Tucker Carlson: The Biden program didn't work
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This is a rush transcript from "Tucker Carlson Tonight," August 31, 2022. 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.
Imagine for a moment, something you've probably never done before, but imagine for just a second that you are Joe Biden. You have spent your entire life in politics. You've ascended to high office, but in fact, you have achieved very little.
As political careers inevitably do, yours is ending in bitterness and failure. You sacrificed your entire life to personal ambition, but you have nothing to show for it. You have no close friends. Your family is in tatters.
Of your two surviving children, one is a drug addict and the other, you're only living daughter, has been arrested repeatedly and has also wound up in rehab. She blames her sexual compulsions on the fact you took showers with her as a child.
You've never been charged for doing that, but everyone around you knows that you did. At this point, your wife thinks so little of you that she demanded you keep working, despite the fact she knew perfectly well that you had dementia.
In retrospect, your life has amounted to a very sad story, and saddest of all, it's almost over. Weeks from now, you will turn 80. This is the point in the journey where a decent man turns inward.
Old age is the pause that God gives us to reflect on what we've done and what we've left undone; and above all, to ponder where we might be going next.
If you were Joe Biden, you would ponder that. How could you not? But Joe Biden is not doing that.
In the final days of his 79th year, Joe Biden is not asking questions about the fate of his soul. He is making pronouncements about yours, the soul of the nation, as he puts it.
That's the topic of his primetime speech tomorrow night. Don't expect to hear anything transcendent as he speaks. We haven't seen the transcript, but we can say with confidence that Biden will not say a word about the single greatest problem that our country faces, which is the utter lack of meaning in our national life.
What exactly do we believe as Americans? What's the point of all of this? Fighting climate change? Yelling about diversity and equity and trans rights? It can't be the point. Those are fads. They're not ideals and if they're all we have, we're in trouble.
There is a yawning void at the center of American identity. No wonder everybody has gone crazy, but don't expect Biden to address any of that tomorrow night. Biden is, above all, a partisan, a team player, right or wrong. So, naturally he will use this time to push for partisan advantage ahead of the coming midterm elections and that alone is not surprising. That's what most politicians would do.
But Biden is different in this way. In his age, Biden has lost all sense of proportion and restraint. His fine motor skills are gone. He no longer persuades, he bludgeons. "What we're seeing now is either the beginning or the death knell of extreme MAGA philosophy," he announced in a speech last week. "It's not just Trump, it's the entire philosophy. It's like semi- fascism," fascists.
That's what the other side is, says Joe Biden.
An American President comparing tens of millions of his own people to the moral monsters we shot and bombed and later hung from the gallows in World War II.
The children and grandchildren of Americans who died fighting the Nazis are now themselves Nazis, says Joe Biden, because they vote Republican.
It's hard to believe that any US President would say something like that, even in private, but Joe Biden just did and then a few hours later at a high school gym, he said it again.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And we're not going to let anyone or anything tear America apart. I'll close with this. We're at a serious moment in our nation's history.
The MAGA Republicans don't just threaten our personal rights and economic security. They're a threat to our very democracy. We must be stronger, more determined and more committed to saving America than the MAGA Republicans are destroying America.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: They're destroying democracy, says the same politician who had the FBI raid the home of the man who is running against him in the next election. They're destroying democracy by voting for the wrong people. They're attempting self-government and that's an attack on democracy.
It was all so crazy and over-the-top, so extreme that you couldn't believe the White House press office would even try to defend it. Would have been better to announce that Biden must have had a stroke, apologize and then move on. Yet, the White House seemed completely unashamed of what he said.
Biden's history-making publicist, the single dumbest person ever to hold that job, explained that her boss had spoken intentionally and with precision. He "called it what it is" meaning Biden called Republicans what they are. They're Nazis, he said so, next question.
Having established his political opponents are fascists, Biden said about describing what they do, but you already knew what they do. Nazis murder people. It's who they are. So, it shouldn't surprise you that on January 6th, Republicans killed "several police officers." Biden said that yesterday. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: Imagine, Joe, if you turn on the television in Washington, DC, and saw a mob of a thousand people storming down the hallways of the Parliament, breaking down the doors, trying to overturn an outcome of the election and killing several police officers in the meantime.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Did you just hear that? On Insurrection Day last year, Donald Trump's Nazi QAnon Army, "killed several police officers." Really? We didn't know that. How many police officers were killed, Joe Biden? Can you be more specific? Can you tell us their names?
