This is a rush transcript of "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on January 12, 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. I am not trying to be cruel this Wednesday, just reading the numbers, Joe Biden is the most unpopular President that the United States has had in a very long time.

Voters dislike Kamala Harris even more, and that's a problem because this is supposed to be the new administration's honeymoon period, the part where everyone thinks they're great.

So, it's not getting better from here. This is as beloved as the Biden administration is going to get. Smart Democrats can read the numbers. They understand this and they're working on a solution.

This week, two of them wrote a piece in "The Wall Street Journal" calling on the party to support Hillary Clinton for President in 2024. "Hillary is the best positioned candidate to win a national election," the argued. "She is also," they noted, " ... younger than Joe Biden."

Former President Bill Clinton agrees with this or says he does anyway. Bill Clinton told "People" Magazine that his wife is, quote, " ... the most qualified person to run for office in my lifetime, including me." In fact, failing to elect Hillary in 2016 was and Bill Clinton studied estimation, a historic national tragedy, quote, " ... one of the most profound mistakes we've ever made."

Unforgiveable really.

The good news is, we now have a chance to correct that mistake, and you don't get those very often in life. Typically, when you do something rash or stupid, you've got to live with the consequences. It has probably happened to you.

One you're listening to "Born to Run" after too many drinks. The next thing you know, you've got Bruce Springsteen's face tattooed on your lower back. It's embarrassing. It's also permanent.

Think of Hillary Clinton as America's national tattoo remover. She alone can erase the stain of our youthful bad judgment. God bless that woman.

But wait a second, you say, Hillary can't win. She is yesterday's candidate. This country has got a short attention span. We want the new, new thing, and Hillary Clinton isn't new. She's been around forever. We're bored of her.

Well, if you believe that, you don't remember Hillary Clinton very well. Call her what you will, but she is not boring. Hillary is like a box of Cracker Jacks or your emotionally volatile niece who goes to art school. She is full of surprises. You never know what you're going to get.

There are days when Hillary seems like a sensible Midwestern Methodist who grew up Republican in a suburb outside Chicago. That's the biographically accurate Hillary Clinton, but it's hardly the only Hillary Clinton.

During the years she spent in Arkansas, for example, Hillary often played the loyal daughter of the American South, a Southern Fried Dixie lady with a spunky feminist twist.

That was the character she was portraying when we first met her 30 years ago this month. It was during the 1992 presidential primaries. Listen to her accent here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You're looking at two people who love each other. This is not an arrangement or an understanding, this is a marriage. That's a very different thing.

HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You know, I'm not sitting here as some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette. I'm sitting here because I love him and I respect him and I honor what he has been through and what we've been through together.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: You don't hear a hint of Park Ridge, Illinois in that voice. It's all bourbon and okra. Pretty impressive. But that's hardly the only persona in Hillary's quiver. She contains multitudes.

When she feels like it, Hillary can transform herself entirely, from a middle aged rich white lady to a weary, but dignified household domestic turned Civil Rights protester, bruised and battered from a harrowing march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on the road to freedom.

Sometimes, Hillary Clinton is just sick and tired of being sick and tired.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

H. CLINTON: I don't feel no ways tired. I've come too far from where I started from. Nobody told me that the road would be easy, I don't believe he brought me this far to leave me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: It's not a bad impression. Of course, there are other days when Hillary doesn't talk at all. That's in her repertoire, too. She just points her finger at you and cackles wildly like a mental patient on the subway.

For the uninitiated, it can be a disconcerting experience. Is she casting a spell? Is she going to bite me? You're never sure.

But her staff isn't worried. They think it is all part of her secret sauce. It's one of the reasons everyone loves Hillary. Here's the Capitol routine.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: Wouldn't be insane of you were to run for office again?

H. CLINTON: (Laughing).

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Is she sitting across from me right now?

H. CLINTON: (Laughing).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know why that's funny. I mean, did you have any in-person briefings? I don't find it funny at all.

H. CLINTON: (Laughing).

TREVOR NOAH, COMEDIAN: How did you kill Jeffrey Epstein?

H. CLINTON: (Laughing).

JIMMY FALLON, TALK SHOW HOST: That is -- thank you. To have you here --

H. CLINTON: (Laughing).

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: But there are a lot of people who are not.

H. CLINTON: Well -- (laughing).

TAPPER: Including --

H. CLINTON: (Laughing). I mean, really? Yes, it deserves a lot of laughter.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: No, she didn't kill Jeffrey Epstein. Remember all of that?

