Tucker: California gov breaking own COVID-19 rules sums up 2020

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Tucker: California gov breaking own COVID-19 rules sums up 2020

'Tucker Carlson Tonight' host reacts to Democrat Gavin Newsom flouting pandemic guidelines to atted birthday dinner

This is a rush transcript from “Tucker Carlson Tonight” November 18, 2020. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

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

Sometimes a single picture so perfectly crystallizes a moment that you want to hang it in a museum as a testament to history. Dorothea Lange's photographs of migrant farmworkers in the 1930s are like that. They captured the suffering of the Great Depression more powerfully than any government report ever could. 

The image of the second flag raising over Iwo Jima was so powerful that we cast it in bronze to commemorate the grit and courage of our Marines in the Second World War. 

Those images summed up entire periods of American life. 

So, what sums up ours? What picture tells our story? Well, today, we've got it for you. 

Decades from now, our descendants will look at this one image and know what it was like to live in America in the year 2020. We'll show it to you in just a second. But first some context. 

Gavin Newsom is the Governor of California, our largest and for a long time, our most prosperous state. About 40 million people live in California. So far, two of them under the age of 18 have died of the COVID-

19 virus, so naturally, Gavin Newsom has shut down the entire state. 

Businesses are shuttered. People wear masks even as they eat. Large groups are forbidden to congregate. Thanksgiving itself is on its way to being canceled.  

It's a tough way to live, but Californians have no choice. This is science, people. 

Gavin Newsom is California's epidemiologist-in-chief. He commands obedience and the serfs obey. 

With that in mind, the "San Francisco Chronicle" broke a pretty amazing story this week. Governor Newsom recently attended a birthday dinner up in wine country at the French Laundry. That's one of the best and most expensive restaurants in the world. There were 12 people at Newsom's dinner, and to civilians, that number seemed to be a clear violation of Newsom's own rules. 

But as we were told, it really wasn't. It turns out that Newsom was simply celebrating the birthday of a longtime friend of his, a lobbyist actually called Jason Kinney. A spokesperson for Kinney described the night this way, quote, "This was a small, intimate, 12-person dinner held outdoors with family and a few close friends to celebrate a 50th birthday." 

In other words, no big deal. 

For his part, Governor Newsom assured his suffering subjects that quote, "Our family followed the restaurant's health protocols and took safety precautions." So really, ladies and gentlemen, it was nothing. Just a small intimate dinner held in nature, under God's blue skies, just a few close friends staying safe and following the protocols to the letter as mandated by the state that in fact they run. So relax, people. No one is getting 'rona here. 

That was the story. 

Now the photograph. We have the picture thanks to Fox 11 in Los Angeles, one of the rare local stations that still does reporting. It's a picture of the birthday dinner up in Napa. 

It turns out it was not held outside. It was held in a private room and not a spacious private room either. All 12 people were packed in tight, shoulder to shoulder, breathing on each other. No social distancing here.

Not one of them is wearing a mask. 

A steam room in central Wuhan could not be more contagious than this dinner. Gavin Newsom's birthday party was a germ factory and his guests were human petri dishes. 

But what a guest list it was. Next to Governor Newsom sat the CEO of the California Medical Association and the one over from him, one of the state's top health lobbyists. Together, the two of them represent tens of thousands of physicians, credentialed men of science and women of science in the State of California. 

So if you're wondering why, if you live in California, you can't have Thanksgiving this year or visit your mother as she dies alone in the hospital, it is because of them and people like them. And yet there they were, eating $300.00 truffle pasta and living like this pandemic thing never even happened. 

The picture of them doing it known henceforth the history is the French Laundry photograph is the year 2020 condensed to its essence. Here you have plutocrats dining with lobbyists, ignoring the very orders they are so self-righteously imposing on others gorging themselves in seclusion, as the people they're supposed to be helping wither and die. 

And then when they're caught, they lie about it. How perfect is that? It's all there. Every element: hypocrisy, greed, selfishness, stupidity. This is our national moment in a single picture. Move over Dorothea Lange. 

So what's Gavin Newsom's explanation for this picture? Well, for the interest of equal time and fairness we're going to show it to you now. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA):  I made a bad mistake, instead of sitting down, I should have stood up and walked back on my car and drove back to my house.

Instead, I chose to sit there with my wife, and a number of other couples that were outside the household. 

