Tucker: How will this conflict affect you?

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Tucker: How will this conflict affect you?

'Tucker Carlson Tonight' host weighs in on the Biden admin's foreign policy response to the Russia-Ukraine crisis.

This is a rush transcript of "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on February 22, 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.

Since the day that Donald Trump became President, Democrats in Washington have told you, you have a patriotic duty to hate Vladimir Putin. It's not a suggestion, it is a mandate, anything less than hatred for Putin is treason.

Many Americans have obeyed this directive. They now dutifully hate Vladimir Putin, maybe you're one of them. Hating Putin has become the central purpose of America's foreign policy. It's the main thing that we talk about. Entire cable channels are now devoted to it.

Very soon, that hatred of Vladimir Putin could bring the United States into a conflict in Eastern Europe. Before that happens, it might be worth asking yourself since it is getting pretty serious: What is this really about? Why do I hate Putin so much? Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him? Has he shipped every middle class job in my town to Russia?

Did he manufacture a worldwide pandemic that wrecked my business and kept me indoors for two years? Is he teaching my children to embrace racial discrimination? Is he making fentanyl? Is he trying to snuff out Christianity? Does he eat dogs?

These are fair questions, and the answer to all of them is no. Vladimir Putin didn't do any of that. So why does permanent Washington hate him so much?

If you've been watching the news, you know that Putin is having a border dispute with a nation called Ukraine. Now the main thing to know about Ukraine for our purposes, is that its leaders once sent millions of dollars to Joe Biden's family. Not surprisingly, Ukraine is now one of Biden's favorite countries.

Biden has pledged to defend Ukraine's borders even as he opens our borders to the world. That's how it works. Invading America is called equity, invading Ukraine is a war crime.

So with every day we move closer to some kind of conflict with Russia, a conflict that could easily spin out of control given that the people running us have no fine motor skills.

The administration assures us this has nothing at all to do with repaying Joe Biden's personal debts to Ukrainian oligarchs. Not at all. It's completely and totally unrelated. The point here is to defend democracy, not that Ukraine is a democracy, it is not a democracy.

Ukraine's President has arrested his main political opponent. He has shut down newspapers and television stations that have dared to criticize him.

So in American terms, you would call Ukraine a tyranny. But Joe Biden likes Ukraine so Putin bad, war good. How will this conflict affect you? Well, it will affect you quite a bit, actually.

Energy prices in the United States are about to go way up and that means that everything you buy will become much more expensive, from the food you eat to the car you drive, to tickets you need to take your family on vacation this summer, assuming you can still afford vacation by then.

You're about to become measurably poor. That's not a guess. Joe Biden has admitted this.

On the other hand, you're going to win an important moral victory against dastardly old Vladimir Putin, who is much, much worse than Justin Trudeau. Just so you know.

So you can feel good about that, because -- because ...

Let's see, come to think of it. Why would you feel good about that? It seems like a pretty terrible deal for you, and for the United States. Hunter Biden gets a million dollars a year from Ukraine, but you can no longer afford to go out to dinner. That's not a bargain. So what are we missing here?

What we're missing is the big picture. And that's why Joe Biden has dispatched Kamala Harris to explain that picture to us. Kamala Harris's old job was to open America's borders. She did that.

Her new job is to keep Ukraine's borders closed. Kamala Harris was in Europe the other day to explain the whole thing. She began with a history lesson, letting the European peoples know about the recent past, which she assumes they've forgotten since so few of them speak English.

She opened with a traditional salutation. "Listen, guys," because that's the way real historians and states people talk. Watch Kamala educate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS (D), VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I mean, listen, guys, we're talking about the potential for war in Europe. I mean, let's really take a moment to understand the significance of what we're talking about.

Spent over 70 years, and through those 70 years, as I mentioned yesterday, there has been peace and security. We are talking about the real possibility of war in Europe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Listen, guys, you may be Europeans who live in Europe, but you don't fully understand the ramifications of war in Europe. That's your problem. The thing about Europe you've had peace and security for more than 70 years. Kamala Harris just told the Europeans that, and that, by the way is true if you don't count the breakup of Yugoslavia, which caused hundreds of thousands of deaths in the 1990s or the Soviet occupation of half of the landmass which amounted to the enslavement of hundreds of millions.

But apart from that Mrs. Lincoln, it's all been peace and security in Europe, until now. The Soviets are fine. Vladimir Putin is bad.

