Tucker: Who is really in charge of the US?

This is a rush transcript of "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on October 7, 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. We're glad you're here.

We had a diplomatic incident last month and a lot of Americans didn't even know what happened. The government of France did something they haven't done in hundreds of years. They recalled their Ambassador to the United States. They also accused the United States of behaving in a manner that is, quote, "unacceptable between allies and partners."

No, it wasn't a cheese embargo that made the French mad. They were angry that the Biden administration agreed to provide nuclear power submarines to Australia.

France had wanted to sell its own submarines, and the Biden administration effectively killed that deal. It hurt France and they are mad about it. Now, we haven't had a problem with France, this profound since to be specific, 1798. John Adams was President then, and the interesting thing is, he had no idea that we had a problem with France. It took months for words to reach him back in Washington that American and French diplomats were fighting with one another.

By the time Adams learned about this diplomatic dispute, which became known as the XYZ Affair, it was too late to stop it. A naval war mostly fought in the Caribbean broke out between the United States and France. So, the lesson from that conflict was pretty simple. If you're going to run the United States, you have to be pretty aware of what the rest of the world is doing, particularly major world powers, particularly your allies.

So with that in mind, John Kerry, the former Secretary of State, now our climate czar, was asked, what happened here? And his response was really simple: Like John Adams, Joe Biden had no idea that the French were upset. Now, unlike John Adams, our current President has the benefit of cell phones and the internet. But he still didn't know. Joe Biden didn't know because he is in mental decline. There are a lot of things he doesn't know, including when our allies are furious with us and start withdrawing their ambassadors.

So Kerry was asked to explain all of this by a French news channel. Why did the Biden administration cut France out of a nuclear submarine deal with Australia? And his response was amazing.

He said Joe Biden did this because Joe Biden was completely unaware there was a problem in the first place. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KERRY, U.S. SPECIAL PRESIDENTIAL ENVOY FOR CLIMATE: And President Biden asked me about it, and I told him, and expressed .

REPORTER: You told Joe Biden that it was not the right .

KERRY: He asked me. He said, "What's the situation?" And I explained exactly, he was -- he had not been aware of that. He literally, literally had not been aware of what had transpired.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: When was the last time you heard someone from the U.S. government admit that the President was completely clueless? Quote, "He literally had not been aware of what had transpired." Now, you're probably not shocked by that. Joe Biden was visibly confused throughout the entire presidential campaign. Here's one example:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), THEN CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Bounce? Good evening. Thanks so much for tuning in.

No man has a right to raise a hand to a woman in anger other than in self- defense, and that rarely ever occurs. And so we have to just change the culture. Period. And keep punching at it and punching and punching at it.

Play the radio. Make sure the television, excuse me, make sure you have the record player on at night.

Poor kids who are just as bright and just as talented white kids.

We choose science over fiction. We choose truth over facts.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: We're not trying to be mean. As we've said many times, we feel sorry for Joe Biden. All of us hope to live to the age where we face those kinds of problems, and the truth is, voters knew what they were getting when they voted for Joe Biden. What's interesting is that now that he is in office, Biden's handlers are doing everything they can to prevent us from noticing that he's not really in charge.

Take a look at the latest example. There are pictures of a fake White House set that the Biden administration has for some reason constructed across the street from the actual White House. It's in an auditorium at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Why go to the trouble? They already have a White House.

Well, Stephen Miller spent the last four years in the White House as an adviser to Trump, and here's his explanation for it, because he would know, quote: "The reason Biden uses this bizarre virtual set for televised meetings, and not an actual room like East Room, the Cabinet, the Oval, the Roosevelt, Sit Room, et cetera -- there are a lot of rooms -- the reason he does this is because it allows him to read a script directly from a face-on monitor and without teleprompter glass that can be seen on camera."

Oh. Now, we can't verify that that's true, but it certainly sounds right. Joe Biden can't speak from the Oval Office because he is not sure what to say, so he has to read it all here. So that raises a much deeper question. The question is not, is Joe Biden mentally impaired? Obviously, he is, and again, we're not going to gloat over it. But a much more important question for the rest of us is, if he's not running the government, then who is? That's a real question.

