Tucker: Joe Biden's coronavirus policy is not working

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Tucker: Joe Biden's coronavirus policy is not working

'Tucker Carlson Tonight' host surveys the consequences of following the White House's lead on COVID-19 management.

This is a rush transcript from "Tucker Carlson Tonight," November 29, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

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

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. It seems like a good time to reassess the Holiday season, so let's think about COVID where we are.

The first confirmed case of the coronavirus in the U.S. appeared in a blood test on January 18th, 2020. It was in the State of Washington, that was almost two years ago. How have we done since?

Well, look at the numbers. Compared to 2019, Americans now are poorer, more isolated, more physically unhealthy, more fearful, and sadder than they have been in generations, maybe ever. Depression has skyrocketed. Church attendance has dropped in half.

Cancer deaths are up dramatically, so is obesity, hypertension, diabetes, strokes among young people, suicide, drug ODs. You name it, it's up. These in addition to countless other serious social pathologies -- people are not having children for example.

Maybe most depressingly, a new study from researchers at Brown finds that children -- kids born during the pandemic have quote, "significantly reduced verbal motor and overall cognitive performance." An entire generation slower.

So that's a legitimate public health crisis, all of these are legitimate public health crises, but you never hear about them because the attention of our leaders is focused on COVID and particularly on the COVID vaccines. More vaccines, Joe Biden has told us repeatedly are the answer. Really, the only answer.

By and large Americans have followed Biden's lead. They believe the President.

As of tonight, about 82 percent of the entire adult population of the United States has received a COVID shot. In total, more than 232 million Americans have been vaccinated. That's the largest inoculation campaign in our history. You hear a lot of people who've resisted the shop, but most people haven't. In fact, more Americans have received the COVID vaccine than have a job, or own a car, or speak English as their first language.

Effectively, pretty much everybody has had the shot. The country did what Joe Biden asked. We achieve universal vaccination.

So what are the results of this? Let's see. More Americans have died from COVID in 2021 than died in 2020 before there was a shot. There were 362,000 deaths from COVID last year. So far this year, there have been 414,000 deaths.

Overall, the United States has the highest number of COVID deaths of any country on the planet by far. So, we gave up everything to fight COVID. We gave up our economy, our culture, our health. We literally stopped educating our own children. We did all of this in order to lower COVID deaths, and yet COVID deaths went up anyway, and they went up dramatically.

So the obvious question is, how is this working on the basis of the most simple numbers, it's not. In fact, it looks like the greatest public policy failure of all time.

How does Joe Biden explain that? What does Tony Fauci say about it? Or Rochelle Walensky? Well, nothing. Not a word. No one in charge has even acknowledged the magnitude of the failure. They haven't had to acknowledge it because they've created a scapegoat to take the blame for it.

The scapegoat is called "the unvaccinated," a phrase that everyone understands is essentially political. It means working class whites who probably voted for Trump. This is all their fault. Everything bad, they did.

Over the weekend, various White House officials blamed this group not simply for COVID, but for virtually everything that has gone wrong since Joe Biden has become President and there's a lot. The collapse of the U.S. dollar, supply chain implosions, empty shelves and stores, labor shortages; even rising gas prices. Watch the White House Press Secretary suggest that the unvaccinated are somehow responsible for inflation.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I would note though that the way most Americans understand and feel and experience inflation is by cost increases, right? And they experience that as it relates and we see what the largest impacts on cost increases are across the country, whether it's gas prices or in some cases food prices or a variety of issues.

We know what the root causes of those are, right? Global supply chain issues. The best thing we can do as a government is to get the pandemic under control.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: We can't get the pandemic under control until you get the shot, despite the fact that more than 80 percent of the entire adult population has already gotten the shot. So we printed too much money because you haven't been vaccinated. That's why the dollar is not worth as much. You wonder how long it will be before they blame the unvaccinated for climate change. Can't be long now.

So Joe Biden's campaign to lower COVID deaths has been unequivocally a failure. The numbers show that very clearly. But his campaign to demonize a group of powerless Americans to transform them into kulaks, objects of state-sponsored hate in their own country, that has worked amazingly well. These people are now so despised, it is considered acceptable for politicians to try and kill them.