You can quibble about the guidelines, et cetera, et cetera. But the spirit of what I'm preaching all the time, was contradicted. And I've got to own that and so I won't apologize to you. 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

CARLSON:  Oh, yes, when I saw it, I should have just walked out, got in the car and driven home. Okay, Gavin. So you had no idea there are going to be a dozen people at your own party. You're the Governor, but you never saw the guest list. You were totally shocked. That's ridiculous. 

It's too stupid to be an explanation, and we are stupider for pretending to believe it. Why not just tell the truth, which is, I don't really totally believe everything I say, at least not enough to let it interfere with dinner. 

That's the truth. You know it, he knows it. But he is forcing us to play along with an absurd lie. 

On the other hand, at least Gavin Newsom didn't follow the lead of Nancy Pelosi and blamed the restaurant. He didn't accuse the maitre d' of setting him up as part of a conspiracy among the famously right-wing restaurant community in Napa. 

The French Laundry probably won't suffer the same fate as Pelosi's hairstylist, at least as long as they stay quiet about it. 

And to his credit, Gavin Newsom didn't follow the example of Dianne Feinstein. Feinstein has refused to answer any questions as she parades around the Halls of the United States Senate and private airport terminals, FBOs, maskless and exposed -- breathing on people, infecting them. No explanation for that. 

And to be fair, once again, Gavin Newsom's explanation though, obviously untrue is still better than what his buddy, the lobbyist, the guy they're having a dinner for has come up with. Through a spokesman, he said, whoa, "The guests specifically requested outdoor seating and that was provided by the restaurant." Indoor, seats rather. Indoor. That's what they really were doing. 

He is saying they were outdoors, but now we have a picture showing that and he is still claiming it. No, it was outdoors. In other words, ignore the walls and the roof. What looks like inside was actually outside. Got that?

Up is down. Black is white. War is peace. Trust me not you're lying senses. 

If only the criminal paddle boarder had thought of that. 

This spring, police in California hunted down a lone man paddle boarding in the Pacific Ocean. He was off the Coast of Malibu, probably infecting the seals. They saw this. They got on boats. They alerted the Coast Guard. And then Sheriff Deputies put this criminal in handcuffs. They arrested him and threatened him with six months in prison for breaking Corona Law. 

And the media in California treated it like it was totally normal. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:  Across the coast in California, fines and handcuffs for bad behavior. One man arrested in Malibu for paddle boarding in the Pacific, while 22 sunset seekers in SoCal were cited for trespassing on closed beaches. 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

CARLSON:  They literally put him in handcuffs for paddle boarding alone.

They didn't even claim it was a threat to marine life. They didn't even make up a pretext. They just did it. And like seals, everyone applauded. 

So the paddle boarder gets arrested, Gavin Newsom gets to dine in peace.

What's the lesson here? You know the lesson. 

If you want to live like a human being, you've got to get elected to something, and then you can break your own rules. Otherwise, don't even think about it. 

Here is LA Mayor Eric Garcetti explaining how he will handle people who don't obey. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

MAYOR ERIC GARCETTI (D), LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA:  This is really been marvelously embraced by 99.9 percent of people. We see it in the traffic data. We see it in the cell phone data, but we're going to hunt down that last 0.1 percent and say, you've got to get inside. You've got to cut it out and you've got to distance. 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

CARLSON:  Yes, you've got to cut it out. You've got to get inside. You've got to distance and if you don't cut it out, Eric Garcetti will cut your power just like they do in China. No utilities for you corona felon. 

If you want to break the law, if you have an unscratchable itch, go ahead and loot Target or torch a fast food franchise or beat up an old lady.

That's federally protected political speech, but authentic human contact, no, only the ruling class gets that. 

So what is this exactly? It's hypocrisy, of course. That was not big enough. This is not conventional hypocrisy. This is -- let's stop lying -- an act of hostility against the population of the country. They despise you. They're flaunting it. 

This is how people who don't like you behave. They force you to do one thing, they do another, and they get caught. They're not embarrassed and they keep forcing you to do the thing they're not doing. That's an act of hostility. They don't like you. 

Last month for example, he learned that Gavin Newsom was sending his own children to private school. He made sure they could get in-person classroom education. And of course he did. They are his kids. He loves them. 

And Newsom knows what we all now know that children don't learn anything by remote, sitting at home on a computer screen. It hurts them. At best, it makes them weird. They don't learn a thing. 

At the same time, he was sending his own children to class in a real school, public school districts, which he is in charge of, all over the State of California remain closed because he ordered them closed. Why did he do that? We never learned. There was no science. He didn't bother explain it. 