Clearly, the F.B.I., the D.O.J., and the military are already acting independently of the elected President of the United States, as you just saw, they don't even keep them informed of international incidents.

Instead, they are in some cases, freelancing to crush anyone who opposes their power. Mike Flynn, for example. He was briefly the National Security adviser in the Trump administration. What we learned from the destruction of Mike Flynn, really, was that sure, you can elect Donald Trump President, but does he really run the executive branch of government? No. It turned out Barack Obama was still in charge, even though he was no longer President.

So Obama had his cronies charge Mike Flynn with a crime, talking to Russia as the National Security adviser, which of course is not a crime by any stretch, and they wrecked his life for doing that. It took years for us -- this is how slow we are to figure out exactly what had happened there -- but now it's very obvious.

We just sat down with a long interview with Mike Flynn. It's coming out Monday, and he told us what is really obvious to everyone who watches: An unelected group within Washington effectively runs the country without reference to voters. Here's his assessment:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. GEN. MICHAEL FLYNN (RET), U.S. ARMY: We have two separate governments. We have the one that actually gets elected and goes into office, and then you have a government inside of Washington, D.C. that operates under no rules, no authorities other than their own or who's ever in charge.

CARLSON: Sounds like that government is still controlled by Barack Obama.

FLYNN: Yes, and I would say that that's that, to a degree, is what we're operating with today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: By the way, Mike Flynn is not some internet celebrity or conservative activist, he was a three-star general. He was the head of an intelligence agency. He was the number two guy for all American Intelligence. He spent his entire life working in the Federal government and succeeding at that. So he knows what he's talking about. He is a reliable guide to how the government actually works.

Our whole conversation with Mike Flynn, by the way, is on "Tucker Carlson Today." It's coming up Monday on FOX Nation. But it's not just Mike Flynn who is being destroyed. Every ideological opponent of the regime is under attack -- parents at school board meetings saying unapproved things.

Yesterday, Joe Biden's flack refused to rule out using the Patriot Act to hunt down American parents who are upset about what their kids are learning. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETER DOOCY, FOX NEWS CHANNEL WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Will the administration be okay with the F.B.I. using the Patriot Act to surveil these parents if that is what they decide?

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I don't speak on behalf of the National School Board Association, I speak on behalf of this government. The Attorney General has put out a letter. They will take actions they take, and I would point to them for more information.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Oh, so this is the spokesman for the President of the United States, saying that the Justice Department, they're going to take actions that they're going to take, like, we don't really have any control over this. And she may be on to something there.

It does increasingly seem like the National Security State runs everything. You remember, the D.O.J. recently dispatched its Anti-Terrorism National Security Division to investigate ordinary parents, calling them domestic terrorists. The D.O.J. is also developing training sessions to tell school board members that free speech is actually violence.

So, who's really in charge? It's a really interesting question.

And to answer that question, we are honored to be joined by someone who has been thinking about this for an awful long time that would be Glenn Greenwald who writes for "Substack." He has been covering the National Security State for decades, saying things that in retrospect have proved to be totally true. We're happy to have him join us now.

Glenn, thanks so much for coming on. So, as just noted, you have been on the trail of the National Security State long before most people thought it was anything more than a conspiracy theory as we now say. Who do you think is actually in charge of the government at this point?

GLENN GREENWALD, JOURNALIST: It's bizarre, Tucker, because the Trump presidency brought so much evidence showing us who was. One of the video clips I always point to is when Chuck Schumer went on to Rachel Maddow's show days before Trump was inaugurated when he had posted something criticizing the C.I.A. for getting Iraq wrong and Chuck Schumer said, ethics aside, how can Donald Trump be so stupid as to do that to the C.I.A.? If you challenge the C.I.A., they have six different ways to Sunday to get back at you.