In Buffalo, a state assemblyman called Pat Burke is pushing insurance companies to deny coverage to people who refuse the injection. Disobey Joe Biden? Have fun dying of some preventable disease, you kulak. You deserve it.

This is not just an American phenomenon by the way, and that tells you the most. Governments around the world have decided to transfer their failures onto the tiny percentage of their populations who for whatever reason don't want the injection.

In Germany, they won't even help you die if you don't get the shot. Euthanasia clinics are turning away the unvaccinated. You've got to get the COVID vaccine before you commit suicide for moral reasons.

Someday when the fog lifts and art returns, somebody is going to write a hilarious novel about this moment and of course, one of the stars of it will be a nearly 81-year-old bureaucrat who really shouldn't be driving a car at this point, but who somehow took control of the most powerful country on Earth and then promptly went insane.

If you haven't checked in on Tony Fauci lately, you may be a little surprised to discover what he has become. If you tuned in a couple of years ago you may recall Fauci is a conventional public health official. He wore button-down shirts. He gave careful precise answers that suggested deep medical knowledge. No more.

After two years of non-stop media adulation, Tony Fauci has morphed into an even shorter version of Benito Mussolini. Watch Fauci on television the other day refer to himself without even flinching in the third person.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARGARET BRENNAN, CBS NEWS HOST: Well, there are a lot of Republican senators taking aim at this. I mean --

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: That's okay. I'm just going to do my job and I'm going to be saving lives and they're going to be lying.

There is a distinct anti-science flavor to this, so if they get up and criticize science, nobody is going to know what they're talking about. But if they get up and really aim their bullets at Tony Fauci, well people can recognize there's a person there, so it's easy to criticize. But they are really criticizing science because I represent science.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: "When they criticize me, they're criticizing science." I am science declares Tony Fauci. Science is me.

So clearly, something deep inside Tony Fauci has changed. The man now believes he is a deity accountable to no one. Watch Fauci blithely swat aside criticism from a sitting U.S. senator, a man who unlike him has been democratically elected by millions of people by invoking January 6th.

Watch this.

BRENNAN: Senator Cruz told the Attorney General you should be prosecuted.

FAUCI: Yes. I'd have to laugh at that. I should be prosecuted. What happened on January 6th, Senator?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Wait a second, this is the man in charge of our COVID response. What does January 6th have to do with COVID, you ask? Well, simple. Anyone who questions Tony Fauci is by definition a dangerous insurrectionist. And Fauci is not the only one who believes that.

A few weeks ago, departing N.I.H. head, Francis Collins suggested that any American who doubts government COVID policy is a criminal. Collins announced that he would like to, quote, "Identify those who are purposefully spreading false information online about COVID and bring them to justice."

Public health officials didn't used to talk like this. They once concerned themselves with public health. This is how they talk now, and it all might be easier to take if they were doing their core jobs effectively. For example, COVID deaths under Joe Biden had dropped, but again and you can't say it loudly or often enough, deaths have not dropped. COVID deaths have risen.

So you've got to wonder how long the population is going to put up with this. Unelected lunatics haranguing the rest of us as they fail at their core job. Well, the White House must be wondering very much the same thing because all of a sudden, we have a brand new COVID variant to be terrified of.

This new variant was discovered by the chair of the South African Medical Association, a woman called Angelique Coetzee. Here is how she describes the threat.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANGELIQUE COETZEE, PRIVATE PRACTITIONER AND CHAIR OF SOUTH AFRICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION: Looking at the mildness of the symptoms that we are seeing, currently, there is no reason for panicking as we don't see severely ill patients.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: There is no reason to panic, it's very mild, she tells us -- very mild. We don't see very ill patients. Now, normally that would be good news for everyone, but in this country, it is cause for even deeper and more profound alarm.

In the State of New York, the unelected Governor has just banned all elective surgeries at hospitals because of this new variant. Now keep in mind, there are precisely zero confirmed cases of this variant in the State of New York, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be afraid. Oh you should definitely be afraid.