You can't, of course, and he didn't because there aren't any. Not one. The only person we can say for sure who was killed on January 6th was an unarmed female Trump voter called Ashli Babbitt, who posed no physical threat to anyone.
She was shot to death by a reckless police officer. That killing was never investigated because she was a Nazi and you don't need an excuse to kill Nazis.
With Nazis, the season never closes. There's no bag limit. Shoot all you want. That's the message.
When you're Nazi, there is no limit to what they can do to you and feel morally justified as they do.
Now, there was a time not so long ago when Democratic leaders told us that beat cops were Nazis. Remember that? They were the Nazis. Joe Biden's own Vice President raised bail money collected through something called the Minnesota Freedom Fund in order to free people accused of committing violence against the police.
One of the so-called protesters that Kamala Harris helped spring from jail was a felon called Shawn Michael Tillman. He was out for three weeks before authorities say he shot a man to death at a train station.
Now, shortly after Kamala Harris boosted the Minnesota Freedom Fund, Joe Biden rewarded her by choosing her as his vice-presidential running mate. So, at the time, Biden was much less concerned with violence against law enforcement. His party was encouraging it. Cops were getting ambushed all over the country.
In Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 2020, a man called Ronnie Kato threatened to execute police officers and then made good on his threat. He shot two cops. He killed one of them.
In the Bronx that year, a man called Robert Williams approached two police officers in a marked police car. He pulled out a gun and for no stated reason, opened fire. Twelve hours later, Williams arrived at the 41st Police Precinct and started to shoot at more cops. He only stopped when he ran out of ammunition.
This is a trend and it continues to this day.
Ambush-style attacks on the police increased in 2021 and they're up again this year. In fact, they're up 50 percent so far in 2022.
How has Joe Biden responded to all of this? Did he alert the Justice Department to shut it down? No, he did the opposite. He invited leaders of BLM to the White House. That would be the same BLM that just a few years earlier publicly called for the murder of police officers in Minnesota.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BLM PROTESTERS CHANT: Pigs in a blanket, fry them like bacon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
"Pigs in a blanket, fry like bacon. Kill the police." That was fine with Joe Biden. So, his position on cop killing, we can say with certainty, has changed in recent years, but then so have his views on a lot of things, including national unity.
So, here is a video that we have saved for more than a year-and-a-half. It was recorded just after the election justice protest of January 6th. At the time, Biden said he wanted to bring the country together. Do you remember this? Here it is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: Today, on this January day, my whole soul is in this, bringing America together, uniting our people, uniting our nation.
We can join forces, stop the shouting, and lower the temperature.
And so today, at this time, in this place, let's start afresh.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: "Stop the shouting. Lower the temperature. Unite our nation." That's exactly right. Whatever happened to that Joe Biden? We'd vote for that Joe Biden, probably. We'd certainly like him back, but we can't now. America has changed too much.
Why? Because the Biden program didn't work. It turns out the country needed more than equity. We needed competence. We needed someone wise to run the Federal Reserve. We needed engineers who actually understand how energy grids work and don't just posture about them.
We needed a Pentagon that could win wars and a State Department that at least occasionally considered the interests of the United States. We need Federal law enforcement that cares above all about justice. We needed Intel agencies that spy on our enemies, not on our citizens, but unfortunately, we didn't get any of that.
So, inevitably things started to fray. Not all of these trends are Joe Biden's fault. He had a lot of help, or decades, but a lot of this is Joe Biden's fault, and he can't admit it, just as he can't face the prospect of his own internal future as his 80th birthday approaches, so he externalizes it.
He yells at you, not himself. You're the problem. You're the reason things are broken, your racism, your transphobia, your minivan. It's your fault. You stood in the way of progress. You are a Nazi. We hereby declare war on you.
That's exactly what you're seeing. That's happening and you wonder as Joe Biden attempts this, if he can pull it off. Middle class America is the problem? That's not an easy case to make. There are too many facts in the way of it.