What do we do about that? Kamala Harris explained that, too. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: And the Allied relationship is such that we have agreed that the deterrence effect of these sanctions is still a meaningful one, especially because remember also, we still sincerely hope that there is a diplomatic path out of this moment.

And within the context, then, of the fact that that window is still opening -- still open -- although it is absolutely narrowing, but within the context of a diplomatic path still being open. The deterrence effect, we believe, has merit.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Got that? Take a breath and let it sink in. Here it is, again, quote: "We have agreed that the deterrence effect of these sanctions is still a meaningful one, especially because remember, also, we still sincerely hope that there is a diplomatic path out of this moment within the context then of the fact that the window is still opening -- still open --- although it is absolutely narrowing, but within the context of a diplomatic path still being open, the deterrence effect we believe, has merit."

Well, of course it has merit. The only question is: What the hell are you talking about? And the answer is Kamala Harris has no real idea what she's talking about. She can't even point to the direction of what she is talking about. Her mouth opens and predigested chunks of language come tumbling out in no particular order. It's soothing to listen to until you try to understand what it means.

As Kamala Harris told us just last month, quote, "It is time for us to do what we have been doing, and that time is every day." To which we'd respond. That's right, Miss Vice President Person, today is the first day of the rest of your life. Learn it, love it, live it. And while you're at it, Eat, Pray, Love.

You can just imagine Vladimir Putin's reaction to all this when an aide drops a translated transcript of Kamala Harris's remarks on his desk. The Slavic mind is a hall of mirrors. It sees traps at every intersection. Clearly, Kamala Harris must be setting some sort of trap for the Russians here. Her words don't make sense, but she can't possibly be dim and childish.

America is a superpower. It would never put a senile man and an imbecile in charge of the country. On the other hand, maybe so.

And by the way, it's not just our country. A few weeks ago, the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with his British counterpart, Liz Truss. Lavrov asked Truss if her country recognized Russian sovereignty over Rostov and Verona's both of which are actually parts of Russia.

So it was a trick question. But Liz Truss, who used to work in sales, had no idea. So she replied that Great Britain would never recognize these regions as Russian, despite the fact they already are Russian.

So Liz Truss has no idea what she's talking about, either. But here's the thing. She wasn't embarrassed about that. None of them are embarrassed about that.

John Bolton knows a lot. On the other hand, he spent decades weakening America with terrible foreign policy ideas, and getting a lot of decent people killed for no good reason at all. So you'd think at this point, if justice were real, John Bolton would be living in isolation and shame somewhere spending his days in atonement, that's what you would do, but that's not what he's doing? No.

Here is John Bolton on MSNBC demanding yet another war, this one with the nuclear armed power. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDREA MITCHELL, MSNBC HOST: Do you think that U.S. forces should actually go in to defend Ukraine?

JOHN BOLTON, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Well, I think it's probably too late for that now. But I would say this, the red line between being a treaty ally of the United States and not being one is significant, but the issue as in all issues like this, is would a Russian invasion and takeover of Ukraine adversely affect American National Security and that of its NATO allies? The answer to that is absolutely yes.

We did not act appropriately early. I think we should have had more American forces in Ukraine not to fight the Russians, but to train with the Ukrainians and to show those Russian generals looking across the border and seeing American flags, I wonder what that means? Biden took that off the table, saying there would be no American forces involved, and he got nothing for it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So the only problem with Joe Biden's Ukraine policy says John Bolton is that it is too weak. Your kids aren't fighting there right now. Hunkered down in February, shooting at Putin. Let's try a Winter War in Russia. No one has done it before, but we have high hopes.

Alexander Vindman is in fact demanding it. Unlike the British Foreign Secretary, Alexander Vindman knows quite a bit about Ukraine. In fact, he was born there. Alexander Vindman believes you have a moral obligation to defend his homeland, and if you don't, you're a murderer.

Watch him once again, on MSNBC.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. COL. ALEXANDER VINDMAN (RET), U.S. ARMY: I think these folks, these right-wing pundits, and the G.O.P. that supports them, really, frankly, have blood on their hands because they're encouraging and enticing this kind of opportunism from Putin, and it is not what -- it's not just kind of plain rhetoric like you could say something without consequences, like too often happens in the United States. This has real consequences and people are going to die because of this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Yes, they're going to die. So your job is to take up arms in defense of Alexander Vindman's home country or else you're evil, you have blood on your hands, and that's effectively our policy. Okay, Alexander Vindman, you got us. It is a compelling argument. We're in.

