He said, no, I'm absolutely maintaining my position that the D.O.J. and the F.B.I. should be investigating parents, parents who are trying to stand up for their children when there's been a sexual assault in a school bathroom, and we have a Board of Education in Loudoun County that tried to hide it from parents, hide it from the public?

And they moved this child into another school and then that child again committed another sexual assault. I've called for a full investigation. I've called for an investigation of the school board, the Commonwealth Attorney, the State Superintendent.

CARLSON: Yes.

YOUNGKIN: I'll tell you, the Attorney General of the United States should resign and oh by the way, the F.B.I. should be investigating these folks, too.

This is just absolutely un-American and as Governor in Virginia, I'm going to stand up for parents. I'm going to stand up for children. I'm going to stand up for the fundamental rights for parents to make decisions with regards to their kid's education.

This has absolutely got to stop and that's why I'm running, Tucker, because it's time for individual liberty to win over big government control and my opponent, Terry McAuliffe, he believes in big government control and I believe in parents' rights when it comes to their children's education to make decisions for them.

CARLSON: I mean, what they're really saying is we're your children's parents and you're not and on the basis of that alone, we are rooting for you, Glenn Youngkin on Tuesday in Virginia. Thanks so much for coming on the show tonight.

YOUNGKIN: Tucker, thank you for having me. This is a big moment for America, too.

CARLSON: It certainly is. Thanks a lot, Glenn Youngkin. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: At the top of the hour, we showed you the trailer for our latest documentary, it is a three-part series called "Patriot Purge." The best thing we've ever done. We are really proud of it because we think it answers what actually happened on January 6th.

It all debuts next week, the first is on Monday.

That's it for us tonight. We'll be back tomorrow.

But in the meantime, The Great Sean Hannity takes over the 9:00 p.m.

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