For example, last Thursday, the same day that Joe Biden announced that Republicans were fascists, that same day was perhaps not by chance the very same day that Joe Rogan aired his interview with Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook.
In that conversation, Zuckerberg admitted that he censored the views of Hunter Biden's laptop, any news of it whatsoever because the FBI told him to. The FBI told Zuckerberg this was Russian propaganda, even when they knew for a fact that it was not because they had the laptop.
In other words, the FBI interfered with the presidential election. That seems like a big story. In fact, it seems like a turning point, but Joe Biden ignored it completely.
In a speech that day, Biden lashed out at anyone who might dare complain about the FBI. "It's sickening to see the new attacks on the FBI," he said, suggesting that what seemed like legitimate criticism was, in fact, a threat of violence. Speech is violence, but Biden was not alone in delivering that message.
That very same day, the Justice Department's designated mouthpiece in NBC News, a man called Frank Figliuzzi, defended the FBI on social media to the same effect, and so did many others.
So, if you step back, it started to look coordinated and you begin to wonder, could it be that Joe Biden is not simply a lone elderly Democratic politician? Could it be that Joe Biden is a mouthpiece for much larger forces?
It's hard not to conclude that because no single American President could eliminate this many core civil liberties all by himself in a year-and-a- half. All of a sudden, permanent Washington can raid the home of a former President.
"He had nuclear secrets."
"No, he didn't."
"Whatever. Who cares? He's bad."
And then round up his personal attorneys and then steal their privileged communications. That's never been allowed. It is now.
No single President did that. No single President could turn trespassing any public building into a felony and then arrest hundreds of people for it and send to solitary confinement in the DC jail. No single President could do that. No single President could redefine an entire opposition party as Nazis and then proceed as if that were perfectly normal. That couldn't happen. No President could do that.
A President would need help to do that and Biden has had it. This didn't arrive out of the blue. We've been building toward this moment for a very long time.
Last year, the Biden administration decided to have thousands of law- abiding Republicans fired from their jobs, their lives destroyed. How did they do that? Well, they mandated an experimental vaccine that didn't actually work, a drug the UK government now admits can be dangerous and shouldn't be used on women who are pregnant or breastfeeding, that drug, and then they watched who disobeyed their instructions.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: I'm announcing that the Department of Labor is developing an emergency rule to require all employers with 100 or more employees that together employ over 80 million workers to ensure their workforces are fully vaccinated or show a negative test at least once a week.
We're going to protect vaccinated workers from unvaccinated coworkers. We've been patient, but our patience is wearing thin.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Oh, so that was a fast way to find out who was disobedient, but just in case there was any question, at the very same time, Biden demanded that the entire American population wear paper masks on their faces, not to protect them or to keep them healthy, that didn't work, but as a kind of uniform, the Democratic Party's equivalent of the Mao pin and anyone who didn't couldn't be trusted.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: I hope everybody's realized by now these masks make a difference and the last thing, the last thing we need is Neanderthal thinking that in the meantime, everything's fine. Take off your mask. Forget it. It still matters.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: "The mask makes a difference." That was from March of last year, at which point we knew the mask did not, in fact, make a difference except to cut off oxygen to your brain, but the mask made quite a political difference. It separated the obedient from the disobedient immediately.
You knew exactly whose team everyone was on by looking at their faces and that, of course, was the point and once we allowed that, the progression continued and it's been stark. Wear a mask or you're dangerous. Take the shot or you're a criminal.
And at this point, vote for Joe Biden or you're a Nazi. That's where we are now. So, as Biden explained on Tuesday, this is a big change. Once you've been declared a Nazi, you don't have rights. You can't, for example, be trusted with firearms.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: But we're not stopping here. I'm determined to ban assault weapons in this country. Determined. I did it once before and I'll do it again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: We could rebut that. Yes, they did it before. It didn't work. That's not the point. Look at the rage. Look at the rage. That was this week.
Remember a year ago? "Stop the shouting. Lower the temperature. Unite our nation." That was last year. Not anymore, Nazis. They're taking off the velvet glove and we're about to feel the steel beneath it.
Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He joins us tonight.
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON, SENIOR FELLOW, HOOVER INSTITUTION: Thank you.