School children don't face a meaningful risk from this virus. When children contract the virus, C.D.C. data show that their survival rate is over 99.99 percent. That's not a TV term. In this case, it's a scientific term, literally 99.99 percent. 

Teachers and other adults under the age of 70 have between a 99.5 and a

99.9 percent chance of surviving. Again, not estimates, real numbers from the Federal government. That's science, but nobody cares about science anymore. 

A few hours ago, the mayor of New York announced he was shutting down the nation's largest school district, not because children are in peril or suddenly becoming ill in huge numbers, they are not. De Blasio did this because a rolling seven-day average of positive coronavirus test in New York City went over three percent. Not deaths, not hospitalizations, positive tests, which in the overwhelming majority of cases, mean nothing. 

So that's insane, obviously, but it is accelerating. 

Washington's Governor Jay Inslee says, we're going to have to cancel Christmas, but we're going to do it in the name of love. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

GOV. JAY INSLEE (D-WA):  It's just too dangerous to gather together indoors where the virus can spread so easily. So this year, when you join us in changing your Thanksgiving and December Holiday plans, please know that you are doing it as an act of love. 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

CARLSON:  An act of love, says Jay Inslee, the politician-lawyer. What do politician-lawyers know about love? Not much. Normal people know that love isn't possible if you're forced to live alone in isolation and fear. 

Now, in an ideal world, we'd all be at the French Laundry, laughing and eating with our friends. It sounds wonderful, especially now. Sadly, we can't do that. We are not the governor of anything. 

Bill Melugin is the man who got the photograph of Gavin Newsom that illuminated our moment. He is with Fox 11 as we said in LA and we're happy to have now. Hey, Bill, where'd you get this? 

BILL MELUGIN, REPORTER, FOX LOS ANGELES:  Tucker, we got that photo, that series of photos from a woman who was actually eating dinner at the French Laundry that night, the same night Governor Newsom was there. 

She recognized him, asked the waitress, "Is at the Governor?" She said yes.

And then once she noticed what was going on, she started snapping some photos. And this whole situation has just been an absolute disaster for Governor Newsom when it comes to his credibility with Californians because you hit the nail on the head earlier. 

When he told us in his apology the other day that this was an outdoor dinner, I think a lot of folks kind of had it in their minds that this was you know, spaced outdoors and you know, in an open area, maybe on the grass or something. And then these photos she sent us, if we can pull them up, show a much different story. 

I see a chandelier above their heads. I've never eaten outdoors with a chandelier above my head. You see three walls, but particularly what you see is every COVID-19 precaution and rule that Governor Newsom has pushed on Californians being violated. 

You see multiple households gathering together, which is something he is telling us explicitly not to do ahead of Thanksgiving. You see nobody wearing masks, even though his office put out guidance saying we have to put our masks on in between bites of food, and he didn't wear his mask when he was talking with people even after the dinner was over. 

So for Californians, it's frustrating, do as I say, not as I do. Rules for thee, not for me, and he is suffering a lot of political fallout because of it -- Tucker. 

CARLSON:  Bill Melugin, great to see you. They will survive, of course.

That man is so slippery. If you'd put salt on him, he would shrivel. 

Dave Portnoy is not a political figure. He is the founder of Barstool Sports and a man of deep commonsense, and that's why it's to him we go first tonight to figure out how should we respond to this pandemic. 

Great to see you El Presidente. 

DAVE PORTNOY, FOUNDER, BARSTOOL SPORTS:  Nice to be back. 

CARLSON:  You saw the picture. What do you make of it? And what lessons should the rest of us draw for how we proceed from here? 

PORTNOY:  You know, the most amazing thing if you want to question what he is doing is like, if you're going to go break and -- if you're going to obviously break your own rules that everyone is suffering with, how do you let people take pictures of you? How dumb do you have to be to let people have cameras? 

You need a henchman to break the cameras if you're going to be that, you know, I'm not dissed about it. 

CARLSON:  Right. 

PORTNOY:  Really. Seriously. It's insane. You know, I don't think there's inherently like bad people going around. But this, I truly believe that the government officials who are making these decisions, if they had a brother or sister there whose livelihoods were on the line with a business, a small business, their decisions wouldn't be the same and activities like this, you just read through a punch. 

I remember the Philadelphia mayor, and then he has got Philadelphia on locked down, went across the state border, sat down and ate in a restaurant. There's endless examples and it is so easy to tell other people what to do with their lives, when you're not directly affected by it. 