You're starting to see how the Hillary Clinton phenomenon began in the first place, and why it could so easily rekindle.

Hillary's political career was always a grassroots movement, a prairie fire, if you will. She had famously brought support from top D.N.C. officials to several billionaire democratic donors. Ron Burkle came out for Hillary. That's like winning every voter in the State of Ohio, at least from a fundraising perspective.

So clearly, she has got the mechanics down. How about the issues? What's Hillary going to run on? Come on, think about it.

Libya? She's going to run on what she did in the North African nation of Libya. It's the one achievement of her life that's uniquely hers. Her husband had nothing to do with it. As Secretary of State under Obama, Hillary Clinton ordered the killing of Muammar Gaddafi. He was the bloodthirsty Libyan strong man who was also, let's be honest, creepy and weird and therefore deserving of death.

Hillary had him offed. Then she laughed about it. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That is the land of unconfirmed --

H. CLINTON: We came, we saw, he died.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you think it had anything to do with your visit?

H. CLINTON: I'm sure it did.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: "We came, we saw, he died." Pretty funny. But then what happened? Once Hillary killed the leader of the country, how did the country do?

Well, let's see. We'll tell the story in pictures.

Here is the capital of Libya before Hillary Clinton decided to introduce the Libyan people to a little thing we call human rights. The city looks fine. But underneath, there was no freedom. There were too few Soros backed NGOs. She changed that.

Now, here's that same city post Hillary. Those people in the foreground are African slaves. They're being sold as property in the now thriving slave markets in downtown Tripoli. No, they don't look very happy. That's true. But at least Gaddafi is gone.

So on some level, they're free. They've been liberated by Hillary Clinton, despite the fact they're now enslaved. That's called progress. It's worth something.

In fact, it's a pretty good campaign slogan, Hillary 2024. She'll do for us what she did for Libya. You can imagine the posters and t-shirts and coffee mugs.

Someone is going to need to get those slaves to sign a consent form, put that on the list.

But all of a sudden, Hillary Clinton for President is starting to sound a little less crazy, isn't it? In fact, it is starting to sound inevitable.

There really is two questions left to answer. Why did Hillary lose last time and who would she run against two years from now? Let's take the first question first. It's got the simplest most obvious answer.

Hillary Clinton was cheated out of her rightful destiny in 2016 because unseen forces of evil worked furiously to undermine her because they feared her strength and goodness.

Come on. You knew that. Hillary Clinton certainly knows that. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

H. CLINTON: The Russians -- I say WikiLeaks, same thing -- dumped the John Podesta e-mails.

I have my complaints about former Director Comey.

The use of my e-mail account was turned into you know, the biggest scandal since Lord knows when.

They covered it like it was Pearl Harbor.

If you look at Facebook, the vast majority of the news -- news items posted were fake. There's all these stories about, you know, guys over in Macedonia who are running these fake news sites. I inherit nothing from the Democratic Party.

I also think I was the victim of a very broad assumption I was going to win.

You know if the election had been on October 27th, I'd be your President and it wasn't it, was on October 28th, and there was just a lot of funny business going on around that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So the Russians, WikiLeaks, Jim Comey, Facebook, Democratic Party saboteurs, and the citizenry of Macedonia. Those are the people who did the funny business that was like Pearl Harbor that prevented Hillary from becoming President. That's who opposed her last time, obviously.

Who's going to oppose her this time?

Well, for the answer to that question, we turn as we always do to Mr. Tom Friedman of "The New York Times" who is both a Pulitzer Prize winner and a certified moron. In that paradoxical way that's familiar to Washingtonians, Tom Friedman is just dumb enough to get a lot of things right.

If Tom Friedman thinks it, chances are a lot of other self-important mediocrities think it too, and those are the people who run this country.

Yesterday, Tom Friedman wrote a piece calling on Joe Biden to replace Kamala Harris with Liz Cheney in the next election.

Now, if you're not Tom Friedman or his friends, this might strike you as ridiculous. In fact it might seem like yet another sign that our political class has reached peak decadence and exhaustion. If they're pushing a Cheney in the next presidential cycle, maybe they've run out of ideas. Well, of course they have, and that's exactly what gives Hillary such a natural opening here.

As long as we're turning our politics into a 1990 sitcom union, why not get George W. Bush to run? It's not a crazy idea, he's got the time to do it.

At this stage, Bush would much rather run with Hillary than against Hillary, they are personal friends; on most things, they agree vehemently. But having a Bush and Clinton on the same ticket wouldn't work. It's just too obvious.