What's this going to cost us to defend the country you were born in?

Well, in fact, Joe Biden addressed that question today. Defending freedom will have cost for us here at home, Biden said. We need to be honest about it. Really?

Biden went on to outline what he called the pain of our sanctions. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: We are implementing full blocking sanctions on two large Russian financial institutions, VTB and their military bank. We're implementing comprehensive sanctions on Russian's sovereign debt. That means we've cut off Russia's government from Western financing. It can no longer raise money from the west and cannot trade in its new debt on our markets or European markets.

Starting tomorrow, and continuing in the days ahead, we will also impose sanctions on Russian elites and their family members. They share in the corrupt gains of the Kremlin policies and should share in the pain as well.

Because of Russia's actions, we've worked with Germany to ensure Nord Stream 2, will not, as I promised, will not move forward.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So let's put aside the question of why you would ever want to shut down any energy pipeline anywhere ever, especially now crude oil is nearing $100.00 a barrel, it's the highest price since 2014. That's not a small thing, because you need energy to live. It's not negotiable.

So how does having less energy help the United States? Joe Biden didn't even hint at an answer to that, he didn't answer any questions, he ran away the second he had finished reading the script.

Back in real life, every person knows nothing will tank our economy faster than cutting off the supply of fossil fuels because despite what you may have heard from noted energy experts like Sandy Cortez, a country of 340 million people can't run on windmills and solar panels. And even if we had enough of those, which we don't, we don't have the transmission lines to get that power to your house, and we won't for a long time. So that's all a lie.

But don't worry, says Kamala Harris, the administration has ways of fixing the spike in energy prices. We've got it under control, because it turns out, Kamala Harris is secretly in charge of global energy markets.

No, just kidding. Harris has no idea what a barrel of oil costs. She doesn't know how natural gas is measured. What she knows about is diversity, and that's pretty much it, though, she does sense that everything is about to get a lot more expensive for you, and so to warn you, she mentioned it today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: The President has already said Americans will be facing some economic fallout or some hardships. Can you explain to Americans what exactly will they face if this happened?

HARRIS: Sure, as the President talked about in his speech, we are aware that, again, when America stands for principles, and all of the things that we hold dear, it requires sometimes for us to put ourselves out there in a way that maybe we will incur some cost and in this situation, that may relate to energy costs, for example.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So what are the principles we're defending here? We're defending a regime that has arrested their main rival and shut down opposition media. What principle is at stake here apart from rewarding the Biden family's patrons?

But at least she's honest enough to say, what's happening in Eastern Europe, quote, "may relate to energy costs." That's a euphemism for good luck filling your truck this August.

Does that bother Kamala Harris? Maybe it does in the short term. Voters aren't going to like it in November, their party will be punished. But they're doing it anyway. They're shutting down domestic energy pipelines here. They're picking a fight with Europe's biggest gas supplier. So maybe there's something bigger at work here. Maybe they're thinking long term.

Maybe they're not against rising oil and gas prices, maybe, they are for them. Maybe expensive energy would be good for the many renewable deals their friends and donors are invested in.

We don't know the answer. We do know that all of us are about to suffer. So we hope that hating Vladimir Putin was worth it.

Tulsi Gabbard is one of the few people in the Democratic Party who saw this coming and was excoriated for it. She's a former Congresswoman from Hawaii. She joins us tonight.

Congresswoman, thanks so much for coming on. So I'm just trying to think because I think it's a fair question as an American, what's in this for me and my neighbors and the rest of us? And all I'm getting is that we can feel morally satisfied because we hate Putin. Is there something that I'm missing?

TULSI GABBARD, FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE: No, I don't think you're missing anything. The reality is that these sanctions don't work whether they were put in before or now or later, these sanctions don't work.

What we do know is that they will increase suffering and hardship for the American people and this is the whole problem with the Biden administration. They are so focused on, how do we punish Putin that they don't care and are not focused on what is actually in the best interests of the American people.

So when Biden stands there and looks directly into the camera and says, you know, defending freedom will cost us, what he really should be saying is looking directly into the American people's eyes and saying, this will cost you, because these sanctions are not going to cost him or Kamala Harris are the power elite in this country, even the power elite in Russia, it is the people who will suffer, the American people, the Russian people, people here at home working hard every single day, facing those drastically increasing prices at the gas pump, facing increasing costs at the supermarket, impacting our supply chain.