My whole rant on it, my whole passion is small business. It is the backbone of this country. They've gone through this whole corona pandemic, theoretically, to see the light at the end of the tunnel only to be shut down again. 

I'm not going to Thanksgiving with my family, Tucker, whether, you know, the corona because it's not worth the rest of it. My parents are old. I like my dad. My dad has the worst immune system. He'd roll over. He won't even put up a fight. 

So I'm not going to Thanksgiving. But that's my choice. That's our choice as a family. And that's what you have to let people do. 

We know what corona is in, and you can believe the science. You cannot believe the science. You can think this is dangerous, you cannot. But it's out there. 

And now you have to let each person, each business owner make the decision.

If you're old, you're health impaired, stay inside. The vaccines are around the corner. Stay inside until it is over. 

But these businesses, they're not going to come back. It's already -- walk through Philadelphia, walk through New York, things are boarded up everywhere. How are they going to survive this? What is going to be left? 

And to not have the right to choose your own fate as a business owner and whether you want to go out to dinner or not is crazy, and the government officials don't do it themselves. So the whole thing is really -- it's frustrating. It is insane. 

CARLSON:  Thank you for injecting a little perspective into this. That's about the most sensible and nonpartisan take I think we're going to find on the corona pandemic. 

Dave Portnoy, great to see you. Thank you. 

PORTNOY:  Thanks for having me, Tucker. 

CARLSON:  So we're about to get a lot more political drama, and pretty soon, control of the United States Senate, which this year really matters.

It comes down to two runoffs in the State of Georgia. 

One of the candidates there has adopted something of an unusual platform.

America is horrible, and so is everyone who lives here. That's not speculation by the way. He said it on tape, and we'll show it to you.

Coming up. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) 

CARLSON:  Well, for the next six weeks, the entire political world, all of the consultants and donors and the blow dried dumbos on TV are all headed to Georgia. 

On January 5th, Georgia will have two runoff elections that will decide the balance of power in the Senate. If democrats take both those seats, they will have total control over the entire Federal government. We need to tell you that they will change the country. They are saying they will change the country forever if they do that. So, it's a big deal. 

Now a few weeks ago, we told you about one of the two Democrats who is up for election in these races. He is a man called the Reverend Raphael Warnock. The Democratic Party establishment loves this man. They lined up for him months ago. 

And that happened in spite of them, perhaps because of, an -- I can't pronounce the word -- an obvious fact. 

For the past 15 years, Warnock used his platform as a Pastor to condemn the United States and the people who live here. In 2015 for example, he compared cops to gangs and thugs. Watch. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

REV. RAPHAEL WARNOCK (D), SENATORIAL CANDIDATE IN GEORGIA:  So in Ferguson, police power showing up in a kind of gangster and thug mentality. You know, you can wear all kinds of colors and be a thug. You can sometimes wear those colors of the state and behave like a thug. 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

CARLSON:  So a cop makes -- cops make no money. They get shot a lot.

Everyone hates them. They protect our families and here he is, denouncing them. 

No one in the Democratic Party has condemned that. They haven't said a word about it. They also said nothing about Warnock's demand that Americans repent for their quote, "whiteness." 

Now, there's nothing more racist than saying something like that, try switching the racism around if you don't believe it, but Warnock said it proudly, out loud in church back in 2016. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

WARNOCK:  And if it is true that a man who has dominated the news and poisoned the discussion for months needs to repent, then it is doubly true that a nation that can produce such a man and make his vitriol go viral needs to repent. 

No matter what happens next month, more than a third of the nation that would go along with this is reason to be afraid. America needs to repent for its worship of whiteness. 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

CARLSON:  Can you imagine? It is a tax exempt Christian church, but listen to what he is saying. He is saying that people's skin color makes them inferior. A guy who says something like that has no place in the United States Senate. None. It's wrong. 

What is it about racists in the Democratic Party? They love them. They haven't said a word about it. 

They also have said nothing about Warnock's claim that in America, quote, "Nobody can serve God and the military at the same time." What? Democrats also haven't explained why they support Warnock's sermon against the Second Amendment and self-defense. Watch this. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

WARNOCK:  Think about all of the crazy people you bump into, just on the routine every week. On your job, on the streets, some of them are in church. Don't look at them. 