Maybe W could be convinced to take one for the establishment and throw on the Republican Jersey one last time. He is 75, but that is a full presidential term younger than Joe Biden, which by current standards qualifies as fresh new leadership, George W. 2024. Time to give the younger generation a chance.

It might work -- or not. Just spit-balling here.

Either way, it is way past time to get Hillary back into the White House. The lady has got a speech to give. She wrote it five years ago for her inevitable inauguration. Thanks to the Macedonians that didn't happen.

But she never threw it away. She still got the speech. Last month, she read a portion of it on NBC News. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

H. CLINTON: I dream of going up to her and sitting down next to her taking her in my arms and saying, "Look at me, listen to me. You will survive. You will have a good family of your own and three children. And as hard as it might be to imagine, your daughter will grow up and become the President of the United States."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Who is she crying for? Herself.

In case you're confused by the context here, that was Hillary telling her deceased mother that everything's going to be okay, because Hillary has been elected President of the United States.

No more tears, no more anxiety. We're going to make it. We've got a woman in the White House.

A lot has happened since Hillary Clinton wrote those words. It's a different country now than it was five years ago. But Hillary Clinton hasn't changed. Her primary interests remain exactly what they always were. She's still talking with endless and undimmed enthusiasm about herself.

We don't know what's in the rest of our victory speech, we're going to have to wait until January of 2025 to find out. But one thing we can safely assume, it ends with a cackle and a finger.

Jason Nichols is the cohost of "Vince and Jason Save the Nation," along with Vince Coglianese. He's a longtime Democrat and perfect for this conversation.

Jason Nichols joins us now, our friend.

Great to see you, Jason.

So Hillary Clinton --

JASON NICHOLS, COHOST, "VINCE AND JASON SAVE THE NATION": Nice to see you, Tucker.

CARLSON: Democrats made the case, and as noted, I think it's entirely a fair case that it was Hillary Clinton's right to be President of the United States. It was in fact, her destiny, and God's will. It was stolen from her by the Macedonians.

So why wouldn't that still be true? Why doesn't she have a moral right to the presidency in 2024?

NICHOLS: Well, first of all, you know, this is almost like Groundhog Day, if it were a horror movie, like this is such a bad idea. I'm surprised someone actually put the pen to paper to actually say this.

Number one, as you alluded to, she is 77 years old. So, when people are talking about Joe Biden's energy levels, she is at the same age as Trump and Biden and all of these people, and the Democrats say that we want new leadership and younger leadership.

The other element of this is no one energizes the right the way Hillary Clinton does. The same thing with Democrats and Donald Trump. When you mentioned Donald Trump, now they're having trouble messaging, because Donald Trump isn't on the ballot.

So Hillary Clinton does the same thing gets people excited on the right, and they're going to go out and vote against her, which makes it really difficult for Democrats, and the other thing that I would say, Bill is the right --

CARLSON: Wait, can I make one correction.

NICHOLS: Sure.

CARLSON: You know, I'm on the right. I'm enervated by Hillary Clinton, I'm totally exhausted just thinking about her. It's just like, it's a bottomless well of narcissism and it sucks me in every time.

I start thinking about her as much as she thinks about herself and that's bad.

NICHOLS: But, again, you will go out and vote against her. I'm almost positive.

CARLSON: Fair, fair.

NICHOLS: The other thing that I'll say is that, you know, the backbone of the Democratic Party is African-American women, and African-American women will be incensed and feel betrayed if Hillary Clinton comes back and jumps the line on Kamala Harris.

And if African-American women, even a small sliver, a small percentage sit on their hands, you're not going to win Georgia. You're not going to win Pennsylvania. We are not going to win a lot of these states that are very necessary to win.

CARLSON: Wait, wait, wait. You may be right or to win. Look, you may be absolutely right as a political matter, I suspect that you, but as a moral matter, 30 years ago, Kamala Harris wasn't even Willie Brown's girlfriend, yet. I mean, I think she was still in high school in Canada.

No, I'm not being mean, I am just honest.

So Hillary Clinton has been in this game a long time, and I do think it's fair to say that if anyone has earned it in the Democratic Party, it's certainly her. It wouldn't be jumping the line exactly, would it?

NICHOLS: She has had a long career.

CARLSON: Yes, a long disgraceful career, but still long.