The hardships that people are dealing with every day now with Biden's sanctions plan, we're only going to see that continuing to get worse. And it doesn't end there, Tucker, this is the problem is, you think Russia is not going to respond? You think Putin is not going to respond? He will respond. And it's likely he'll retaliate using cyberattacks on our financial systems, our communication systems, on our basic infrastructure.

Biden will then be forced to respond; Putin will then be forced respond. So we end up in this endless tit-for-tat that leads us where? To this looming threatened and likelihood of this thing going nuclear.

And, again, this is the reality that we all need to understand is true, is that whether it's it is intentional or unintentional, when you have two great nuclear armed countries at this point of escalation, and then, if there is a nuclear attack, the power elite, these people are going to go hide in their bunkers, they'll have their shelter, they'll have their food and water and everything that they need.

You and I and the American people, we will be left out to deal with the consequences to suffer and deal with that destruction and death that will come as a result.

CARLSON: And yet we're doing this for principle. The people in charge who don't care at all about our founding documents, who violate their spirit and letter every day are telling us that essential American principles is at stake. Do you have any idea what that principle might be?

GABBARD: Therein lies the hypocrisy, Tucker, is they're saying we're doing this in the defense of freedom, in the defense of democracy, but these are the very same people who are working to undermine our own freedoms and our own democracy right here at home.

I have a hard time seeing how they actually say these things with a straight face to the American people, when they clearly don't care about these principles, right here at home. They don't care about defending them, they don't care about the wellbeing of the American people.

CARLSON: I think that's all very clear. And I appreciate your saying it as clearly as you did.

Tulsi Gabbard joining us, thank you very much.

GABBARD: Thank you.

CARLSON: It's interesting when people tell you who you're required to be mad at, you've got a right to think for yourself, you should be mad at the people who are making your life worse, for preventing you from saying what you think is true, who are calling you a racist for no justification, only to hurt you, who are destroying your children's education, who are allowing your country to become polluted and overrun and filled with drugs and the homeless. Maybe should be mad at them.

Well to Canada now we go, speaking of failed democracies, Justin Trudeau's supporters have just voted to extend martial law in Canada. Some of his supporters are comparing the trucker horns to Nazi slogans.

Honk your horn, you're a Nazi.

Then the Mayor of New Orleans was just caught without a mask after re- imposing a massive mandate across the city, there are 115 stories like this, we brought to you but we can't get enough, we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: You'll remember that Justin Trudeau declared martial law in Canada because truck drivers had gathered in Ottawa, the capital city to protest the tyranny he had imposed on them as crushing of human rights, but he swiftly dispatched with the protesters. He had his forces beat several of them, they run over an old woman with a horse, and then they bragged about it.

So Trudeau was able to clear all the trucks, but last night his allies extended martial law. A member of his party argued that a permanent state of emergency is absolutely necessary to fight the rise of fascism in Canada, which suddenly is a huge problem there apparently.

She explained that honk-honk, the honking by truckers is actually code for a Nazi salute. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

YA'ARA SAKS, CANADIAN LIBERAL MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT: How many guns need to be seized? How much vitriol do we have to see of honk-honk, which is an acronym for "Hail Hitler," do we need to see by these protesters on social media?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Well, I'm not going to comment on that. We've asked Candace Owens to do it instead. She's our friend and the host of "Candace." We're happy to have her join us tonight.

Candace Owens. Thanks so much.

I'm going to stop right there and just hand it to you.

CANDACE OWENS, POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: What can I say? Have you ever been stuck in traffic? It's very clear that when people honk their horns, what they are trying to do is salute Adolf Hitler. I think that's exactly what's going on.

I mean, this is so pointedly ridiculous. Let me give you a foreign policy update in terms of what we've got going on in this country. To our north, we've got essentially somebody who's declared himself to be a dictator for all intents and purposes. Don't worry, he said it's only short term. I'm sure it's short term like two weeks to slow the spread of the honking of the Hitler supporters, right?

To our south, we have an invasion happening. You know, people walking over our border unchecked has been going on. And yet meanwhile, the mainstream media narrative keeps insisting that we need to pay attention to Russia, right? And if you try to focus and say: No, we've got some real problems in the West, you have people in Canada. I spoke with one of these organizers today.