Thanks to this mild yet terrifying new variant, Joe Biden told us today you must get your third vaccine.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You have to get your vaccine you have to get the shot. You have to get the booster if you're -- sooner or later, we're going to see cases of this new variant here in the United States. We'll have to face this new threat, just as we faced those that have come before it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Message? Don't listen to the doctors. It is mild, it's not a problem, but that doesn't mean you can even think about relaxing. There is plenty of fear ahead and you're going to need to listen very, very carefully to Anthony Fauci.

Dr. Scott Atlas has seen our COVID policy up close. He is a former coronavirus adviser in the last White House. He is the author of "A Plague upon Our House," which is a fantastic account. He joins us tonight. Dr. Atlas, thanks so much for coming on.

I'm struck by how you almost hear -- never hear anybody take three steps back and say, wait, a second. Look at the numbers. This policy hasn't worked. Whatever you think of the details of it or its implication for civil liberties, it doesn't seem to be working. Why does nobody say that?

DR. SCOTT ATLAS, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS ADVISER UNDER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, thanks for having me, Tucker, and this is the point. The Birx-Fauci lockdowns failed. They failed to stop the infections where they failed to stop people from dying they destroyed millions of people particularly lower income families and sacrificed our children, really breaking sort of the moral contract between a society and its children, and this is not spoken about.

I mean, the lockdowns were advised by Doctors Birx and Fauci the entire year of 2020 and they continued beyond the previous administration. These restrictions were widely implemented throughout the entire country and when you look at the data, they failed, and the best study to show that ironically is not just that they failed, but they harmed people actively.

The study in June of 2021, I recommend people to look at this from Rand Institute, the earlier the lockdowns were put on in the United States and 43 countries, the more deaths ensued. The stronger the lockdowns, the more deaths ensued and the deaths were coming down when lockdowns were implemented and then the deaths started going up.

So the lockdowns are a complete disaster. It is truly what you said, the biggest healthcare policy failure in modern history. And this was stemming from these bureaucrats as you correctly call them, people who have been in bureaucratic jobs for 40 years who said we're going to stop COVID at all costs. They focused on stopping an infection, which they didn't stop and instead sacrificed the public -- the good -- the public health good of everybody else and that's what I try to instill and we know the data now.

So the lockdowns have been a gross failure and I don't know if that will ever be, you know, acknowledged. I mean the Church took 359 years to admit that Galileo was right and the Earth moves. I'm going to take the over on how long it'll take for these people to admit they were wrong, for people who know betting terminology.

The second point I'd like to talk about if I may is the vaccines. Okay, the vaccines are a private protector. They are not a public protector. The data is in. The vaccines are good actually, so far at protecting people from dying.

When you look at the data from other countries, which I happen to now trust more than our own data, sadly, you look at Sweden. The vaccine protection from death for about nine months now, which is as long as we've had the vaccines is very good although there is some waning for people who are over 80, but for everybody else, it doesn't wane significantly in the Sweden study just published a few days ago -- a couple of weeks ago.

But the vaccines protection does wane against infection after three to six months. So when you take a vaccine, you're not really protecting after three or six months from getting infection and spreading, but you're protecting yourself from dying. It is a private protection, not a public protection.

CARLSON: So if it's a private protection then why wouldn't it be up to the individual about whether to take it or not? If we're not -- so we've been told that you take the vaccine to protect others, but it sounds like after three to six months you're not protecting others.

ATLAS: Well, that's exactly right if you believe in the facts. And you know Dr. Coetzee of South Africa, she doesn't understand facts don't matter to many people and including our leaders in the United States because what we know from the data from Qatar, the U.K., Israel, and Sweden is that waning occurs on that protection, but interestingly we are one of the only countries, if not the only one that does not accept that natural immunity has durable protection.

We don't recognize that, we keep mandated vaccines.

CARLSON: Right. It's really beyond belief. Dr. Scott Atlas, thank you so much for that analysis.

ATLAS: Thank you.

CARLSON: So as if it -- in case you're looking for yet another example of justice applied unequally, there are so many, here is one. The Chewbacca guy, the QAnon Shaman just got more than three years in prison for walking, smiling around the Capitol Building on January 6th.