NICHOLS: She's had a long career. She has a lot of accomplishments, and sometimes you have to be able to walk away and say, Hey, I did great things. You know, I became Secretary of State. People have to call me Secretary Clinton. They're going to call me that for the rest of my career, or the rest of my life, I should say, and move on.

And the Vice President of the United States right now is Kamala Harris, and I think people will feel disgusted. I don't care how much hot sauce she uses, and how often she goes on "The Breakfast Club." African-American women will feel disgusted if she jumps to line.

The last thing is that Bill Clinton is a liability. He took a lot of private jet flights on, you know, a couple of people's jets that I won't say --

CARLSON: A couple of people.

NICHOLS: And that will come back. You know, that will come back to bite him. Donald Trump was on those jets as well. But you know --

CARLSON: I think you're speaking of Jeffrey Epstein, who Hillary Clinton absolutely did not kill and I mean that. She did not. So now that we've established that, I want to thank you, Jason Nichols, for coming on tonight, it was great to see you.

NICHOLS: Hey, great seeing you, Tucker. Thank you.

CARLSON: FOX News Alert for you.

The invasion continues on our Southern border, which is wide open. The Border Patrol just arrested sex offenders en route here. FOX's Bill Melugin has been on the border for many months now. He joins us tonight. Hey, Bill.

BILL MELUGIN, FOX NEWS CHANNEL NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Tucker. Good evening to you. That's right. We just learned from Border Patrol that just here in the Rio Grande Valley sector, in the last 30 hours, they have arrested two murderers, one sex offender and two MS-13 gang members.

On top of that, recently, they picked up four sex offenders in just 48 hours. That includes this guy. Take a look at this mug shot right here.

He is a previously deported Mexican national who committed several crimes against children in Corpus Christi, Texas. Those crimes include continuous sexual abuse of a child and aggravated sexual assault of a child.

Now somehow, this guy was only sentenced to community service and probation. He was deported and then apparently tried crossing again about an hour away from where we are right now. Thankfully, Border agents able to nab him.

And then, take a look at these photos right here, wild human smuggling bus that happened yesterday in Laredo. Texas DPS pulls over this truck. Look at what they find inside. Twenty-eight illegal immigrants crammed in the cab of that truck, all being smuggled.

Now, Texas DPS tells me they talked to those migrants each, admitted to paying up to $16,000.00 to be smuggled. They were trying to get to San Antonio, and then in an effort to spread out to 10 different states across the country.

The driver was arrested. He is a U.S. citizen from Houston and he is being charged with 28 felony counts of human smuggling. He told Troopers he was recruited on the social media app, WhatsApp, by a smuggling organization to do this, but this sort of thing happens almost every day out here at the border.

And then back out here live, just to wrap it up. You hear me often talk about how migrants are arriving here from all around the world. Border Patrol in the Del Rio sector report that last week, they picked up more than 30 migrants from Uzbekistan, four from Tajikistan, one from Syria, and one from Mauritania in Northwest Africa.

Again, it's not just those Northern Triangle countries in Central America, We'll send it back to you.

CARLSON: It is a risk when you share a land border with Uzbekistan, something we haven't faced for a long time. Bill Melugin, great to see you.

MELUGIN: Thanks.

CARLSON: So the now famous Loudoun County boy in a skirt accused of raping several of his fellow students has just been sentenced. The father of one of his apparent victims himself arrested for demanding accountability from the School Board joins us straight ahead to assess where we are tonight.

We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Scott Smith is a man we told you about a number of times over the last several months. He is a parent in the Loudoun County School District in the State of Virginia. His daughter was sexually assaulted at the school. The School District covered up the assault.

Scott Smith went to a School Board meeting to complain about this and was promptly arrested for it. Here's local news coverage.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice over): A Loudoun County School Board Meeting devolved into chaos Tuesday after the board ended public comment where nearly 250 people signed up.

Deputies even tackled one man who was later arrested for disorderly behavior. Another man got a ticket for trespassing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So you show up at a School Board meeting to say that your daughter has been sexually assaulted at the school and the School Board is covering it up and you get arrested and charged. You're the villain here.

A George Soros funded District Attorney personally prosecuted Scott Smith after his arrest. It's almost beyond belief.

Well today, the student who assaulted Scott Smith's daughter was sentenced. He has to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

For a quote on the story, Scott Smith joins us tonight. Mr. Smith, thanks so much for coming on. It's one of the worst stories I think anybody watching has ever heard. How do you feel now that it has ended?

SCOTT SMITH, DAUGHTER WAS SEXUALLY ASSAULTED IN LOUDOUN COUNTY SCHOOL: Good night, Tucker, and thanks for having me.