Imagine all of them people with guns and then they come up with all of these clever names, stand your ground. No, it's not a Stand Your Ground law, it is a shoot first law. Shoot first, ask questions later. 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

CARLSON:  Yes, that's not a sermon. That's not the gospel. That's not the Christian message. This guy is a fake minister, with a tax exemption. But think about the political ramifications of what he is saying. If you're in the military, if you support the Second Amendment, if you're the wrong skin color, this guy thinks you're fundamentally flawed and those aren't our words. He said them on tape. 

But the Democratic Party has no problem with any of it. They vetted him.

They knew what they were getting. And no matter what happens on January 5th, when the runoff happens, you should know that about the Democratic Party. 

Well, in the days leading up to the 2020 election earlier this month, the Cook Political Report listed 27 House races is quote, "tossups." In the end, they weren't, Republicans won all 27 of them. 

Republicans picked up seats they projected to go for Democrats, even in the bluest state of all, California. 

Michelle Steel is one of the Republicans who stunningly won. She beat a Democratic incumbent in the state. She flipped Orange County's 48th District back to the Republican Party and she joins us now to explain how she did it. Congresswoman-elect, thanks so much for coming on. How did you do this? 

MICHELLE STEEL (R-CA), CONGRESSWOMAN-ELECT:  I just worked hard. And you know what, you're just totally sick to the issues. That's I exactly what I did. 

You were just talking about defund the police. You know what I did as the Chair of Orange County Board of Supervisor, I am the one who actually declared of Law Enforcement Appreciation Day because all of these policemen and women are -- you know, their lives are on the line. You cannot dismantle or you cannot really defund. 

So we really need them. They are the one protecting us. You cannot do that.

That's the first thing. 

And second thing, you were talking about the Governor of California, they just shut down 41 counties out of 58 counties. And you know what? He is enjoying the most exclusive and expensive restaurant. He wants to wine and dine. 

Meanwhile, I'm getting tons of unemployment documents on my table and I heard in Orange County, 23 percent of the business is going to never come back because of COVID-19. So you know what? Just lower taxes, less regulations and help small businesses and we support our police. 

I will just to stick to those issues instead of my opponent was attacking me that I'm a first generation Korean-American, that I speak Korean as my first and Japanese my second. He said that I am related to China and I'm a communist agent. I don't even speak Chinese. I speak Korean and Japanese. 

So that was really interesting without fact, just attacking me. But you know what? We have the facts of how we are going to survive and how we are going to help small businesses and how are we going to protect ourselves. 

CARLSON:  So, you stuck to law and order and pushing back against destructive coronavirus lockdowns. It seems like the Republicans who did that won. 

STEEL:  We did in Orange County. Actually, I put the businesses at our committee, and we opened it in May, you know, end of May. Guess what? The governor shut down only Orange County beaches. 

CARLSON:  Yes, I noticed that. Michelle Steel, it's a great story. Nobody in Washington or in the professional political class predicted that you would win, and we can't wait to see what you do in Washington. Thanks for coming on. 

STEEL:  Thank you. 

CARLSON:  So if you grew up in this country thinking you were protected by something called the First Amendment and you could say what you actually think, we've got some bad news for you. Joe Biden's transition team doesn't agree. 

They are already talking about how they can ban speech in America. So, what is hate speech apart from speech they hate? Mark Steyn is here to untangle this mystery. Straight ahead. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) 

CARLSON:  If you were born here, you might have been under the impression -

- because you were taught it at school -- that the First Amendment protects your freedom of speech and of conscience. It's what separates us from places like Iran or Canada where independent thoughts are prohibited in some cases. 

But as a key member of Joe Biden's transition team, a former journalist called Richard Stengel, apparently, he wants to change that. Stengel is the team lead for the U.S. Agency for Global Media and last year, we remember this well, he wrote an op-ed that said this, quote: "All speech is not equal. Where truth cannot drive out lies, we must add new guardrails."

Guardrails? The government. Guardrails. 

What does that mean? Well, for one, Stengel doesn't want to be able to circulate, quote, "false narratives" that may have been spread by Vladimir Putin. So, if you doubted any of the actual lies from the F.B.I., and from our Congress about Russian collusion, Richard Stengel thinks you should have been punished, arrested, I don't know, he is not here to answer. We'd love to talk to him. 

All of this is bad news for the country, it is particularly bad news for Mark Steyn, as a lifelong writer, a bestselling author, and a man who always says what he thinks. He joins us tonight. 

Mark Steyn, what does this mean? What does this portend for the country, seriously? 