Meanwhile, in the rest of the country, Antifa, BLM, riots, setting things on fire, the Feds just went particularly easy on a vandal with an axe who smashed into a U.S. Senator's office. A fascinating example.

FOX's Bill Melugin has the story for us tonight. Hey, Bill.

BILL MELUGIN, FOX NEWS CHANNEL NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Tucker. Good to see you. So this one right here is raising some eyebrows with some questioning the treatment the Federal government reportedly gave to a far left activist after he attacked a Republican Senator's Office with an axe. Take a look at this video here.

December 2020, you're looking at a guy named Thomas Alexander Starks who was filmed on CCTV using an axe to try to break inside of Senator John Hoeven's office in Fargo, North Dakota. He later pleaded guilty to a charge of destruction of government property and even though Federal sentencing guidelines suggested maybe 10 to 16 months in prison, Starks was only given probation and a fine of about $2,800.00.

Now, here is the kicker. Take a look at this. "The Post Millennial" reports the F.B.I. even returned the axe back to Starks citing Stark's alleged Facebook post where he reportedly wrote, "Look what the F.B.I. were kind enough to give back to me," then as you can see right there he's got a picture of the axe that he used in the attack.

Now according to "The Post Millennial," Starks had previously posted on social media that he was a member of Antifa and that he will quote, "always attack fascists," end quote. But the treatment he received from the Federal government has some crying foul with constitutional law expert Jonathan Turley writing in part, quote: "Putting aside the light sentence, the returning of the axe is rather curious. It would seem an instrument of the crime could be declared lost in any plea, instead it was returned as if it was a form of political expression by the Justice Department."

And Tucker, Turley went on to compare Starks's light punishment to the so- called QAnon Shaman, you referred to at the top there from the January 6th riots at the Capitol -- we remember -- he received a 41-month sentence for obstructing a Federal proceeding Starks in this story with the axe only got probation and a fine.

We'll send it back to you.

CARLSON: It tells you so much. Bill Melugin for us tonight. Thanks so much, Bill.

MELUGIN: Thanks.

CARLSON: Well, a black nationalist with an extensive documented history of race hate just ran over dozens of people in the State of Wisconsin and killed six including an eight-year-old boy, but the media are on to the real culprit, the actual killer, which was the car.

Candace Owens joins us straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Darrell Brooks is a BLM supporter and a black nationalist with the history of expressing anti-race hate on social media. On November 21st, Brooks ran over dozens of people who were attending a Christmas Parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Six of those victims have died so far, including an eight-year-old boy. This is what the attack looked like.

[VIDEO CLIP PLAYS]

CARLSON: So how did this happen? Well, of course we don't know yet. There has been no trial. There aren't enough available facts, but we do know that this comes within the context of the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, which had nothing whatsoever to do with race, but for more than a year, our national media framed it as some sort of referendum on American race relations and white supremacy. They made it all about race.

It's possible that Darrell Brooks bought into that propaganda. It seems to be all over his Facebook account.

So the media may be responsible for these murders having convinced this man and certainly a lot of other people in the country that the Kyle Rittenhouse case was about race. They had a role in this in other words.

So it probably shouldn't surprise you that the national media have zero interest in explaining what exactly happened in Waukesha.

Over in MSNBC, for example, they've been telling you the attack was really just an accident.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINT WATTS, MSNBC NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: One thing I do worry -- well, actually two things, Stephanie is, one is the idea of contagion. Whether it has anything to do with this accident last night in the killing of these people, others might be thinking of an attack like this somewhere in the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Oh, it was an accident. Meanwhile, at CNN, they've identified a culprit. It wasn't Darrell Brooks, it wasn't the national media whipping the country into a frenzy of suspicion and racism. No. It was the car.

Quote, "A car drove through a city Christmas Parade killing six people and injuring scores of others," end quote. "The Washington Post" agreed with this quote: "Here is what we know so far in the sequence of events that led to the Waukesha tragedy caused by an SUV." End quote.

So which SUVs are the most dangerous? Why are they still being sold? How many of them might just drive off the lot and wind up in the middle of a parade? "The Washington Post" didn't explain.

Candace Owens may know the answer. She is the host of "Candace." She joins us tonight.