You know, they're getting arrested, not only are they getting arrested, completely nonviolent protest, zero bail being offered to them, right, that they're not allowing some of these people, the main leaders out of prison, and they are really trumped up charges that really mean absolutely nothing, except you've messed with the state and now you're going to face the consequences, something that you might see, by the way, under the reign of somebody like I don't know, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, all these things that they keep calling us is exactly what they're guilty of.

God forbid, you ask people in our mainstream media to cover what is going on in Canada, they're having their bank accounts shut down, not just the organizers, by the way, people that gave them pizza, brought them food, brought them a cup of coffee. You have restaurants nearby in Ottawa, who are having police knock on their doors, and they're being served papers. And they're being told: Hey, your bank accounts are now going to be shut down pending further notice.

That young man that I was speaking with today told me that they can't feed their families, they can't go out and buy anything. Everything is completely frozen until their dictator, Justin Trudeau, decides that he is going to do something about this.

And this is not going to end by the way. Exactly what they want you to focus on is Russia, though, right? Russia. It is just coming back, the Soviet Union is coming back. Communism is coming back. And they're trying to tell us to ignore what's happening here in the West?

I mean, it's absolutely mind boggling what's taking place. People need to stay focused and keep talking about what's happening at home, because I believe that the threat that's happening domestically is way more significant.

CARLSON: So you've got nonviolent protesters being held without bail. I'm not much of a dot connector, but I feel like there's a familiar template for that.

OWENS: Yes, there absolutely is. And just again, imagine they're shutting down their bank accounts. You understand the threat that we are facing when they can reach in and they can say: Guess what, Tucker? You have no more access to your cash because you questioned the state.

By the way, once upon a time when were we told this was a small fringe protest, right? I mean, everything that they have tried has implicated to me that they're running out of things to do, right. They tried to smear these people off the bat. Nazis. Remember, they absurdly said, they're waving Confederate flags. Like why are Canadians waving Confederate flags, which is completely irrelevant to Canadian history, it doesn't even make sense.

They tried Operation January 6, as I like to call it, it didn't work. People are waking up and understanding the tyranny, and I think more and more, the state is going, we don't have control of the narrative anymore. No one is believing us anymore.

So they're doing their usual theatrics, trying to drop Hitler's name to pretend that these people are anything more than hard working individuals that are absolutely sick of the tyranny, which is what's happening in America as well.

We are being disillusioned with our government. We're on a pursuit of truth. And you're going to see that they're going to increase their iron grip, because they realize they're losing control.

CARLSON: Now, I'm not sure what that has to do with Eastern Ukraine, but I appreciate you. You're pretty good, Candace Owens.

OWENS: This is what they want us to focus on.

CARLSON: The biggest problem is the ones we ignore.

OWENS: Russia, look over there.

CARLSON: Great to see you tonight. Thanks a lot.

OWENS: Thank you.

CARLSON: So LaToya Cantrell is the new Mayor of New Orleans, one of our greatest cities, which needs a lot of help. She's not helping. She just reinstated the city's indoor mask mandate that's in effect through Mardi Gras. That would be March 1st, next week.

So according to LaToya Cantrell, the mandate is necessary because these are just not normal times.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR LATOYA CANTRELL, NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA: It does give us some sense of a normal, bringing back some normalcy. But at the same time, it's very important for everyone to recognize and realize that we are not under normal times.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Yes, so wear your obedience mask. Well, if you happened to attend the mayor's Mardi Gras Ball last Friday night, you know, it was actually a pretty normal time for LaToya Cantrell. She was letting the good times roll.

As you can see here, she is dancing, carefree, her face, butt naked, the whole time.

So the people in power don't follow their own rules, a lot of them don't pay taxes to the government they run. But nobody cares. Meanwhile, the C.D.C. has just admitted they're not releasing any data on COVID hospitalizations and booster shots because that might be misinterpreted by you. Okay.

Brit Hume is FOX News's senior political analyst. We're happy to have him join us tonight. So we've done so many of these stories, Brit. Do you think people care? Should they care?

BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS CHANNEL SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, I think these politicians who issue mask mandates and then go out in public with no mask on. That's a problem. People see that. It's obvious hypocrisy. There's been tons of it. People are attuned to it.

And I think that you have to put that down as an almost incomparable political blunder.

CARLSON: Yet these people keep doing it again and again. And it's just like -- and you're always reading a politician, politicians who don't pay their taxes. I think -- you pay yours, right? I pay mine. We have to.