MARK STEYN, AUTHOR AND COLUMNIST:  Well, I think things are accelerating very badly on the suppression of speech. You mentioned Canada. Things are a little better than they were 10 years ago because I happen to get a hate speech law repealed in the dominion of Canada after a bit of a struggle, and I regret we didn't pull off quite the same thing down in Australia. 

And in both cases, so-called conservative governments actually declined to support the cause of free speech. In this case, what he means -- in this case, this guy has actually gone far beyond the Australian and Canadian definitions of hate speech. This guy, Stengel, he says, the First Amendment should not protect hateful speech that can cause violence by one group against another. 

What he actually means by that, as we heard Senator Coons talking about yesterday is actually, he thinks that if, for example, you have a high school teacher who happens to show a particular cartoon as a French teacher did the other the other day, and then some guy gets mad about it and beheads you in the street. 

That in order to stop people beheading people, it should be illegal for that school teacher to show the cartoon. So we used to joke about the hecklers' veto, where you could heckle someone and shut down their speech. 

In this case, this guy actually wants to decapitate his veto. If you threaten to behead someone, if you threaten violence, then the speech that causes someone to threaten violence should be made illegal. 

This is actually worse than Canada and Australia and other countries, and that's why it should never even get off the ground, even in this crazy Facebook-Twitter society. 

CARLSON:  So it really inverts the system we've had for 250 years. It puts all the power in the hands of the forces of repression and darkness. The extremists get to decide what you can say. 

STEYN:  Absolutely and that that's actually -- that's the opposite. That never works. That never works. More speech, if you don't -- less speech equals more violence. That's basically what we see around the world everywhere it has been tried. 

CARLSON:  No, I think it's exactly right and nicely put. 

I cannot resist asking you about this story. So coronavirus, apparently is resurging in New York City. Even the Christmas tree that Bill de Blasio put in Rockefeller Center apparently has -- it is a Douglas fir, I think -- but it looks very sickly. How can they treat it? What do you think happened?

What's the cure here? 

STEYN:  I think this is actually Andrew Cuomo and Bill de Blasio's genius public service announcement. If you look at the right side of the tree, you'll see that the branches are actually socially distancing. 

In New York, tree branches on Christmas trees have to be at 25 percent capacity and the right side of the tree is doing that. The left side of the tree is some kind of arboreal version of Governor Newsom's disgraceful party where they were all actually packed in close together, the branches are all there, shooting the breeze, laughing it up, yucking it up drinking thousand dollar bottles of wine on the left hand side of the tree. 

So this is a brilliant public service announcement by de Blasio and Cuomo and it teaches -- in fact, on the left hand side of the tree that's a super spreader event going on right there, an arboreal super spreader. 

CARLSON:  A visual representation of the present state of American epidemiology. Mark Steyn, genius. Great to see you. 

STEYN:  Thanks a lot Tucker. 

CARLSON:  So for centuries, some of the richest people in this country invested a lot of their fortune back into the country and its workforce and they did so voluntarily. That's not as common anymore. 

Some still do that, and we want to tell you who because they deserve to be known, in the best way. 

Then a Police Chief says she was fired for arresting rioters who were vandalizing local property. Some of those rioters were officeholders. She was not allowed to arrest them, it turns out. She joins us next to explain what exactly happened to her when she tried to enforce the law. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) 

CARLSON:  You may have noticed that America's big corporations are increasingly political, they browbeat you about global warming. They are happy to censor any speech they don't like. 

Ads on television have become a form of political propaganda. Have you seen them? Then they know what we're talking about. 

But as we enter the Holidays, what if we took a moment to consider whether those companies actually do care about the country? 

Consider Walmart. Walmart is valued at $423 billion. Now, that's enough to provide healthcare and decent wages to its workers, and yet, thousands of Walmart workers rely on food stamps and Medicaid to get by. That doesn't seem like a good thing. 

Or how about Uber? Worth more than $80 billion, but can't be bothered to treat its workers like workers, full-time employees and pay the benefits they want. 

Amazon has profited enormously from the pandemic, maybe more than any other company. Huge amounts of cash coming in and yet, Amazon has cut a $2.00 an hour coronavirus pay raise. That happened almost at exactly the same time that Jeff Bezos's personal net worth reached $150 billion. That's awful, actually. If you want a revolution, keep doing stuff like that. 