And the entire Trump presidency was driven by all sorts of narratives from the media about how these heroic independent Generals like Mattis and John Kelly and H.R. McMaster were going to save us from the elected President and there were all kinds of reports about how these security state officials would conceal classified information that they didn't want President Trump to have in order to manipulate his decision making or even subvert or ignore his decision-making like when he would tell them to withdraw troops from Syria and they would lie to him and pretend they did, when they just moved them instead.

And this was celebrated, while at the same time, they would say, if you say that there's a Deep State in the United States, which is nothing more than what Dwight Eisenhower warned about, a permanent power faction in Washington that rules the country regardless of the outcome of election, they would tell you that you were crazy, like you were a conspiracy theorist even as they were cheering for the classic definition of the Deep State in the first place.

So you have to be a conspiracy theorist or incredibly gullible not to believe that that exists.

CARLSON: So, here is the evidence that won me over. You know, famously, people say, if you want to know who is really in charge, who you're not allowed to criticize. What's the one group Republicans and Democrats never criticize is the National Security State. I mean, Republicans are happy to go after the I.R.S. or the Education Department. I can't remember the last time a Republican leader meaningfully criticized D.O.J. or The Pentagon, and of course Democrats are exactly the same. That kind of tells you everything, doesn't it?

GREENWALD: Exactly, and the amazing thing is, I mean, for whatever flaws you want to point to in Donald Trump's comportment and governance, which I think there are several valid ones. One of the most important things that he did was he deviated from that cage that Presidents have been kept in, which is he told the American people there are these security state agents who think that they run the government and he stood up to them and challenged their orthodoxies and pieties and showed Americans, especially people in the Republican Party on the right that these institutions are not noble or benevolent, but are highly pernicious. They want to interfere in our domestic politics and they ought to be deeply distrusted.

I think that was one of the most important things he did, and it was for that reason -- his willingness to criticize them -- that they hated him and spent four years trying to undermine his presidency.

And Tucker, the amazing thing is, they always talk about the sanctity of democracy. How is democracy more threatened than having unelected people who operate in the dark, free to undermine and sabotage the person that Americans chose as their President?

CARLSON: Well, thank you, exactly. I mean if you want to wreck democracy, this is how you do it and I think there is a lot of evidence the last President was really concerned about their power on a personal level, like he understood how powerful they were.

Really quick, do you think at this stage, it would be possible for a President to push back and to strip the unelected power centers of some of their power in our government?

GREENWALD: You would need a big army behind you. I mean that's why people in Washington were petrified of J. Edgar Hoover. He kept dossiers through the F.B.I. on every politician in Washington. They do have a lot of amassed power, you need the population to rise up against them for that to work.

CARLSON: Yes, boy, I hope that happens just because you know, I think democracy is worth having. I know you feel that way, too.

Glenn Greenwald, an anti-authoritarian, we're proud to have. Thanks.

GREENWALD: Thanks, Tucker.

CARLSON: So, if you want to know what the sacred cows are, the taboos, ask yourself, what are you not allowed to say? Major news organizations shut down any debate or even conversation about vaccine mandates. Again, it's not about the vaccines, you can take in the vaccine, fine. It's about whether they should be required for people who don't want to take them and that is a massive change in American life and you're not allowed -- you are absolutely not allowed to question them.

One ESPN anchor just found out the hard way. We'll tell you what happened there straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: On a recent podcast, an ESPN employee called Sage Steele said something out loud that you're absolutely not allowed to say out loud. She criticized not vaccines, but vaccine mandates. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SAGE STEELE, ESPN EMPLOYEE: I don't want to do it, but I work for a company that mandates it and I had until September 30th to get it done or I'm out. I respect everyone's decision, I really do. But to mandate it is sick and it's scary to me in many ways.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Well, it is sick and scary. Again, regardless of how you feel with the vaccine, forcing people to take a drug they don't want or need is grotesque. It shouldn't happen in this country, it is happening everywhere. No one is saying anything about it.