HUME: Boy, do I ever.

CARLSON: Do you ever. But a lot of them don't. I mean, a lot of them don't.

HUME: Yes, I know. This episode has revealed a lot to a lot of people about how these politicians behave, how arrogant they are, how entitled they are and how entitled they feel.

And then of course, you turn to the matter of the C.D.C. that you just mentioned.

CARLSON: Yes.

HUME: That's a wonderful example. There are other things about hypocrisy.

CARLSON: Right.

HUME: The C.D.C. think it is about two other things about. It's about incompetence, because the one thing you know about agencies like the CDC is they gather a lot of data and do a poor job of getting it organized, checked, collated, and issued in a way that's meaningful.

CARLSON: Yes.

HUME: On top of that, though, we found out in this episode that they were concerned about data, particularly related to 18 to 49-year-olds, I think that was the age group and the effect of the vaccine on them, and the data made it look as if the vaccines really weren't effective, right? Because obviously, these are people who are the least likely -- not the very least likely, but among the least likely to be affected by COVID, anyway.

CARLSON: Yes.

HUME: So what they did was, they withheld the data in the hope that it wouldn't -- that getting it out there, they are worried about it discouraging people from getting shots.

Now remember, Fauci at the beginning on masks, masks, he said, didn't really afford any protection, you shouldn't get them, right? Then he later would say, well, you should get them and he became an ardent advocate of masks, and the whole idea of the first go round was, he didn't want people to go out and buy all the masks so that the healthcare workers who needed them, so desperately wouldn't have them.

And then, of course, he kept moving the goalposts later on, on what level of vaccination in the country would give us herd immunity and he kept doing that, changing it. Right? The reason for that was, he wanted to continue the pressure on people to get vaccinated.

Now, this is the use of information not to inform people, but to manipulate them.

CARLSON: Yes.

HUME: And that has been the fact throughout all this, and it suggests one further thing. These politicians and these other leaders, healthcare officials, and the rest of them, they don't trust the public at all. They don't think the public can be trusted with the information to make the right decisions. That's where we are, and we've seen that throughout this whole pandemic.

CARLSON: But trust is reciprocal. And, you know, if you behave that way, people will not trust you ever again.

HUME: Exactly, right. And that's where we are. I mean, the loss of trust in these public health officials is just extraordinary. You see it in the polling, you see it everywhere. And that's the fruits of this business of being willing to mislead to tell the so-called noble lies that are supposed to have some better purpose, and maybe they do, but look at where it has brought these health officials.

CARLSON: It's upsetting. I mean, I've never trusted politicians, but the core American institutions like the C.D.C. or the F.B.I., like you need to trust them.

HUME: Yes, and we always have.

CARLSON: Yes, I always have. I don't anymore.

Brit Hume, thank you.

HUME: You bet.

CARLSON: Well, the Lieutenant Governor of Texas, Dan Patrick has been thinking a lot about how to stop public universities in his state from encouraging racial discrimination. His proposal would mean ending tenure for any professor pushing racism.

He joins us next to explain.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Well, it's easy to make fun of Canada where apparently honking your horn is now some kind of Nazi salute. They've got a massive Nazi problem in Canada.

But then if you live in this country, maybe you don't mock so much because Seattle, which is a city in our country has just ended a law that required people to wear helmets while riding bikes. Now, that's good. There shouldn't be a law about that, do it if you want. It's the reason they ended that law that Jason Rantz will explain to us tonight.

Jason is our man the Pacific Northwest. He's got the story for us. Hey, Jason.

JASON RANTZ, SEATTLE RADIO SHOW HOST: Hey, welcome to another edition of everything is racist. This time, it is bicycle helmet laws that are racist because Black bicyclists were given tickets at a disproportionate rate than White bicyclists.

Now, this claim is originally based on a non-peer reviewed report by a woke PhD student over at the University of Washington. This was an attempt to tie bicycle infractions to instances of racist policing.

So across the City of Seattle and King County as a whole, it's a $30.00 ticket if you're not wearing a helmet while riding your bike, but after the first couple of years, it pretty much wasn't enforced. And yet the King County Board of Health decided to look into the ticket distribution as part of their commitment to what they define as equity because they were inspired by the BLM Movement.