CARLSON: Professor, thanks so much for coming on. It seems to me a very bad sign that the President of the United States is likening the opposition party to the Nazis. It doesn't seem accidental. It seems intentional, and it seems like the beginning of something very bad.
Can you think of any other President who has ever spoken this way about American citizens?
HANSON: Not really. We had a senator named Joe McCarthy that did and we know how that ended up, but Joe Biden is all for unity when his polls are above 50 percent, and he is desperate, and so far, his polls are dropping even this week as I speak down back to 38 in the latest Reuters. Then he tries to divide the nation and we know how that's going to end up. It's not going to end up well for him, but it's so predictable.
We went through the Russian collusion hoax and then we went through the laptop disinformation hoax, then we went through the insurrection, an attempt to overthrow the government, January 6th, it wasn't, it was a buffoonish riot. And then we went the Donald Trump raid hoax that he had nuclear secrets, and he had to be for the first time in history as an ex- President, his home had to be invaded.
And it's so predictable, because it's just mass distraction. None of these issues that he has pushed through Joe Biden, on the border, on crime, on inflation, on the economy, on energy have 50 percent support. He doesn't have 50 percent support.
And what are we been talking, Tucker, about the nation? They've been talking about all of these psychodramas that are ginned up, and now it's Civil War porn. The right wants -- they are fascists. They're Nazis. They want to have a Civil War.
But if you want to listen to Civil War or succession, just read "The Nation" Magazine, or the "New Republic," all they talk about is succession.
If you want to look at revolutionaries, who is the one that wants to pack the Court, or destroy a 233-year-old Electoral College? Or get rid of 180- year filibuster? Who weaponized as you said, the FBI, the DOJ, the CIA?
Are there Generals right now, who were saying that Joe Biden should leave office sooner than later than they did about the former President? I don't think so.
On inauguration, nobody is saying the White House should be blown up as Madonna did. Nobody is writing in "Foreign Policy" Magazine that we need a military coup.
CARLSON: Americans are not Nazis, and most Americans are really nice on both sides and decent people. It worries me that he is talking this way and I appreciate your perspective on this.
Victor Davis Hanson, thank you.
HANSON: Thank you.
CARLSON: So, as we told you last night, the energy grid in our biggest State, California is falling apart. They can't keep the lights on, but the Governor of that State, Gavin Newsom doesn't seem too worried.
He announced this week that he is banning gasoline vehicles in California - - coming soon. That will mean everyone needs an electric car.
So we asked during last night's show, how are people going to charge these electric cars if the energy grid in California can't even run their washing machines? That was a rhetorical question. We got our answer very quickly.
Just a few minutes after that show aired, California's grid operator told residents to engage in "energy conservation over the long weekend." What does that mean? Well, they were told to "Avoid using large appliances and charge electric vehicles."
You must have electric vehicles, unfortunately, you can't charge them.
Well, we've been reporting how children's hospitals are the center of radical life-altering surgeries for children. Hysterectomies, castration.
Now, a major children's hospital just been exposed for promoting kink, BDSM, trans-friendly sex toys for children.
What's going on exactly? We're going to try and find out, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: A man called Chokwe Lumumba was elected Mayor of Jackson, Mississippi in 2017 in a landslide. He ran as a socialist, and he won a Soviet level, 93 percent of the vote, which you wouldn't think is possible, but it happened.
Then after he assumed office, he went to Michael Bloomberg's Harvard City Leadership Initiative, that's a program designed to train Mayors to "Manage the complexities of running a city."
Now all this filled the news media with excitement. They were thrilled as the nation recorded at the time "Lumumba lit up the left press with his promise to make Jackson," and we're quoting, "The most radical city on the planet." Here is what he pledged.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR CHOKWE ANTAR LUMUMBA, JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI: So what happens in Jackson, Mississippi impacts each and every one of us, and so we have to make the decision that we're going to start controlling the way electoral politics proceed, and so we've made the decision that we're going to be the most radical city on the planet.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Jackson, Mississippi is going to be the most radical city on the planet. Most politicians don't follow through on their promises, but Chokwe Lumumba definitely did. He has made Jackson so radical that it no longer has drinking water or any water.
For the third day in a row, you just can't get water in Jackson. The city's main treatment plant failed on Monday. Residents cannot now flush their toilets. Firemen can't fight fires. People are waiting in lines a mile long to get bottled water from the National Guard.