Candace, thanks so much for coming on. So it is the car's fault. Why are they telling us this?

CANDACE OWENS, POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: They are telling us this because it just goes completely against their narrative. The facts of this case goes against their narrative. They are so race obsessed and one thing I always say, Tucker, is that the left can pull a racist narrative from thin air where it doesn't exist, but when it actually is in their face, they try to avoid it at all cost especially when the perpetrator is a black person against another white person, which obviously happens more often in this country given the fact that black Americans are the most murderous group in America by rate.

Now, what's interesting here is that the two biggest race cases of the last two years, arguably George Floyd and Kyle Rittenhouse never actually produced a single piece of evidence pointing to race, right? George Floyd, Derek Chauvin showed never used racial language or racial slurs against George Floyd during that arrest, it didn't matter. It became the biggest race case in America.

Kyle Rittenhouse, that case had to do with three white people. It didn't matter, they extracted a racial narrative for that case.

Here you have a man who was pointedly talking about white people all across social media, sometimes genocidal by the way. He was sharing post from Zimbabwe, news sources talking about a disappearance of white people in the country in the next five years as if it was a good thing, talking about how black people needed to raise up violently against black people. Multiple posts pointing to the fact that this man hated white people. He was anti- white, he was a racist, he was a black nationalist, and that's exactly why the media does not want to talk about this case.

They also don't want to talk about this case, Tucker, because it goes against their criminal justice reform, right? We're just going to let these criminals out over and over and over again. This man should have been in prison, mostly because for tons of reasons. He has a 50-page long rap sheet, but particularly because the week before, he drove another accident with that same van, another accident into the mother of his child. I mean, he was a violent criminal who is allowed onto the streets because leftists and progressives keep wanting District Attorneys to release black criminals so that it looks good when you look inside the prisons.

CARLSON: So they are implicated in this. I mean, basically, if you examine this honestly, you'd have to examine the things that you're trying to impose on the country and admit maybe they're not working and they're not willing to do that.

OWENS: They're not willing to do that and beyond that, let's be very clear like Darrell E. Brooks was radicalized by the progressive agenda. He was radicalized by the Black Lives Matter narrative. His postings show you that. He believes in the narrative that police are out to hunt black men, that we have to raise up against white people and fight for our place in this country.

He is learning that from the politicians, the left-wing politicians, the left-wing media sources that have been forcing this narrative down the throats of not just the adults, but the children in the school system.

So yes, he was radicalized by leftist propaganda.

CARLSON: Candace Owens, I appreciate you coming on tonight. Thank you. There's just too much lying, it's beyond --

OWENS: Yes.

CARLSON: So the Ghislaine Maxwell trial has begun. You may not have known that because it's not getting a ton of coverage. It's not getting the attention of say the Kyle Rittenhouse trial got. Why is that exactly? And what is going on in this trial and who is being implicated? And will you ever hear about it? That's straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Well, the trial of Ghislaine -- or we're just too darn American to pronounce it -- but anyway the Maxwell trials just begun. You'd think it would be the trial of the century, but it's not. The media seem to be mostly ignoring it. That's weird. Maxwell is accused of providing underage girls to Jeffrey Epstein as part of an international sex trafficking ring that likely involves world leaders. Well, that's pretty interesting.

For example, we know that Bill Clinton flew on Epstein's plane a total of 26 times. Meanwhile, one of the lead prosecutors in this case is the daughter of Jim Comey, the former F.B.I. Director because there's only 350 million people in the country, so of course that's true.

So what are we going to learn in this trial to the extent it's covered? Alana Goodman seemed like the perfect person to ask. She is the co-author of "An Inconvenient Death: The Mysterious Demise of Jeffrey Epstein," and she joins us tonight. Alana, thanks so much for coming on.

What is going to happen in this trial? And thank you for covering it.

ALANA GOODMAN, CO-AUTHOR, "AN INCONVENIENT DEATH": Oh thank -- well, thank you for bringing me on.

I think one of the things that I'm really interested in seeing is the defense's cross-examination of Epstein's staff and pilot. So today after the opening arguments from both sides, we had the prosecution bring in Epstein's pilot who is with him for 25 years. The defense's side in their opening arguments indicated that one of their major narratives in this case is going to be that Ghislaine Maxwell was a scapegoat, not just for Jeffrey Epstein, but also for the wealthy and powerful men who are in his inner circle.