Sage Steele said she was in the mood to tell the truth, and wanted to say something else that's totally not allowed. She pointed out that the Democratic Party uses racial politics to gain power. She said that while recounting a time when Barbara Walter scolded her for identifying as biracial.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEELE: Well, I don't know when the last time I filled out my census was, but if they make you choose a race, she's like, what are you going to put? I go, well, both. She's like, well you can't. She goes, well Barack Obama chose black and he is biracial. I'm like, well, congratulations to the President. That's his thing. I think that's fascinating considering his black dad was nowhere to be found, but his white mom and grandma raised him.

But hey, you do you, I'm going to do me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Now listen to that. Was there a single untrue statement? Was there anything meant in malice? Was that unreasonable in any way, even a tiny bit? No, not at all. But ESPN which is grotesque, you should know that pulled Sage Steele off the air immediately for saying this and then they attacked her in an Orwellian fashion and it befits them, quote: "We embrace different points of view, but we expect that those points of view to be expressed respectfully."

Respectfully? Did you see the tape? Was there anything more respectful than what she said -- you do you, she said. No, she disagreed so they crushed her.

Jason Whitlock knows this world very well. He has covered sports for decades. He is now the host of "Fearless." He joins us tonight.

Jason, thanks so much for coming on. I hadn't -- I'd only read about this. I had never seen the tape until right now and I don't know Sage Steele, but boy, did she come off as completely reasonable and thoughtful and not an ideologue or a hater or anything. She is just like saying obvious stuff.

Are you surprised they crushed her?

JASON WHITLOCK, HOST, "FEARLESS WITH JASON WHITLOCK": I'm not surprised they crushed her. I do know Sage Steele. She is one of the best people working in our industry and she is just coming from a real and authentic place.

CARLSON: Yes.

WHITLOCK: I think, it is inappropriate that biracial kids -- particularly when there's a black-white mix -- are forced to choose and be assigned, oh, you're just black. You have to disavow the white half of you. I think it is perfectly appropriate for her to point this out.

Sage Steele is biracial. I think this whole thing is a relic of the one drop rule that was instigated in the 1700s - 1600s by racists. If you have one drop of black blood, therefore you're considered fully black.

We love, in this modern society, this woke society, this social justice Marxist society we are building, any relics from the racist past, we love to adopt and hang on to and apply to modern American society. That's why again, racists came up with the one drop rule and we're beholden to it.

Racists came up with calling black people the N-word, black people -- we're now beholden to it and we've taken that name on and it's ours to use and we're most proud of it. It's our favorite word, we've turned it into a term of endearment.

It all comes from the fruit of the racist tree why modern day racists are holding on to it while calling themselves liberators and freedom fighters and social justice warriors. They are bigots and racists and Tucker, you made the greatest point at the beginning.

There are two things you can't talk about in this new society they've built here. You can't question the vaccine and you damn sure can't question Barack Obama who needs to be questioned and who Sage Steele has properly.

This man should drop to his knees every day and thank his white mama and white grandparents for saving his rear-end and helping create him and move him forward in life and instead, he rejects the white side of his family and claims to be all black. It is a joke. They're all a joke. They're all racist.

And they all are beholden to racist ideologies and beliefs that we should have let go in the 1700 and 1800.

CARLSON: But it empowers certain groups, so they continue, too. It empowers the Democratic Party, right? So that's why they do it.

The third thing that you can't say is that there is a component to what we're watching that we can't see, that there's a spiritual dimension to the struggle this country is going through. You're one of the very few people I've ever heard say that out loud. I've been thinking about it since the first time you said it on our air.

I just have to ask really quick, what kind of response do you get when you point that out?

WHITLOCK: It's mixed, but Tucker, you've taken me to a great point because I love to hammer it and it needs to be hammered over and over again and that's why your show is so important, but we should be taking our identity in Christ, not in skin color, not in these superficial things. Your sexual preference, or your gender identification -- all of these identities have taken precedent over what used to be our primary identity.

Are you a believer? Are you a Christian? Once you identify as that, now I can see the commonality between Tucker Carlson and Jason Whitlock. We're both believers, we're both Christians. We both love our country.

Those things that unite us, they are telling us to disavow and embrace things, skin color and sexual orientation or gender identity, those things separate us. They want us to lean into that and lean away from God. That's the mistake we're making here in this country.