Man, we're relieved. We were able to put one felony assault behind us and start the next one next week.

CARLSON: And by next week, tell us what you mean?

SMITH: Well, unfortunately, our daughter was physically assaulted the first week of school when she returned this year, and that one was mishandled as well. Ninety days later, we finally got charges and that Court case starts next week. It's a felony malicious wounding.

CARLSON: What an unimaginable nightmare your family has been through. Tell us where you are with the charges that were brought against you by the prosecutor in Loudoun County.

SMITH: Well, where I'm at is that I was found guilty on two misdemeanor charges. One resisting arrest, one disorderly conduct. She asked for 10 days in jail per charge, eight suspended per charge. $2,500.00 fine per charge, anger management probation, and my attorney was able to tell the Judge that that was ridiculous.

He found me guilty on both charges. I got 10 days in jail. It is suspended upon one year of good behavior. So they basically kind of had me pinned in a corner. But that's where are at with that.

CARLSON: It is just -- it's shocking. I hope that what happened to you and to your family is an example to everyone watching of just how wrong it can go when the wrong people get power.

I appreciate your coming on tonight, Scott. Thank you very much Godspeed.

Mike Rowe, of course, is -- was again now the host of "Dirty Jobs." The show premiered earlier this year on Discovery.

For a brand new episode of "Tucker Carlson Today," we spoke to Mike Rowe about how that show got started in the first place. Fascinating conversation.

Here's part of it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE ROWE, FOX BUSINESS NETWORK HOST, "HOW AMERICA WORKS": This show started because my mom called me at CBS to call me out on my laziness and bull crap and to entreat me to do something that my pop would recognize as work.

CARLSON: Yes.

ROWE: And that landed because the truth is, man, after I left QBC, I became disconnected from a lot of the things I've grown up with, from the definition of a good job, from where our food comes from.

CARLSON: Right.

ROWE: From our history, like basic things that I used to care about a lot. Like a frog in the boiling water, they all just drifted away.

CARLSON: Totally.

ROWE: "Dirty Jobs" reminded me, it forced me to look back at the things that were seminal. And when I say seminal, you know what I mean?

There was a fair amount of that, too, but I mean --

CARLSON: Back to the animal husbandry question.

ROWE: But it made me reconnect and it made me think, look, if somebody like me who grew up with work, who grew up next to a man like Carl Noble, who had a front row seat to all that was good and decent, honorable and ethical, could become so untethered, and so disconnected from that, well, I can't be alone.

And so "Dirty Jobs" gave parents a chance to watch a show and then turn to their kids and say, "See. See there is dignity."

CARLSON: One hundred percent there is.

ROWE: That matters.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So you see a guy on TV for years and you wonder what is he really like? Mike Rowe is exactly what you'd expect, every bit as decent, probably even a little smarter. Such an impressive man.

The whole interview now is on FOX Nation. You can head over to tuckercarlson.com to see it.

So of all the talk of people being killed on January 6th, only one person was killed. That was Ashli Babbitt.

We're now learning a lot more about the police officer who killed her and the investigation into that killing. That's straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: In an investigation of a shooting death, any shooting death, the first step is always to speak to the person who pulled the trigger. And that's not always possible, obviously, but it is always the goal -- every time.

So naturally, everyone assumed that what happened in the case of Michael Byrd, he is the man who killed an unarmed woman called Ashli Babbitt without warning in the Capitol last January 6th.

Byrd is a senior Capitol Hill police officer. He has a documented and public history of dangerous and reckless behavior with a firearm, so obviously investigators would interview Michael Byrd as they tried to determine whether Ashli Babbitt's killing was justified. No one doubted that.

But today, we learned that never happened. According to officials in the Washington, D.C. Police Department, Byrd was never interviewed by investigators. Byrd never gave a statement about what he had done.

It all comes from a shocking new piece in Real Clear Investigations that reveals Byrd did not even invoke his Fifth Amendment right to silence. The F.B.I., and the D.C. police just didn't talk to him. Apparently, they didn't want to, they didn't want the details.

And this left Michael Byrd free to conduct his own personal publicity tour, which he promptly did with the collusion of an anchor on quote "NBC News." Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LESTER HOLT, NBC NEWS ANCHOR: When you fired, what could you see? Where were you aiming?

LT. MICHAEL BYRD, CAPITOL HILL POLICE: You're taught to aim for center mass. The subject was sideways, and I could not see the full motion or her hands or anything. So I guess her movement, you know, caused the discharge to fall where it did.