They're going to argue why these men who were also with Epstein, you know possibly witnessing some of these things that were taking place, why are they not being prosecuted and yet Ghislaine Maxwell is.

And so I think it will be interesting to see the defense when they question the pilot, when they question Epstein's staff on cross-examination kind of talk about what, you know what was Epstein's relationship with some of these politically powerful people and I think that's where we could really see some major revelations in terms of, you know, high-ranking high-profile political figures in this case.

CARLSON: Well, yes, some of whom may be on tape, so apparently there are thousands of hours of videotape. Now, no one in this country can even write an e-mail without it getting leaked to the media, I can tell you firsthand, and yet somehow we're not allowed to know what's on thousands of hours of tapes that pertain to a criminal trial that may have the most famous people in the world on them? Why aren't we going to learn more about these tapes, do you know?

GOODMAN: Yes, I mean, I think it's very interesting but there has been a lack of transparency throughout in this and I know that there's been a lot of anger with the government on how they've handled the Epstein case in general especially with the issue with Epstein's mysterious death back in 2019 and how there are still unanswered questions about that.

And as you mentioned before the break, there is also an issue with the with the media coverage of this. There really has not been as intense of a media focus on this case as we've seen on other cases recently like the Kyle Rittenhouse case. I think one of the reasons for that is that there really isn't an easy political narrative that's palatable for the left on this, and you know, you have Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell who on the one hand were friendly with Donald Trump, but on the other hand we're very close with the Clinton's, and so you know, there's not really an easy slam dunk for the left on that.

You also have -- there is no allegations of racism in this case as there was in -- you know, for example the Rittenhouse case where he was accused of being a white supremacist. Obviously, that did not match up with the actual facts of the matter as we saw once the trial began.

And even from a #MeToo perspective, we've seen a lot of high-profile trials of powerful men who were accused of sexual abuse, and yet in this case, you have a woman who is on trial and so that definitely complicates that narrative.

CARLSON: Yes, no, none of -- the dorm room storylines don't apply, but it seems like the people who run the world are a lot creepier than they let us know, so that's kind of interesting.

Thank you for covering it. Alana Goodman, good to see you.

GOODMAN: Thanks, Tucker.

CARLSON: So, you've noticed a lot of people buying cryptocurrency. The reason is really simple, Central Banks have printed so much money that its value is plummeting, it is called inflation. So what is cryptocurrency? What is Bitcoin exactly?

Well, we scoured the country for more than a year to find someone who could explain it to us, who really understood it and who had skin in the game. Michael Saylor is the man we found. There is really no one better we've decided to talk to you about this topic.

Michael Saylor is an entrepreneur, a business executive. He has billions in Bitcoin and he is worth listening to on the topic. By the way his company just dropped more than $400 million on it this afternoon.

We sat down for more than an hour with Michael Saylor for a genuinely fascinating episode of "Tucker Carlson Today." Here's a small part of it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL SAYLOR, ENTREPRENEUR: The currency is to the economy what your blood is to your body and economic energy or money is to the currency what oxygen is to your blood. So commonsense says, if I keep sucking the oxygen out of the room, if I suck the oxygen out of the room, you're going to either suffocate or freeze to death.

And if I keep sucking the economic energy out of the currency, the economy collapses. In the extreme you get ripped back to Stone Age barter, right, when the money doesn't work anymore. I have to trade you cigarettes for bullets.

CARLSON: Right.

SAYLOR: And the problem with that is, is the economy becomes a million times less efficient, right? If you don't have money -- now, how many countries in the world have a collapsed currency? Sixty-six are dollarized, there's 180 about countries, there's 130 floating currencies all of them are weaker than the dollar.

The U.S. dollar is the world's reserve currency. The U.S. dollar is expanding, it was expanding 10 percent a year for a decade. Now expanding at 14 percent a year. It expanded 34 percent over the past 12 months. The dollar is weakening, okay? It's like the oxygen is getting sucked out of the room.