So this report says Black bicyclists are ticketed nearly four times more than White bicyclists for not wearing a helmet. But the data represents under 300 total tickets to Black cyclists given out over 13 years, and some of the people who were ticketed were homeless, most likely riding stolen bikes, which likely caught the attention of the cop at the moment that they gave out this ticket.

Nevertheless, it was enough for the whole King County Board of Health by a vote of 11 to two to repeal the law because they say the research that I just cited shows that quote, "Racist and discriminatory enforcement came as a result of that, except the research doesn't actually show that it disproportionately targeted anybody.

It doesn't say why the numbers are what they are, it also doesn't say that Whites aren't wearing helmets, but getting a pass for it. They make up the majority of the tickets. All the data shows is that Black bicyclists in Seattle just happen to not wear helmets as much as the White bicyclists. That's all it shows.

Whites were ticketed, by the way 10 times more often than Asian riders. So if this was intended to be some sort of racist law, it wasn't very good at it.

To your point, go ahead and oppose this law for legitimate reasons wanting to focus on personal responsibility, I think that is a legitimate argument. But the logic here is absurd. So apply it in this way. The majority of gang members in the State of Washington are Black and Latino, so that means arrests associated with gang violence will disproportionately impact Blacks and Latinos.

So should we get rid of enforcement? Should we stop going after the drive- by shooters because of that? No, of course not. It is absurd.

CARLSON: But New York City -- that PhD student should do a study on why all the self-hatred in the Pacific Northwest? There is a bottomless well of it. It would be interesting to know what that's about.

RANTZ: No kidding.

CARLSON: Jason Rantz, great to see you tonight. Thank you.

RANTZ: Thanks, Tucker.

CARLSON: So the purpose of granting tenure to university professors was to encourage free speech and independent thought. Has it worked? No, it hasn't. Dissent is crushed.

So Dan Patrick is the Lieutenant Governor of the Great State of Texas and he has thought about this problem a lot and believes he has a solution. The Lieutenant Governor of Texas joins us tonight.

Thank you for coming on. Appreciate it.

So tenure, do you think it's fulfilled its purpose?

LT. GOV. DAN PATRICK (R-TX): So about a week ago, the Faculty Council at the University of Texas, they said that they're going to teach critical race theory, and then they followed up with something that really got my attention that got my attention. But then they said, the faculty council takes the position in this resolution, that the council authority shall never, ever have any intrusion from anyone outside, including the legislature or the Board of Regents.

In other words, you can't tell us anything about how we perform our job, what we teach the students or what we say. And I thought, just who are these people that think that somehow academic freedom, which we support gives them the ability to be unaccountable to anyone, including the taxpayers, including their Board of Regents, they want to be able to say anything to anyone.

And Tucker, we've talked about critical race theory a lot, but people still sometimes don't understand the difference and we want race to be talked about as Republicans, myself as Lieutenant Governor, I want slavery to be examined. I want racism in America to be examined through the years, whether it's in the business sector, or the private sector, in sports.

But critical race theory doesn't teach that, it teaches that because you're White, you're a racist and because you're a person of color, you're a victim and they want to teach through critical race theory, that we are a nation that's racist, and everything is based on racism, and that's what critical race theory is and that's what we cannot allow our professors to teach the young men and women to come to university. We banned in Texas in K through 12 this year.

CARLSON: It's a racial attack. It's attacking people based on color of their skin.

PATRICK: Yes.

CARLSON: Why don't you just fire anybody who pushes racial attacks in a publicly funded university, and they can do something useful, like drive delivery vans?

PATRICK: Yes, so there's something called tenure, and once you get tenure, it comes every six years, no matter what you do, no matter how bad you are, no matter what you do, they can't fire you. I mean, there's some cause. But it never happens. So once they get tenure, they can say and do anything in the classroom they want.

Remember, these are people making a lot of money. Most of them on average, they only teach two or three classes a week or a semester. They don't work really hard. But it's almost impossible to fire them. So what I proposed is this.

We're going to end tenure. No more tenure for the new hires. And for all the tenured professors now that are reviewed every six years, they'll be reviewed every year and one of the reasons for calls that you could be fired is if you teach critical race theory.

We have to stop this attack on White America and Black America and Brown America. This is the most divisive thing we have seen in my lifetime.

And Tucker, I'm old enough to be around what I remember as a kid, colored fountains and white fountains, those were terrible times in our society, and we must teach a new generation of young people about that.