But tonight, we want to bring your attention to a notable and noble exception and it's Home Depot. Home Depot was also posting record profits amid the epidemic. Home Depot announced this week, they will spend $1 billion to permanently raise pay for their frontline workers. 

Home Depot has also offered additional temporary benefits to its employees during the pandemic, including weekly bonuses and more paid time off. The company may make those benefits permanent. Good for them. We hope they do.

And we hope it's an example to everyone else, particularly Jeff Bezos. 

Well, you'll probably remember when lunatics flooded the streets of America and started breaking things, wrecking public property, spray painting and things setting fires. Here's the scene that played out in the town of Portsmouth, Virginia. 

[VIDEO CLIP PLAYS] 

CARLSON:  It doesn't look like America, but it is. Most of our leaders did absolutely nothing. One notable exception to that was the Police Chief of Portsmouth, Virginia, Angela Greene. 

She did what she was hired to do. She's the Chief of Police. She issued warrants for 14 people who are involved in the riot and on video. And now apparently, she has been fired for doing that. A pretty shocking story, really. And Chief Greene was nice enough to come on tonight and explain what happened. 

Chief, thanks so much for coming on. 

ANGELA GREENE, FIRED CHIEF OF POLICE, PORTSMOUTH, VIRGINIA:  Thank you, Mr.

Carlson. 

CARLSON:  So, from what I've read, it seems like you looked at the video, you identified 14 people, you could say with certainty were involved in committing vandalism, criminal acts, and you issued warrants and now you're being punished. How? 

GREENE:  Well my detectives actually investigated that matter and found probable cause and brought that probable cause to a Magistrate that is part of our Judiciary Branch, and the Magistrate found sufficient cause to actually issue felony arrest warrants on those individuals. 

Unfortunately, right now, I believe I am a highly qualified, educated, competent black woman in a profession that is race neutral as the Chief of Police. But I am wrongfully -- yes -- and right now, I'm being wrongfully terminated because I upheld the laws and my belief that no one is above the laws. 

I was also punished because I refused to treat criminal behavior by alleged perpetrators based on their race, creed, gender, or political affiliations. 

CARLSON:  Now, some of the people for whom these warrants were issued were officeholders and then other politicians got involved. The former Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe sent out a statement saying what you did was completely wrong. 

In Virginia, you're still allowed to arrest office holders if they commit felonies, right? 

GREENE:  That is correct, sir. Yes. 

CARLSON:  So, I guess my question stands, how in the world, could you have been fired for this? 

GREENE:  That is why we're going to pursue legal remedies in this matter.

And I will say that I am an at-will employee, but there are recognized exceptions to the at-will employee doctrine. And some of those exceptions cannot be terminated for upholding the law or for me refusing to listen to a request to ignore laws. 

CARLSON:  Well, of course, you're the Police Chief. What an amazing story. 

GREENE:  Absolutely. 

CARLSON:  I hope you will come back and tell us how it ends because it really says a lot. Thank you for coming on. 

GREENE:  Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. 

CARLSON:  Well, we've had eight months of shutdowns and mask mandates and the Wuhan virus appears to be spreading and worse in some places. Now, some states are getting even more extreme. The most radical policies straight ahead. Victor Davis Hanson joins us. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) 

CARLSON:  New York City's is the largest school district in the country and it looks like they will be closing their doors in an attempt to curb the spread of the virus. FOX News senior correspondent, Rick Leventhal has the latest on how this is happening and why. Hey, Rick. 

RICK LEVENTHAL, FOX NEWS CHANNEL SENIOR CORRESPONDENT:  Hey Tucker, "The Washington Post" reports young people are far more likely to die of homicides, fire or drowning than COVID-19. But the world's largest public school system is shutting down anyway because the Mayor says positivity rates in the general population is at three percent, proclaiming on Twitter, "We must fight back the second wave of COVID-19." 

The city is telling its educators and 1.1 million students to take their stuff home with them. Remote learning begins tomorrow which also means more than half the kids in the state who rely on the Federal School Lunch Program won't get fed. 

All of this apparently, a surprise for New York's Governor Andrew Cuomo, who insisted schools were still open and mocked a reporter trying to get clarification. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

QUESTION: I'm just still confused. 

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY):  Well, then you're confused. 

QUESTION:  I'm confused and I think parents are still confused as well. The schools in New York City tomorrow -- 

CUOMO:  No, they are not confused. You're confused. 

QUESTION:  No, I think the parents are confused as well. 