CARLSON: Yes, I used to think you were just a great talker and a great sports reporter. Now, I think, you know, when you say things like that I think that's -- you're one of the most important voices that we have, so I appreciate your coming on the show and saying that.

Jason Whitlock, great to see you.

WHITLOCK: Thank you.

CARLSON: So because there is no penalty for failure whatsoever, if you're in charge the worst mayor in American history is now telling people he wants to run for governor, of course. Bill de Blasio running a whole state. We've got more on that.

Right now on tuckercarlson.com, you can get the book. Amazon gets nothing. It takes some happiness in that. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATT FINN, FOX NEWS CHANNEL CORRESPONDENT: This is a FOX News Alert. I'm Matt Finn in Los Angeles.

Right now, it appears that the Senate has approved a $480 billion increase in the debt ceiling. A short while ago, the vote was opened. There are now enough votes, the bill has passed. It will now go to the House.

The $480 billion increase is enough to keep the Treasury borrowing and spending going through at least early December. If it had failed, the U.S. could have defaulted on its debt in less than two weeks. Now that the Senate has approved the bill, it will go to the House where it is expected to pass before the President can sign it into law.

And in other news, abortions resuming at some Texas clinics after a Federal Judge halted the state's abortion law, which is the most restrictive in the country. But some providers are proceeding with caution saying they worry that the Appeals Court could soon reinstate the law. Notice Senate Bill 8, the law bans abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected usually around six weeks.

I'm Matt Finn. Now back to TUCKER CARLSON TONIGHT.

CARLSON: At the height of last year's presidential campaign, Joe Biden who moonlights as a scientist announced that he had identified a single cause for every COVID death that occurred in the United States. It wasn't the government of China, of course, they are our friends. Come on, man.

They may have created COVID in a lab and then covered it up with the help of Tony Fauci, but who cares. No, the reason people were dying last year, Joe Biden told us, was because Donald Trump killed them. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), THEN CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If the president had done his job -- had done his job from the beginning -- all the people would still be alive, all the people -- I'm not making this up, just look at the data. Look at the data.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So when a President quote "does his job" nobody dies of a virus. Just look at the data. Come on, man. That's what Joe Biden said.

So Biden got elected, honestly, for a lot of reasons, a lot of them illegitimate, but thematically he got elected because he promised to, unlike Donald Trump, stop Americans from dying of COVID.

So how is he doing on that campaign promise?

Well according to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University, more than 353, 000 Americans have died of corona this year. It turns out that's higher than the total number of deaths in this country from COVID 19 than all of last year, and here's the difference.

The majority of Americans got vaccinated this year and the deaths are still higher than they were last year under Donald Trump. So what the hell is that all about? Honestly? We don't know the answer, maybe someone could explain that to us at the same time they explain how the vaccinated face some risk from the unvaccinated. Anyone who can explain that is welcome on the show. Just speak slowly so we can understand.

So Bill de Blasio was hands down -- and everyone knows this -- the single worst mayor in the history of this country and yet, he wants more. De Blasio is telling people he wants to run for Governor of New York.

So on this occasion of Bill de Blasio's not humiliation and flight to obscurity, but his ascendance to still higher office, we thought we'd run through some of Bill de Blasio's greatest hits.

On Groundhog Day 2014 for example, and we remember this well, de Blasio dropped the groundhog, the poor animal was called Staten Island Chuck. He later died. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice over): This footage from Groundhog Day 2014 shows freshly inaugurated Mayor Bill de Blasio appearing to drop Staten Island Chuck. A week after the de Blasio fumble, the groundhog did a few more events before being found in its zoo space deceased on February 9th.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So as one of his first acts as mayor, he killed Staten Island Chuck, the beloved groundhog of one of New York's five boroughs. That should have been a sign. And in fact, it was. It was foreshadowing for the next eight years. De Blasio behaved like a total pig throughout his entire time in office.