Jackson State University just announced that there was "Low to no water pressure at all campus locations." So, that's truly a radical city. So radical that you literally can't have water.
Next step: Take away roads and indoor heating. Once you've take it away flush toilets, there's really no limit to the radicalism Mayor Lumumba can bring to Jackson, Mississippi, and we will wait to learn the details.
In recent weeks, we've learned a lot about what is actually happening inside children's hospitals around the country. Most people trust children's hospitals implicitly, they just didn't know the details.
But thanks to the internet, we now do and it turns out some of these hospitals are performing horrifying experiments on children -- elective hysterectomies on minors, physical and chemical castration, things you think would be crimes, but that apparently aren't and that are going on in children's hospitals in the United States, and now we're learning more.
The journalist, Chris Rufo has just broken a story about the Children's Hospital of Chicago, and local school administrators promoting "kink, BDSM, and trans-friendly sex toys for kids." Hard to believe that's true, but Chris Rufo has that story for us now.
Chris, thanks so much for coming on. This does sound like something you made up, but you didn't.
CHRISTOPHER RUFO, JOURNALIST: It does. And unfortunately, it's actually true. And so what the situation is, is that the Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, the largest children's hospital in the state of Illinois, partnered with at least four public school districts, promoting radical gender theory as part of their teacher and administrator training programs.
They're promoting the idea that gender is not binary, that the idea that men and women exist is a false binary, and they're doing everything including promoting trans-friendly sex toys. They're promoting a LGBTQ friendly sex shop for teens.
These are really bizarre items that they're telling middle school and high school teachers to be promoting, including dildos, including artificial penis pumps, all kinds of menageries of horror that are now being mainlined from the largest children's hospital into the K through 12 public school system.
CARLSON: All of these hospitals have Boards and in a city like Chicago, they're the most prominent business leaders typically in the cities. Anyone sent a camera to the Board members of this hospital and asked, why are you signing off on the castration of children? Hysterectomies for girls, transparently sex toys -- like has anyone answered for this?
RUFO: They haven't. But what we do -- what we have absolutely seen is that hospitals and especially children's hospitals are really on the forefront of radical gender theory. They have an entire department or a program that's not dedicated to giving medical services, but it is actually dedicated to transmitting this ideology through all of the various organs and institutions of the State.
And so you're getting this everywhere, the children's hospitals are promoting it, and it's being done with the complicity of public school administrators.
CARLSON: Chris Rufo, dogged reporter and one of the few who actually understands the ideas beneath these stories. We are so grateful for what you do. Thank you very much.
RUFO: Thank you.
CARLSON: As part of our efforts to do our part on the subject, we've been working for quite some time on a documentary for "Tucker Carlson Originals" called Transgressive: Cult of Confusion." We've just finished the production of that. It is definitely worth watching. That documentary will premiere next week, Thursday, September 8th, on FOX Nation.
Well, Greg Gutfeld just did something without any precedent whatsoever in the history of late-night television. He broke up the cartel and now stands atop it looking down on Stephen Colbert.
We're going to celebrate you after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BILL MELUGIN, FOX NEWS CHANNEL CORRESPONDENT: Welcome to "FOX News Live," I'm Bill Melugin here in Los Angeles.
Former President Trump's legal team responds in Court to the Justice Department's filing about the Mar-a-Lago investigation. Trump's attorneys downplaying the Federal government's concerns about the discovery of classified materials at his Florida home telling a Federal Judge in a new filing there was "No cause for alarm."
In a filing yesterday, the Department of Justice urged the Judge not to honor Trump's request for a Special Master to review the documents.
COVID-19 boosters that target the omicron strain are one step closer to final approval. The FDA authorized the shots made by Pfizer and Moderna today, in hopes it will help curb another winter surge. The CDC will still have to weigh in and will have to make recommendations about who should qualify for the additional dose.
I'm Bill Melugin, we'll send it back to TUCKER CARLSON TONIGHT.
CARLSON: The downside of cartels is they produce lousy products, they keep serving up the same garbage and you have to eat it, because you have no choice.