So Tucker, if I told you the oxygen is getting sucked out of the room and there is an oxygen mask, it drops out of the ceiling over there, what would you do?

CARLSON: Run for it.

SAYLOR: Yes, put the oxygen mask on. Bitcoin is the oxygen mask. Idea of Bitcoin -- let's move to the third sport --

CARLSON: May I just pause and say you've made the most compelling case I've ever heard for the need for something like Bitcoin. So you're saying just to make sure that everyone is following this, the whole point of Bitcoin is to escape the inflation vortex that has consumed all these previous empires?

SAYLOR: The point of Bitcoin is to fix the money and money is energy and energy is life, and if I keep sucking the energy out of the economy, I'm sucking the oxygen out of your system either -- under the best case, you perform poorly, under the worst case I suffocate you to death or freeze you to death. That's the problem.

That's why empires collapse. That's why economies collapse.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: You probably haven't seen a conversation about economics that interesting, ever. We certainly hadn't, and if you're wondering what is Bitcoin? What is crypto? Or if you care about inflation -- why are things suddenly more expensive, you need to watch that. So for an hour long, Michael Saylor is his name, an amazing person.

That's on "Tucker Carlson Today" at foxnation.com.

Well, you notice that a lot of professional athletes disparage the country they live in, one NBA star, Enes Kanter grew up in Turkey, he is not one of them. He just became an American citizen a few hours ago. Now, he is legally changing his name to Enes Kanter Freedom. He joins us straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Enes Kanter grew up in Turkey, came to this country and wound up in the NBA. Just a few hours ago, he became an American citizen. To mark the occasion, he has legally changed his name. His new name is Enes Kanter Freedom.

Enes Kanter Freedom plays the ball with Boston Celtics and he joins us tonight. Enes, Mr. Freedom thank you so much for joining us. Congratulations on becoming a citizen. Tell us why you've done this? Why you've become a citizen and changed your name?

ENES KANTER FREEDOM, NBA PLAYER: Thanks for having, Mr. Carlson. You know, I think, I can just easily say that this is the greatest day of my life. You know it was my dream the first day I stepped into America and you know, after I get my green card, obviously it's been a rough six years because the Turkish government revoked my passport and put my name on Interpol list.

But I think, you know I wanted to do it because I remember the first time I came to America, you know one of my teammates, it was back in 2009, one of my teammates criticized the President and I turned around and I told him, I was like, "Dude what are you doing? They're going to throw you in a jail." And he told me, he started laughing and said, "This is America. Don't worry about it. You are not in Turkey anymore."

I was very shocked, but you know, the reason I wanted to do it is because this -- you know, from day one, America gave me a home. American people opened their arms giving me a warm welcome and I wanted to do it because I wanted to call somewhere where I can feel like this is my home now and it is the greatest feeling I ever had.

CARLSON: Oh, that's just wonderful. I wish -- I wish we had so many more people like you who are as grateful to be here as you clearly are. How have your teammates responded? Do you think they are as grateful to be Americans as you are?

KANTER FREEDOM: I mean, my teammates actually, you know were really happy for me because they knew this struggle that I had the last you know six years. You know, it was a funny joke in the beginning because they were calling me Mr. Freedom, and now it became a reality.

But, I think my teammates were like the one that you know was my like my brothers you know. It was just so amazing because their support gave me so much hope and motivation to fight and fight for what's right, so I definitely give a lot of credit to my teammates.

CARLSON: It seems like people who move here from countries that are not free appreciate the freedoms here much more than a lot of us who grew up with those freedoms. Have you noticed that?

KANTER FREEDOM: You know, I feel like I'm going to just say this and I'm going to be honest. People should feel really blessed and lucky to be in this -- being in America -- because you know they love to criticize it, but when you leave a country like Turkey or you know China or somewhere else, you will appreciate the freedoms you have here.

CARLSON: Yes.

KANTER FREEDOM: You know, so I feel like they should just -- please, they should just keep their mouth shut and stop criticizing the greatest nation in the world and they should focus on, you know their freedoms and their human rights and their democracy. So this is -- America gave me everything I have, so I definitely appreciate the United States of America.