Here he was in May for example -- and this is just a physical demonstration of what's going on inside him -- eating fries in a burger like a piggish child. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D), NEW YORK CITY: Do you say free fries when you get vaccinated? I got vaccinated. You're saying I can get this? These delicious fries? Just think of this when you think of vaccination.

Vaccination --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Listen to my moist mouth sounds and take the shot. Did that make you more pro-vaxx? Probably not. Too bad Donald Trump is not around. He was a master at critiquing table manners.

Also this summer, Bill de Blasio tweeted a photo of himself with a woman's chest in the reflection so that we can look forward to more of that if he becomes Governor of New York, probably.

Seth Barron has followed this man for years. He is the author of the great new book, "The Last Days of New York." Seth Barron joins us now. Seth, great to see you.

So because no one is ever punished for wrecking things in this country, this guy believes he should go higher on the political ladder?

SETH BARRON, MANAGING EDITOR, "AMERICAN MIND": Oh absolutely. I mean don't forget, he ran for President last year. I mean, but here's the thing.

CARLSON: Good point.

BARRON: Bill de Blasio, who as you point out is a grotesque clown knows that he is not going to achieve higher office. That's not the point. The problem is, he only has another two and a half months to raise money. Running for office is the mechanism by which he can keep money flowing between his friends IN the construction industry and his friends who are consultants that's his real task. Consultants are his true employer.

So you know, as long as he has a campaign going for fundraising, then he has a mechanism to raise money. If he is not running for anything, he can't raise money.

See, if you want to be a bag man, Tucker, you need to have a bag and so that's what he is doing.

CARLSON: So smart. I mean, this show is pretty ideological and we deal with ideas and themes. You sort of missed that the primary motive for a lot of these guys is just old-fashioned corruption. De Blasio is corrupt. I always forget that.

BARRON: I mean, absolutely, yes. I mean people call it quixotic when he does these runs, but it's not quixotic because he has no ideals. He is just corrupt.

CARLSON: Right. That's amazing. What do you think his weekly marijuana bills are? Just spit-balling here, guessing.

BARRON: Well, I am not going to -- I'm not going to opine on that, but it does seem like something is being smoked because he is completely on another planet when it comes to managing the city. So, you know ...

CARLSON: Yes, the city -- even New York deserves better than Bill de Blasio.

Thank you, Seth Barron has chronicled this stuff for so long and done such a great job. Great to see you.

BARRON: Thanks, Tucker.

CARLSON: So today is the 25th anniversary of this company, the FOX News Channel, kind of amazing, really.

We're going to take a look back at the last 25 years and ask, how did we get here? What made us different? That's worth thinking about. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: So it is the 25th Anniversary of the FOX News Channel. It's today. You've probably seen the great promos the channel has been running all week about that, but today is the day, we've got one of our favorite people at FOX to join us in a minute to assess the last quarter century, but first we want to take you back to that day. This was 25 years ago today as it started. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've now reached this moment when we can firmly announce the starting of a FOX News Channel and a much greater effort on the build-up of FOX News in every area.

We now see a fairly defined audience in numbers for CNN. I think you'll find as more news channels and particularly our news channel appear, the audience will increase greatly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So that was before it even started actually, that was in 1995. Nobody thought that was going to work in the news business. At the time I worked at another competing channel, which was then number one and happened to be in the room on the very first day that this channel went on the air. I was covering Bob Dole who was running for President. He was one of the very first guests.

In a room full of reporters covering the Dole Campaign, there was not a single person including me who thought this would work. Another news channel? Really?

But it did work, and it worked for a couple of important reasons. First, you had really smart and really committed people running them. One of those people was Roger Ailes who was the creative force behind a lot of what you saw on the air. Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROGER AILES, FORMER CHAIRMAN AND CEO OF FOX NEWS, FOX TELEVISION STATIONS AND 20TH TELEVISION: We're not starting up a reactive news service here in any way. Our job is to be objective.

We'd like to be premier journalists we'd like to restore objectivity where we find it lacking, so we just expect to do fine balanced journalism.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Lot's been said about Roger Ailes, I am not sure how much we can add to that other than to point out that man understood people, human nature, TV talent better than really anybody and that turned out to be massively important.