HOLT: And what did you think this individual was doing at that time?

BYRD: She was posing a threat to United States House of Representatives.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: How exactly was she posing a threat? In the interview, Byrd paints himself as the victim of her killing but here's the key line, "I could not see her full hands or anything." Byrd says. He doesn't explain why he shot Babbitt to death.

Now legally, that is a damning statement. It's the kind of fact that would have caused serious problems for House Democrats if someone had bothered to ask Michael Byrd questions under oath because you're not allowed to kill unarmed women for trespassing in the United States, no matter who they voted for. You've got to have a good reason to take life in America.

Byrd did not have a good reason, but neither Democrats nor Republicans seemed to care more than a year later. Both sides praise Michael Byrd as a hero. Byrd is now the Commander of Security for the House of Representative. Just you know how that works.

Well, speaking of the Congress, until recently, Adam Kinzinger was a forgettable, slower than average Republican congressman from suburban Illinois. At some point last year, Kinzinger had a profound personal crisis and went completely off the deep end. He started crying uncontrollably in public.

He joined Nancy Pelosi's January 6th Committee. Kinzinger is now the self- styled enemy of insurrectionists everywhere. If you dare to insurrect, or even think about the possibility of insurrecting, Adam Kinzinger will burst into tears and try to throw you into prison.

Fighting insurrection is the focus of Adam Kinzinger's sad and empty life. There is nothing he hates more than insurrectionists except for Ray Epps.

Adam Kinzinger loves Ray Epps. He spent the last 24 hours sticking up for Ray Epps on Twitter against all comers. How strange is that?

It's impossible to overstate the strangeness. It literally defies description. If we discovered tonight that Kamala Harris was actually godmother to all five of Donald Trump's children, it still would not be weirder than watching Adam Kinzinger defend Ray Epps, because if anyone is a certified insurrectionist, it is Ray Epps. We know that for certain, it's on videotape.

Epps was recorded repeatedly urging Trump supporters to storm the Capitol. "We have to go into the Capitol," he shouted to the crowd on tape. Epps himself was seen on tape on the Capitol grounds on January 6th.

Now by the standards that Adam Kinzinger upholds, that is a crime. Several other people have been arrested for standing there, including D.E.A. agent Mark Ibrahim, who we've interviewed on the show, but not Ray Epps. He was not arrested, he wasn't charged for anything.

Instead, Ray Epps has been rewarded, not least with the love of Adam Kinzinger, quote, "We thank him." Kinzinger wrote yesterday on Twitter. He praised Epps for speaking to Pelosi's Committee.

Thank him?

Once again, Adam Kinzinger is talking about a man who upstaged and managed the insurrection that Adam Kinzinger says he has devoted his life to fighting.

There is nothing normal about this. There is no rational explanation for it. Adam Kinzinger is lying.

Let's repeat: Adam Kinzinger is lying.

Kinzinger is withholding critical information from the public, information that the rest of us have an absolute right to know immediately. Why is Adam Kinzinger doing that? Well, we'd love to ask him so we urge him to join us on this show.

What is the Republican Party for? Well, Kevin McCarthy leader of Republicans in the House just told us he just released top issues that Republicans are running on in this year's midterm. It's interesting to know what those priorities are.

There is no mention of corona mandates, for example, or lockdowns. That's kind of striking. We'll tell you more after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: So if things continue as they are going, Republicans are definitely going to win House seats and Senate seats probably in the midterm elections in November, not because of anything they've done, but because the Biden-Harris administration is just so unbelievably bad that nobody likes them.

A new poll out today, 27 percent Hispanic support. They've driven that right into the basement. They deserve to be unpopular, but it would be nice knowing even though everyone is excited for them to lose what the Republicans might do when they win.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy just told us, he announced on Twitter four key issues that his party will focus on. What are they? Energy independence, stopping human trafficking, creating a Patient's Bill of Rights, and making it easier to start a business.

Now, all four seemed like virtuous goals. They might be the main goals if it were two thousand, say six. But in 2022, it's kind of weird not to see any mention whatsoever of fighting back against fascist corona mandates and restrictions.

So you've got to kind of wonder if nobody pushes back on the idea that government owns your body and can force you to stay in your house indefinitely if they feel like it or if you disobey, they force digital passports on you for internal travel and nobody fights back because no one is fighting back, what happens then?