The upside of cartels is ultimately they're overthrown. Some scrappy upstart shows up with a better product and crushes them. We just saw that happen in late-night comedy, which really since the end of the Johnny Carson-era has been serving up increasingly mediocre fare until Greg Gutfeld showed up and completely overturned the table.
And the numbers are in. For the month of August, "Gutfeld," the show ranked as the most watched late-night program on all television. It is the first time that a cable show has beaten the broadcast shows.
Gutfeld, specifically unseated the thoroughly repulsive and completely unfunny Stephen Colbert. So, we're not going to let this moment pass without celebrating, we are going to celebrate, because you should and we want to.
Greg Gutfeld is the man who just did this, he pulled it off, and we're happy to welcome him and congratulate him.
So, I didn't mean to suggest that it was easy to do this. It was very hard to do this. But you know, three years ago, somebody had said, "Greg Gutfeld is going to beat all three late-night broadcast shows like no -- I mean, the possibility was zero. So, how did you do this?
GREG GUTFELD, FOX NEWS CHANNEL HOST, "GUTFELD": Well, you know what? I did it because of you, Tucker.
I bet you don't even remember this conversation that we had. So, get this. So, remember when I called you? First I said that I just talked to a well- known talk show host, won't say the name who discouraged me from doing this. He said, "Look, Greg, you've got a good thing going. You've got "The Five." You've got one night a week on Saturday."
You don't want -- "I mean, you don't want to kick it too hard." And I go, "Okay, okay." And I made it my -- I wasn't going to do it. And then I thought, "You know what? I'm going to call you." And before I even finish the sentence, I go, "So, I'm thinking about the show going nightly," you just start laughing.
You did your Tucker laugh? Of course, you're going to do it. That's what he said, "Of course, you're going to do it. You have to do it." And you kept saying, "Why wouldn't you do it?" And I kept saying -- I kept giving excuses. You said, "No, no, no, no, no, you're doing that."
And so, I like to totally go, "Yes, why am I not doing this?" And it's been such a success that was in LA for eight days, just last week, you don't hear anything, you just get the stares. And I feel like I've broken a lot of people because they've been personally humiliated by the fact that a FOX News program has drank all of their milkshakes at once.
All the networks, we crushed them. Then professionally, they have to worry because all of their bosses see that this little upstart show with a fraction of the cost, fraction of the staff, beat their underpants off.
Now, they're going to have to look at their budgets and go, "Do we really need to have this kind of catering?" You know, it's like, my writers sit at a desk and they eat their sandwich. They don't have catering, but everyone else has catering. That's the problem. Catering, Tucker.
CARLSON: The lesson is, you deserve Craft Services, you've earned it, and these are people who are going to find something useful to do with their lives, and I just couldn't be more thrilled.
Because a good guy won, bad people lost and the market decided. It's like - - it's like the happiest thing has happened in my life in a long time.
Congratulations. I don't know what you're doing to celebrate, but I hope it's big.
GUTFELD: Well, you know, I do -- basically, I just volunteer at soup kitchens. That's what I do to make myself feel better. So no, you know what? I've got to -- you know, part of the reason why it's successful is that we're generally happy people. We aren't miserable, and I think that it shows on TV.
CARLSON: I totally agree. I think that's completely right and it is important to stay happy than to be miserable.
GUTFELD: Exactly.
CARLSON: In spite of the evidence.
Greg Gutfeld, congrats.
GUTFELD: Thanks, buddy. See you later.
CARLSON: Great to see you. See you.
So, one of the effects of the COVID pandemic is that truly radical ideas, extreme ideas, we hate to call anything extreme, but some things are just our prima facie extreme.
All of a sudden, those ideas are right in the center of our country, what they call the mainstream. How did that happen? We just had the single most interesting conversation, 31 years of interviewing people.
A Professor from Belgium, joined us on set and explained what mass formation to us. Amazing conversation.
We'll show it to you, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: So what seems completely demented like five years ago, four years ago, three years ago, last year, ideas like castrating children and then attacking anyone who disapproves this castrating of children, suddenly these ideas are the center of American study. They are "mainstream."
How did that happen?
Well, a phenomenon called mass formation describes perfectly what happened. So, to learn more about what that is and what its consequences are, we sat down with probably the smartest person we have ever interviewed in over 30 years of doing interviews, Mattias Desmet. He is a Professor at Ghent University in Belgium.