But we don't walk in to a classroom and we don't want a professor to say oh, by the way, you're White, you're a racist. That's the way you were born. It's normal. That's who you are. And you, you're of color. You're a victim, whatever you get, you depend on that guy.

That's not America and that is not what we stand for.

CARLSON: Yes, these are the least impressive, most poisonous people in our society and they're the ones with guaranteed jobs. Yes, I don't so.

PATRICK: No one gets a guaranteed job in America. No one gets a guaranteed job including us.

CARLSON: Especially not poison peddlers who are pushing race discrimination on children, they should be fired.

PATRICK: Right.

CARLSON: I appreciate your coming on. Godspeed in this effort. Thank you.

PATRICK: Thank you, Tucker.

CARLSON: Dan Patrick, the Lieutenant Governor, thanks.

So politicians and their friends in the media continue to hyperventilate, push hysteria about Russia and Ukraine, which we will restate is not a democracy.

Victor Davis Hanson has been watching all of it and joins us in a moment to help us make sense of it. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Well, just a day after declaring himself King of Canada, Justin Trudeau announced that he is going to sanction Russia in the name of protecting democracy in Ukraine, which is not a democracy.

Joe Biden has also announced sanctions to save democracy. What is going on here? Can anybody speak in an honest declarative sentence?

Well, one man we know can, his name is Victor Davis Hanson. He is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. We're always grateful to have him join us. Professor, thanks so much for coming on.

Well, if you would make some sense of this, please?

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

Yes, I think, you know, when we look at 20 years of Putin's role, we know that he has a desire to restore the borders of the Soviet Union, but it's very hard for him because he's got a hundred million fewer people and he has lost about 25 or 30 percent of his territory, some of it very rich.

So why did he in 2008 go in to Georgia? Why in 2014 did he go into western Ukraine in Crimea and why now he may go in, excuse me, eastern Ukraine, he may go into western Ukraine now?

So I think it's better, since that's a constant to look at us, us being the West, and particularly the United States. When the United States pumps oil and the West is not dependent on oil and the price is moderate worldwide, Putin doesn't have a lot of cash and we are not desperate for oil, we're not doing what we're doing now begging him to pump oil.

But when you start to restrict it, as we did in 2014, as we didn't have it in 2008 and we went down by almost three million barrels in one year, then we're vulnerable. And that raises flags, and Putin gets you know, he gets an appetite.

Second thing is when NATO -- remember Tucker, it's got a billion people, it's got an economy, a GDP eight times larger than Russia, when it meets its defense commitments and most people pay the two percent and Turkey and Germany, which are the two largest countries in NATO, like the United States better than they do Russia, and they pull more akin to Russia now than they do us, then Putin seems to stay where he is.

And finally, and most importantly, when the United States is confident, and the United States talks softly, but it has capability rather than loudly with a twig, Putin is deterred.

So if you're Barack Obama, and you that Russians can't do anything, and they're incompetent, but at the same time, you invite him into the Middle East or you beg him to behave during your re-election effort, or you're Joe Biden, and you call him a killer, or you call him a bully, but then you beg him to say, oh, put 16 entities off your hacking list for us, or you skedaddle from Afghanistan, then you've got problems, and that's where we are.

So we know what Putin is. We know what he does. But we are very erratic and we don't follow a proven protocol that would convince Putin and his advisers in a cost to benefit analysis, stay within your borders, because we don't have a lot of oil, petro dollars. They're pretty confident the world price is stable. NATO seems to have it together.

The United States is very careful, sober, judicious, but it's got enormous confidence and power, and yet, we violated all of those and no more so than the last year.

CARLSON: It just seems like it's going to be difficult to talk back from this ledge of principle that the Biden administration has constructed. I'm not sure what the principal is, do you know in our 25 seconds we have left?

HANSON: I think the principle is a word that -- I'm a realist, so I think the principle is just simply pump three more million barrels of oil very quickly, get on more on the market, get Federal leasing, stop demonizing him and start showing strength.

Get Germany and Turkey back as real members of NATO, and don't call him a killer unless you can back it up and we're not going to back it up. So that's what caused peace, 20 years, he has only done this three years.

CARLSON: That's an entirely fair principle worth defending. Victor Davis Hanson for us tonight, great to see you.

HANSON: Yes.

CARLSON: Thank you.

HANSON: Thank you.

CARLSON: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Well, we are out of time sadly. We'll be back tomorrow night and every week 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.

Here is the Great Sean Hannity.

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