Well, maybe you wind up like Australia, where nobody fought back. Here is one of Australia's top health officials just a few days ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you are not fully vaxxed, stay home. You are at greater risk of catching COVID, becoming ill, and needing hospital care.

You may only leave home for three reasons: Medical treatment, including COVID testing or vaccination, for essential goods and services like groceries, power tokens, and medications, to provide care and support to a family member or person who cannot support themselves.

You cannot travel more than 30 kilometers from your home when leaving for one of the three reasons or the nearest practical destination.

Work it is not a reason to leave the home for the unvaccinated. The Chief Health Officer has also determined that restriction of movement is critical right now, and that one hour of exercise for the next four days is not essential.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: No vote on that. That's just some guy channeling some health authority telling you that you can't leave your home, you're imprisoned if you're not fully vaxxed. You can have the vax, but if you don't have enough vaxes, you're in prison. And everyone in Australia, oh, yes, that's okay. Why couldn't that happen here?

Where's the person who's going to stand and say, I'll leave my home whenever I want to because it's my home and my country, not yours, pal. Shut up. No one in Republican leadership is saying that. So we thought it'd be interesting to talk to Chip Roy. He is a Republican Member of Congress from Texas. He's got his own list of priorities and we're grateful that he is going to share them with us now.

Congressman, thanks so much for coming on. So it seems like -- I mean, I'm not an expert on what Republicans think, but every Republican I ever talked to you says this stuff is -- you know, people fully vaxxed, whatever you can be for the vaccine and still think a Digital Health Passport for internal travel is like Soviet? Why aren't the leaders of your party saying that?

REP. CHIP ROY (R-TX): Yes, this is the thing we should be shouting from the rooftops, Tucker. And like, look, it's not enough for Republicans to say that we're about taking back the House or taking back the Senate. We should be about taking back America.

CARLSON: Right.

ROY: And we celebrate America's 250th birthday in July of 2026 of radical dedication into liberty, radical empowerment of the people.

Let's talk about defunding, why do we spend money? Why do we take taxpayer dollars and borrow money to fund the Department of Justice that targets people like Scott Smith, who you had on your show 15 minutes ago, after they went after him for protecting his daughter?

Why are we funding a Department of Homeland Security that refuses to secure the border? Why are we funding Anthony Fauci? Why are we funding to the tune of $8 billion, the C.D.C. to put out their ridiculous guidelines on masks and $3 billion to an F.D.A. to tell us it's going to be 55 years for a FOIA request?

Why are we funding that? It makes absolutely no sense.

Why are we funding a Department of Energy --

CARLSON: Can I answer the question? I can answer the question. It's not that Kevin McCarthy and the rest of the guys just don't know what Republicans care about or haven't like looked at the issues because they're afraid. And if they do any of the things you mentioned, they're going to be called names by legacy media, you're a racist or whatever, and that's the leash that controls them.

Why don't we have leaders who don't care what "The New York Times" says, honestly?

ROY: Well, look, I mean, I think you just mentioned racism, the modern day Scarlet letter, let's actually go to war on that. Let's end every department every Diversity Officer, let's end every program involving critical race theory. Let's end it across all of the Federal government.

Let's set our own goalposts. Goalposts for radical liberty and defense of the people. Let's choose states, instead of the Federal government. Let's choose small businesses instead of corporate cronyism.

Why are we funding Big Pharma? Why are we funding through the Obamacare and our massive regime of healthcare insurance companies to get enriched and to be an arm of the government to use the power to go after us? And why are we listening to Dr. Fauci lecture Rand Paul and Roger Marshall in the Senate when he is a bureaucrat. Get rid of him.

And that's one thing we should do, fire bureaucrats.

You ask, what our agenda ought to be? It's to go through and say stop funding the tyranny over the American people. Let's stand up for the people, empower them by firing bureaucrats, defunding, bureaucrats, stop giving money to the very people that are constraining us.

Republicans go down to the floor of the House and they say, $30 trillions of debt. Stop doing that. Talk about the fact that taxpayer dollars and borrowing money is being used to go after us.

CARLSON: I think that's protect your voters. Exactly. Congressman Chip Roy of Texas, we're grateful you came on. Thank you.

ROY: Thanks, Tucker.

CARLSON: So here is a story we've hit again and again, because it matters not just in Atlanta, but around the country. Crime out of control in the nicest neighborhood in Atlanta, that neighborhood is trying to separate and become its own city to get away from the insanity

If they can do it, your neighborhood might be able to do it, too, and that's part of the answer. That's straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Buckhead is a neighborhood in the northern part of the City of Atlanta. It's the nicest place in Atlanta by far, it contributes a huge percentage of the city's tax revenue, but the people who run Atlanta hate Buckhead, they envy Buckhead and they want to destroy it. They've allowed crime to run rampant through the neighborhood.