This is a remarkable conversation. It pains us we can only play a few minutes here. The rest is on FOX Nation. Well worth watching, well worth reading his book.
But here's a portion.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MATTIAS DESMET, PROFESSOR, GHENT UNIVERSITY IN BELGIUM: The mass formations became stronger and stronger and stronger throughout the last few hundreds of years and that is interesting because -- it's because in the first half of the 20th Century, the masses became so strong that led by certain leaders, they could seize control of the state's apparatus, and that's how totalitarian states emerge.
CARLSON: Yes.
DESMET: Totalitarian states, Hannah Arendt says, are always diabolic pacts between the masses and their leaders.
It's a diabolic pact between the masses and their leaders, and in this way, like a completely new kind of state emerges, which is completely different from a classical dictatorship.
In a classical dictatorship, there is a small group of people, a dictatorial regime, who has such an aggressive potential that people are so scared of them, that they can impose unilaterally their social contract to society.
CARLSON: Yes.
DESMET: But the totalitarian state emerges in a completely different way. In a totalitarian state, that is first, a person of mass formation, which is a process through which a certain part of the population usually about 30%, fanatically starts to believe in a certain ideology.
And this phenomenon can be created artificially through indoctrination, propaganda.
CARLSON: And just to pause, you think that number can be as low as 30 percent.
DESMET: Yes, usually it is not higher than 30 percent. Yes.
CARLSON: That's scary.
DESMET: That's scary. Because, yes, but there is always 60 or 65 percent of the people who do not really go along with the narrative, but who will never speak out, who will always choose the easy way and go along with the people, with this group of people that seems to have the loudest voice.
And that's why in the end, up to 95 percent or even sometimes even more, go along with the totalitarian narrative or the narrative that led to the mass formation, and there is then an additional five percent that doesn't go along with it that tries to speak out. And that's extremely important.
If you understand the mechanism of mass formation, if you really understand it, then you know what this small group should do. If it makes the wrong analysis, it will be destroyed in the end.
The chances are very high that it will be destroyed. If it makes the -- if it starts from the correct analysis, it will survive. That's why it is so extremely important to understand how this mechanism works because I've just mentioned that mass formation makes individuals completely blind for everything that goes against what the group believes in, but there are two other characteristics that are also extremely important.
And the first one is that when people are in the grip of mass formation, they seem to lose all awareness of their individual interests. They are prepared to radical -- to radically self-sacrifice. That's extremely strange.
And then the third characteristic, which is most problematic is that people in a mass formation become radically intolerant for dissonant voices.
CARLSON: Yes.
DESMET: And in the ultimate stage of the mass formation, they will typically start to destroy everyone who doesn't go along with the masses, and they will do so as if it is their ethical duty to do so.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: So the point is that every totalitarian movement in history -- French Revolution, the Soviets, the Nazis now -- all of them began with mass formation. Totalitarianism is the end stage of mass formation and mass formation is what we're seeing now.
Don't miss this conversation. It's on "Tucker Carlson Today," 7:00 AM tomorrow morning, FOX Nation.
Well, it's so common that you barely notice it, but the biggest companies in the country discriminate openly against their employees on the basis of skin color, they call it equity, it's racism, but it is everywhere. It's illegal.
What's changing is that some employees are now fighting back. Brian Netzel who worked for a decade at AmEx until he was fired in 2020, just filed a class action lawsuit against the company. He says that American Express: "Gave preferential treatment to individuals for being Black and unambiguously signal to White employees that their race was an impediment to getting ahead in the company."
Again, that's happening everywhere and here is someone who is taking it to court.
David Pivtorak is the lawyer in this case, he represents Netzel, and he joins us tonight.
Mr. Pivtorak, thanks so much for joining us.
So, I'm not a lawyer, but it does seem that this is unambiguously illegal, correct?
DAVID PIVTORAK, ATTORNEY SUING AMERICAN EXPRESS: Absolutely, Tucker. It's unlawful. It's been illegal since at least the 1960s. Since the passage of the Civil Rights Act, but you know the reason that this is happening is because you know back in the summer of St. Floyd in 2020, a lot of these corporations, they saw that, you know, the BLM rioters were allowed to burn down entire cities with absolutely zero consequences, because it was in the name of social justice. So, why wouldn't the companies be emboldened to treat their White employees like second class citizens, violate the most fundamental Civil Rights laws in this country, when we see this precedent that was happening for several years now?