But over the years, the single most important quality, the quality that has allowed this channel to continue and thrive for a quarter century is courage. The belief that we are doing something important by letting people talk.

Lachlan Murdoch has taken over, Suzanne Scott, Jay Wallace running it day- to-day. The one thing they have in common in addition to being really nice people is that they are totally committed to the freedom of speech. Do they agree with everything we say on this show or other shows? We have no idea, they've never told us.

What we do know is that they have a bedrock unshakable belief that the First Amendment is real and that we are the living embodiment of it. You can tell the truth on FOX News. Period. It's not easy to do that. It takes enormous toughness and we're grateful to them every day for that.

Judge Jeanine Pirro has been here a long time. She has been the beneficiary of that toughness along the way, and we're grateful to have her join us tonight to assess 25 years.

Judge, good to see you.

JEANINE PIRRO, FOX NEWS CHANNEL HOST, JUSTICE WITH JUDGE JEANINE: Good to see you, Tucker.

You know when I think about 25 years, I think about David and Goliath like even you were saying, you know who thought we needed another news channel? And cable providers that didn't even want to carry FOX News, and yet here we are number one for what is it -- 79 quarters. I mean, it's incredible.

And it really is a testament to the business acumen, to the vision and to the fact that the Murdochs and Lachlan right now and certainly Rupert didn't really run with the pack, they didn't need approval. They didn't need permission. They were determined to run in their own lane, and they were the winners, and so are all of us who work here.

I mean, we get to talk about what we want to talk about.

CARLSON: Exactly.

PIRRO: We get to be who we are. You get to be, Tucker; I get to be Judge Jeanine. You know we get to talk about what we want to talk about. I get to be the person that I want to be and the freedom that we have here, the colleagues, the collaboration. The fact that the First Amendment, the Freedom of Speech, the Constitution is so important to all of us that is the overarching theme of FOX.

And that's why we talk to that person in America who is actually concerned not just about the issues of the day, but wants to hear what we think. We want to hear what they think and that's why we've hit a chord.

CARLSON: Exactly.

PIRRO: And kudos to everyone here and I'm thrilled to be here. Plus, I love you, guys.

CARLSON: Well, I always think to myself if -- you know, it's a long day or whatever, I think -- I think my job is harder. You know, a lot of us think our jobs are hard. Can you imagine running FOX News?

The amount of pressure, the people who run this company are under every single day from institutions across our society to stop that, don't say that, reign them in, and they push back every single time.

I mean it is just -- it's an astounding feat. They never get any credit for it. I hate sucking up, I'm not sucking up to my bosses, I'm telling the truth.

PIRRO: Yes.

CARLSON: These people are really brave, for real.

PIRRO: For real, because cancel culture and what they would do, they would have you and me off the air in three seconds if they could -- the left. I mean, they can't deal with us and yet, we are talking about things that America is interested in hearing.

I mean the proof is in the pudding and yes, the fact that we have a structure that Suzanne Scott and Lachlan Murdoch, you know everyone is supportive of us is unbelievable. It is the best job around.

CARLSON: It really is. It is not only the best job around, it's like the only job like it around. I mean, when I started 30 years ago in media, you were kind of expected to say what you really thought. And now, I look around we're the only ones. It's just us.

PIRRO: Can you imagine if there wasn't FOX? It would all be the same message and everything that we're afraid of in America today, which is one train of thought, one way to speak, being the only way. I mean, it would be total fascism. Thank God for FOX.

CARLSON: Totally agree. And our viewers should know, Judge Jeanine is not a suck up either. She doesn't -- I mean this is real, so anyway, I appreciate you coming on tonight.

PIRRO: Yes. Thanks. Love you.

CARLSON: Great to see you.

PIRRO: Bye-bye.

CARLSON: Thank you.

Well, County Health Officials in Colorado have threatened to close a Christian School because the school is resisting complying with mask mandates and social distancing. The officials don't like that parents have any say in the matter. We're going to talk to the head of that school who has been pushing back. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Mike Tobin, good guy.