People are regularly assaulted and shot at the mall there. So people who live in Buckhead have had enough of it. They're not getting anything out of their relationship with Atlanta. They're only being hurt by it. So they want to secede and form what they call Buckhead City, and we are rooting for them.

Bill White But is the CEO of the Buckhead City Committee. He joins us with an update on this story, which we think is of national importance. Bill White, thanks for coming on. Are you going to be able to do this, do you think?

BILL WHITE, CEO, BUCKHEAD CITY COMMITTEE: Good evening, Tucker, thank you so much, and Happy New Year.

You know, the City of Atlanta just elected Andre Dickens resoundingly, Buckhead once again, had no say in the matter. They wanted someone else. He seems like a nice man, but his policies including his plan to rezone all of Buckhead would decimate our beautiful community.

With Atlanta now ranked number two in homicides nationally, we cannot afford to wait around especially since he voted to defund the police. So this Buckhead City Amazing Movement precedes forthwith with the great positive momentum among donors, volunteers, supporters, our voters, and I have to say like we are so excited Tucker.

The start of the Georgia Legislature is tomorrow morning. We expect to see forward motion on all of our several Buckhead City bills, which when passed, will put Buckhead City on the ballot, November 8th, 2022.

And I just want to say, I have so much gratitude, Tucker. We're creating a city, you know, from absolute scratch and we have so much gratitude to the intrepid Georgia leaders in the Georgia House and Senate.

You know, Governor Kemp, Speaker Ralston, Senator Butch Miller, Senator Jeff Mullis, and our bill sponsors. These folks are so courageous -- Todd Owens and John Albers.

CARLSON: Wait, may I just ask you to pause. When you say they want to rezone Buckhead, that means they want to put high density low income housing in the middle of your neighborhood and if you don't like it, you're a bigot somehow. Am I misreading this because they want that for the whole country?

WHITE: Yes, sir. You're not misreading that at all and I think the Biden administration is holding a carrot and a stick of some $12 billion to $14 billion. So you know, they're going to put that through.

But if Buckhead City gets passed and we vote this on November 8th, there is no chance in hell that we are going to allow that zoning to continue in Buckhead City.

We will get the smack down on the crime. We will stop this zoning initiative, and I think we're going to be able to even find a way to lower the taxes in Buckhead, but providing so much more better services to these beautiful families here.

CARLSON: And I hope -- and Buckhead is a very affluent place. So there are probably a lot of silly liberals there, but I hope they're not intimidated by what's going on.

They're not trying to improve anyone's life. They're trying to punish you out of envy and hostility. Let's make Buckhead worse, that's the plan.

And I just really hope that people realize what's going on and like nobody benefits from this at all.

WHITE: Yes, that's true, and we are seeing shootings and carjackings go up. You know, the mayor is coming to Buckhead tomorrow to announce the new police precinct in Buckhead and you know how many police officers he's putting there? Two.

We are short 160 police in Buckhead right now. So when Buckhead City is up and running, we're going to have 250 cops doing their job. We're going to love them. They're going to put the smack down on the crime. And we're not going to feel like we're living in a war zone anymore.

CARLSON: Man, we're rooting for you. Again, if you can do it, other places can do it. There is no reason that any normal person of any background or color should live under the rule of lunatics who want to defund the police and put public housing on your block, like no.

So Bill White, Godspeed. Thank you.

WHITE: Thank you, Tucker. God bless you.

CARLSON: As we said, a brand new episode of "Tucker Carlson Today" with the second part of our conversation with the Great Mike Rowe is available now.

In the meantime, here's a promise, we will be back tomorrow night and every weeknight, the show that is the sworn and sincere enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness, and groupthink and as is our habit as a gesture of respect, affection, and love, we are turning over the program to Sean Hannity, six seconds early.

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS CHANNEL HOST: Okay, it's actually three, but I am not counting.

Funny, I lived in Roswell, Georgia. My broadcast out of Buckhead as a local radio talk show host and a beautiful area and I totally understand why they want to separate because you know what? Defund, dismantle, no bail -- all of these -- all the craziness -- people need to be protecting themselves and it's going to be interesting to watch that vote.

Tucker, thank you.

CARLSON: That's for sure. Thank you. Good luck.

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