CARLSON: Companies want to do all kinds of crazy things. I mean, the US government pushes them back within the bounds of the law. That's why we have a Justice Department, which has a Civil Rights Division whose whole purpose is to prevent racial discrimination in the workplace. Have they said anything about this?
PIVTORAK: Absolutely not. You know, we filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which is the administrative arm of the government that is supposed to be handling stuff like this, and go after companies like American Express, like a lot of these companies, like Uber and Chase and a lot of these other companies that are instigating these policies, but they just don't enforce it.
Because, again, it's done in the name of "social justice." They think it's benign discrimination, which, you know, the late Justice Scalia said, is never the case.
CARLSON: Yes, well, racism is always wrong, no matter who is being hurt by it, and it is as wrong in this case as it ever was in any other case, and so we're certainly rooting for you to prevail.
I appreciate your coming on tonight, David.
PIVTORAK: Thank you, Tucker.
CARLSON: Well, up next, because this is the day that felt like you needed an animal story, we will speak to an alligator and his human companion, straight head.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CARLSON: Like many Americans, a man called Joseph Henney went to his doctor complaining of depression, but his doctor did not prescribe him prescription drugs. Instead, he agreed to make Henney's pet alligator called Wallygator his official emotional support animal.
Wallygator, Wally for short, is now very popular, understandably on the internet, so we wanted to learn more. How did this pair meet and what is their life like behind closed doors.
Joseph Henney joins us tonight along with Wallygator.
Mr. Henney, thanks so much for coming on. How did you and your alligator meet?
JOSEPH HENNEY, WALLYGATORS' HUMAN COMPANION: Wally was actually a wild alligator. He was rescued in Orlando, Florida at Disney in one of the lagoons there. Friends of mine rescue reptiles in Florida and he brought him up to me the following day, actually six years ago back in September.
CARLSON: How old was the gator when you first got him?
HENNEY: About 18 months old and about 20 inches long.
CARLSON: So, I think the question everyone watching this is asking how does that man not get eaten by that alligator? Is that a concern for you at all being eaten by Wally?
HENNEY: No. Number one we are not on the food chain for alligators. Crocodiles and Caymans, yes.
CARLSON: Okay.
HENNEY: But you cannot train an alligator not to bite. Wally just chooses not to bite for his teeth, everything. Kissing, he just -- he refuses to bite. We do not know and cannot understand why.
CARLSON: That is amazing. So you're saying this is as unusual as it looks. I mean, people don't kiss alligators for a reason, but you just did. Wally is not your average alligator.
HENNEY: Oh, I do because I love this alligator.
CARLSON: What is it? Since he's not eating you, what does he eat?
HENNEY: Wally only eats chicken legs, dead rats, and cheesy puff corn. The other gators I've handled in the past 30 years --
CARLSON: I had a college roommate like that.
HENNEY: Pardon?
CARLSON: So, chicken legs, dead rats, and cheesy puff corn.
HENNEY: Yes.
CARLSON: Yes. That's amazing. What a diet. Where does he live?
HENNEY: He lives in my living room. Well, he lives in my house. I have a 300-gallon pond in my living room. He runs my whole house.
CARLSON: Amazing. How big is he going to get?
HENNEY: Oh, he can average about fifteen to sixteen feet and over a thousand pounds.
CARLSON: Are you concerned about that?
HENNEY: Oh, not at all. Not at all. I know his moves. I know his motions. Like I said, he gets evaluated every year, but we've not even found out what really makes him angry and makes him mad. So, we don't know that yet.
CARLSON: I've got to say, I went in skeptical, Mr. Henney, but I'm kind of touched by this. I think this is a really nice story and you seem to have a great relationship with Wallygator. Thank you for joining us.
CARLSON: Glad to be here.
CARLSON: Wallygator.
We are out of time, sadly.
We'll be back tomorrow night and every night, 8:00 PM. The show that's the sworn enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness, and groupthink.
Have the best night with the ones you love. We will see you tomorrow.
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