CUOMO:  Read the law. Read the law and you won't be confused. 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

LEVENTHAL:  Meanwhile, pandemic weary New Yorkers have been warned a whole lot more restrictions across the board are on the way -- Tucker. 

CARLSON:  Amazing. Rick Leventhal, thank you. 

LEVENTHAL:  Sure. 

CARLSON:  Is it just us or is it true for you that every time the Governor of New York opens his mouth, you hear, I'm going to break your thumbs. It seems that way. 

Well, in Oregon, there's a moderate move. Heroin and cocaine have now been decriminalized and that frees up law enforcement to focus its resources on more important things like breaking up Thanksgiving dinner. 

The Governor of Oregon, Kate brown explained the plan on Sunday. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

GOV. KATE BROWN (D-OR):  And I will be asking our Oregon State Police to work collaboratively with local law enforcement to enforce the limits on social gatherings. 

Law enforcement has the discretion to enforce these. They are Class C misdemeanors and they can be enforced through a citation, a fine or through an arrest. 

At this point in time, unfortunately, we have no other option. 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

CARLSON:  Yes, so according to Kate Brown, America's sacred civic holiday is over. You're going to have to spend it alone. The good news is you can smoke all the meth you want. Psyched? 

Victor Davis Hanson is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institute. We're always happy to have him on. Professor, thanks a lot for coming. 

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON, SENIOR FELLOW, HOOVER INSTITUTION:  Thank you. 

CARLSON:  So you can shoot heroin, but you can't have Thanksgiving dinner?

What are we looking at? 

HANSON:  Well, I think there's a lot of takeaways, I think after nine months of lockdowns of various sorts that our state authorities, especially in blue states really don't know have any answers. 

They can't tell us about this mysterious virus, the degree of susceptibility of certain people of blood types, our vitamin D levels or the methods of the most severe transmissions. 

And so in that lacuna of knowledge, they go back to what they've always done, a series of lockdown. They said, well, look at Europe, they did it.

Well, Europe has got an explosive rate, just like we do, and we're not doing any differently faring much different than Spain, Italy, Belgium, and the U.K. 

And so that lack of knowledge, they have to do something because they are people who do something and they never tell us this is the lethality rate.

This is the cost/benefit analysis if we shut down in terms of substance abuse, familial abuse, missed schools, missed procedures, and I'm afraid they are going to have massive civil disobedience because for them to have credibility, Tucker, they cannot be hypocritical. They have to be disinterested. 

But think of a marquee official. A Nancy Pelosi, a Gavin Newsom, a Governor Whitmer, Governor -- all of these people have violated their own edicts.

They go to hairdressers. They put their kids in private school. When they say no people can go, they go to restaurants. 

And so they are asking the public to obey edicts that they don't feel apply to themselves. I mean, when you apply that to protest, all summer, Tucker, we saw people out in the street, no social distancing, no mask, no cleanser, spraying and screaming, and we even had health professionals who signed a letter and said, you know, it's more deleterious to the health of certain groups not to protest than to risk the virus. 

And then on Victory Night of the supposed Biden victory, everybody was out there protesting, nobody said a word. 

And then to come down and say, we're going to go into the inner sanctum of a person's home, so much for your home as a castle, and we're going to start monitoring your behavior in a way we surely didn't when you attacked state property out in the street in Portland. 

And so, they are not going to have a lot of compliance and there is a slippery slope, I think that if they can come into your house and say, you have to wear a mask, why not just say, well, you know, when was your last prostate exam or your breast exam? Or did you brush your teeth? And do you have deleterious bacteria that could get into your heart and we want to see this information. 

And so -- I know that sounds absurd, but once you start dictating what a person can do inside the confines of their own home, and you're not consistent and you're ideological, then you're not going to have widespread complacence -- compliance -- excuse me. 

There is a pattern, Tucker. It's a blue state landscape, a blue mayor, a blue state governor, who tends to focus on traditional gatherings like Thanksgiving or Christmas, or church gatherings.  

It's not really the governor of Oklahoma or Utah going into the corporate boardroom, or going into the university lounge and trying to say we're going to enforce this upon you. So whether that's fair or not, there's an ideological suspicion that is not equally applied. 

CARLSON:  Exactly. Most Americans want to follow the rules, but the rules have to be reasonable and fair or they won't. 

HANSON:  They do. 

CARLSON:  Professor, great to see you. That's right. Thanks so much. 

We are out of time. Thanks for watching. Thanks for trusting us. 

Sean Hannity right now. 

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