CARLSON: That's how I feel. We're putting up a picture of one of your sneakers on the screen here. Tell us what this is. What's on there?

KANTER FREEDOM: I cannot see the picture right now, but if you tell me what it is, I will tell you the story about it.

CARLSON: It says -- one says free something -- my eyes are bad, oh, Free the Uyghurs. Stop genocide. Stop genocide and slave labor.

KANTER FREEDOM: Yes, well obviously, you know someone had to do it. I'll be honest with you. There are so many, you know athletes, so many actors, so many celebrities out there who are scared because if they criticize China, obviously they will be affected. You know, their endorsement deals, their contract or their you know -- their money will be affected and they're scared to say anything.

But to me, you know, human rights, democracy, and freedom is way more important than everything they can offer me. You know, morals, values, and principles are the most important thing in life. So to me I wanted to stand up for my Muslim brothers and sisters who are in, you know concentration camps and are getting tortured and raped every day.

And I don't care whoever said which organization or which company, I don't care about any of that. I care about to be the voice of all those innocent people out there who don't have a voice.

CARLSON: Do you have any siblings? Tell them to come, please. Enes Freedom, great to see you tonight.

KANTER FREEDOM: Thank you for inviting me. I appreciate it.

CARLSON: Thank you. So our friend, Matt Walsh is not a children's book author, strictly speaking, but he has a new children's book out. It's called "Johnny, the Walrus." He'll explain what it's about and why you're going to want to buy six copies for Christmas. Trust us, it's worth it.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Matt Walsh is an enormously smart and amusing person, one of our favorite guests. He is host of "The Matt Walsh Show." Honestly, you think of him as a political guy, and yet Matt Walsh is out with the new children's book. The book is called "Johnny the Walrus." What is this about? A shameless money making scheme or maybe there's more to it?

Matt Walsh joins us tonight to explain. Matt, congrats on branching out. What is this book?

MATT WALSH, HOST, "THE MATT WALSH SHOW": Well, this is "Johnny the Walrus." I have embraced my true calling as a children's author, hence the cardigan, and it is a very real book. It is sale at johnnythewalrus.com right now.

It is all about a child who is very imaginative, he likes to pretend to be different things and one day, he pretends to be a walrus, and he's got spoons in his mouth like tusks and socks on his hands like finds, and unfortunately his mother is very progressive and thus confused.

And so, she is convinced by the internet and by society that if your child is identifying as something, then he really is that thing.

So she tries to raise her child as a walrus, as a sort of trans-walrus respecting his self-identity. At one point, I don't want to give away the ending -- it gets a little dark -- at one point, she he brings him to a doctor and they talk about transitioning -- a medical transition into a walrus, a gruesome procedure.

But throughout the story, she does eventually start to learn that just because your child is pretending to be something doesn't mean that he actually is that thing.

CARLSON: Okay, so if you believe you are a walrus, that doesn't mean you actually are a walrus, that's kind of the point?

WALSH: Yes, if you believe you're a walrus, it doesn't mean you're actually a walrus. And you know, you might also draw other comparisons. Maybe like if a young boy says that he is a girl, it doesn't mean that he actually is a girl.

See, the point here is that biology is not malleable. It is not a relative, it is a subjective reality. And so that is what we have to understand.

The children -- they make many claims about themselves. They are imaginative people, but when we take that seriously, we end up foisting an identity crisis on them like Johnny's mother does to him, unfortunately and it can lead to terrible things.

CARLSON: Amazing. I've actually read the book. I am going to be honest with our audience and it is hilarious. Not only is it true, it is really, really funny, not surprisingly since you wrote it.

Matt Walsh, I hope that is a runaway bestseller this Christmas because it definitely deserves to be. Great to see you tonight. Congrats.

WALSH: Thank you, I appreciate it.

CARLSON: We are out of time, unfortunately. It is Cyber Monday claim our producers, so if you desire to shop tonight, you can do it at tuckercarlson.com. You can also watch our episode of "Tucker Carlson Today" with Michael Saylor on cryptocurrency. You want to know, what Bitcoin is? He will tell you in a way no one else will. Truly fascinating. It's on FOX Nation.

Sean Hannity takes over now. Have a great night.

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