Millions of students across this country are being forced to wear masks in the school even though the science does not support that mandate or even come close. Kids are at low risk for getting the virus and very few have gotten very sick from it, they don't transmit it very effectively either.

But it's happening across the country and parents in most places have zero say in the matter. They're not consulted.

But Resurrection Christian School in Loveland, Colorado is giving parents that choice and for the crime of doing that, officials at Larimer County Department of Public Health are threatening to close the school down, to shut it down.

Jerry Eshleman is the Headmaster at Resurrection Christian and we're happy to have him join us tonight. Mr. Eshleman, thanks so much for coming on.

DR. JERRY ESHLEMAN, HEADMASTER, RESURRECTION CHRISTIAN SCHOOL: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

CARLSON: I know that you're being all kinds of -- being called all kinds of names, anti-mask, anti-science et cetera, just explain in a sentence or two what you're proposing if you would.

ESHLEMAN: We're proposing the radical idea of allowing parents to make the medical decisions for their children and we feel that a mask is a medical decision. We're not anti-mask, pro-mask, we're not anti-vaccination, pro- vaccination. What we are, Tucker, is pro-parent.

CARLSON: That seems like the most reasonable possible position, in fact, the essential position for any school. So for saying that out loud, you're challenging the orthodoxy. What are they trying to do to you?

ESHLEMAN: Well, what is basically happening is when you have a certain number of COVID cases and as a result then, they then move in with their mask mandate. The county is not itself under a mask mandate, but when you have a certain number of cases, they call that an outbreak and then they require the group to which the outbreak was defined, they require that group to mask up.

Well the challenge has been is that the county has not been following their own guidance in some cases. We had a small outbreak in our sixth grade and they came back and they said, you know what, we see some cases here and there around the school. You know what, we just want you to mask up the whole school.

And we pushed back and we said, that's not what your guidance says. Your guidance says, it is defined to that group. So we've had to push back, find out alternatives, clarify things with them to make sure that they're -- it is very clear on as far as what we have to do and when we have to do it, but there is a gross amount of overreach in our opinion.

CARLSON: So just to clarify terms, when you say outbreak, you're not talking about deaths or hospitalizations. You're talking about positive test results, correct?

ESHLEMAN: That's correct. Larimer County defines an outbreak as five positive cases within a defined group. That defined group could be a single third grade classroom, it could be your varsity basketball team, and when that group reaches the outbreak status, the county is supposed to come in and say, well, just that group has to mask up.

But instead, they expand the sphere of masking to go further than that and require students who are not contiguous to the situation to have to mask up, and we just feel that that's a parent's right to choose that.

CARLSON: Amen, so I mean -- but it's independent of any kind of effect. So like those might be five asymptomatic cases, so it's not a big deal at all, but they don't care.

So at this point, just to bottom line it, can you stay open?

ESHLEMAN: Yes we can. What we're doing is we are not putting the children in the middle of this and so what we have done is if and when there has been an outbreak in a certain segment of our population, we have respectfully asked those parents to please mask their children so that we can fight this thing legally.

We're going to work and keep the children in school. We don't want them caught in the middle of this. This is their educational source, this is their educational resource. Many of them are in athletics and art competitions and fine art competitions and so forth, and so to preclude them from that and to go to a full shutdown, we would put the children in the middle of it.

So our parents are working with us during this time, but also knowing that we are fighting this thing legally for them and seeking some restitution very soon.

CARLSON: Good. Boy, a school that cares about the effect on the kids. We hope all schools are like that, but you never hear what you just said and I'm thankful that you came on and we are certainly rooting for you. Mr. Eshleman, thanks.

ESHLEMAN: You bet. Thank you, sir.

CARLSON: Well, we are out of time tonight, unfortunately.

We will be back, and that's our promise, 8:00 p.m. every weeknight, the show that is the sworn enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness, and groupthink. We hope you have the best night with the ones you love and we will see you soon.

Sean Hannity takes over.


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