Tucker shreds book that compares AOC to Jesus

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Tucker shreds book that compares AOC to Jesus

Fox News host gives his take on a new book about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on 'Tucker Carlson Tonight.'

This is a rush transcript from "Tucker Carlson Tonight," February 18, 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. Happy Friday where all the new stacks up.

We told you at the beginning of the week that Canada had descended into tyranny and in fact it has. Justin Trudeau has declared that he controls all the money in Canada. He can take yours at will.

Today, Trudeau had nonviolent protesters and independent reporters arrested, in some cases they were trampled with horses.

These are the most egregious human rights violations by a Western government in recent memory, and yet, the Biden administration is encouraging all of it.

Biden's State Department has refused to criticize Justin Trudeau and his excesses in any way. Instead, our mannequin in chief spent yet another day yammering on about Ukraine as if we're supposed to believe that's more important than our own problems.

What country is this guy in charge of anyway? Someone ought to tell him. And in fact, we were going to tell him right at the top of tonight's show, that was our lead, a serious topic for a serious time.

And then out of nowhere, we received an early copy of "Take Up Space: The Unprecedented AOC." It's a book length suck up to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez by the editors at "New York" Magazine. It's coming out next week.

Now, a hagiography of Sandy Cortez is like a box of Fig Newton's, you know, it's wrong to open it, but the temptation is strong, and so we did. And before we knew it, we consumed the whole thing. We still feel sick.

So that is what we're opening with tonight. The new Sandy Cortez book. Yes, it's a lighter topic than tyranny in Canada, or war in Ukraine, both which we will get to in a minute. Our only excuse is, it is Friday and we've got limited self-control with stuff like this.

It's an amazing book. Let's put it this way, it opens by comparing Ocasio- Cortez to Jesus, and then it suggests that because she once got second place in a high school science competition, she could have gone on to win the Nobel Prize.

It is a remarkable piece of journalism. We plan to put extensive excerpts from the book on the screen tonight for you to read, and then we thought: Who reads anymore? Not Sandy Cortez, she never reads. Reading is racism. It's so White people.

So instead, we've asked our senior producer, Alex McCaskill to read the passages for us. You may recognize Alex McCaskill's melodious outer London inflected voice from the Stacey Abrams softcore porn novels that we've featured on the show.

We've asked him today to compare these two projects. He said he found this one creepier. We'll let you be the judge.

Here's a section in which the fan girls at "New York" Magazine let us know why they wrote this book in the first place. There are a lot of politicians they could have fawned over. They picked Sandy Cortez because she's a lady.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

ALEX MCCASKILL, SENIOR PRODUCER (voice over): To say she is a feminist is to understate the facts. Ocasio-Cortez is the first politician in history to live fully out loud while female and the degradations of womanhood are personal to her.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

CARLSON: So she's not just the first woman who represented her congressional district in the State of New York, she is the first woman in human history to get elected to something and then, quote, "live fully out loud while female." What exactly does that mean? Is it a trans thing? Honestly, we don't know. She's definitely loud.

But we did understand the next one, "The degradations of womanhood are personal to her." Well, that's certainly true. No one has done more personally to degrade American womanhood than Sandy Cortez has. She is living proof that 60 years of feminist liberation did not work.

Sandy Cortez is not empowered, she's neurotic and silly. She is far more frivolous than any 1950s housewife ever was. June Cleaver was a more serious person, at least she made dinner.

Here is what Sandy Cortez does. She puts on makeup while talking about herself.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): As the youngest woman in Congress, it's -- and as a woman of color, it is so hard to be taken seriously. It's just -- you know, it's like any workplace where sometimes it feels like you have to jump up and down for anyone to listen. It's just really difficult because some people are just born in bodies that are naturally taken more seriously.

People already try to diminish me, diminish my voice as young and frivolous and unintelligent.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: They don't take me seriously when I put on eyeshadow. People are calling me unintelligent, just because I'm dumb. It's pretty funny.

But the funniest of all was hearing Sandy Cortez describe herself as a woman of color. She often does. No one ever dares to challenge that description, but every honest person knows it is hilariously absurd.

There is no place on Earth outside of American Colleges and newsrooms where Sandy Cortez would be recognized as a quote, "woman of color," because she is not. She's a rich entitled white lady. She's the pampered obnoxious ski bunny in the matching snowsuit who tells you to pull up your mask while you're standing in the lift line at Jackson Hole.

They're all the same. It doesn't matter what shade they are.

Apparently, the editors in "New York" Magazine don't ski. They spent the entire book pretending that Sandy Cortez has just emerged from some teeming favela in the slums of Rio to save the world's poor.

Reading it, you would have literally no clue she was a credentialed member of the over class. You'd think she was St. Francis.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

MCCASKILL (voice over): On the day of the House votes, Ocasio-Cortez stood up in the chamber, again wearing all white. She looked like a prophet or a medium tapping a deep well of popular fury.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

CARLSON: Radiant in white in her gown, bathed in the glow of holy righteousness, a prophet for our time. Imagine Isaiah but with nails to match the handbag. That's how "New York" Magazine described Sandy Cortez and that's weird because we live in this country, too, and that is not at all how we remember the moment.

Here's a clip from the speech the book is referring to. Look at this person and ask yourself if you can feel God's presence.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OCASIO-CORTEZ: But we have to go into this vote eyes wide open. What did the Senate Majority fight for? One of the largest corporate bailouts with as few strings as possible in American history.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: A prophet or proof that Adderall abuse is more common than we admit? We'll let you decide.

We will tell you that the editors at "New York" Magazine are highly impressed by the way, Ocasio-Cortez looks. They think she's hot. It's a major theme in the book. And in fact, it's a major theme with Ocasio-Cortez herself. She talks about her beauty constantly.

Just a few weeks ago, she let us know how hard it is that everyone wants to sleep with her all the time. What a burden. It's like living as a nudist in the Dallas Cowboys locker room. Men are so aroused by her TikTok videos she can barely get through a day.

Yet, she does her job anyway, that's why she is a hero. The burden of sexiness weighs heavily on her sleek and Tawny shoulders, but she bears up under it. Listen to "New York" Magazine's account.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

MCCASKILL (voice over): Ocasio-Cortez would have been well aware of her impact on others. Her rhetoric could be confrontational and her politics countercultural, but her appearance conform to society's conventions. With her wide-apart eyes, arched brows and tawny complexion, she could have modeled for a skincare line, and in fact, later capitalized on these assets by shooting a makeup tutorial for "Vogue."

(END AUDIO CLIP)

CARLSON: She could have been a model for a skincare line, and that is why she is such an amazing political leader, because she is so pretty. Imagine a man saying that. It would probably be considered patronizing if not grounds for cancellation. But "New York" Magazine isn't ashamed to objectify Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, it makes you wonder what would happen if one day she gained a hundred pounds and got eczema on her nose and forgot to trim her ear hair?

Well, you know what would happen. Her political influence would evaporate instantly. She is not the leader of an ideological movement, she is a living marketing campaign. Here she is selling cosmetics.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OCASIO-CORTEZ: I really like starting to blend with my fingers, and then I'll go in afterwards and polish it off. I've been lately playing with a lot of eyeshadows.

I go in with a little kind of a lighter color, and I just wash it all over my lid. I tried the shimmer and it looks fire. It looks good.

Whenever you see me wearing a red lip, most of the time, it's this one. And again, I start small and I start working my way out. Voila.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So make it as a process. You know you start small and then you work your way up, concentric circles. That's the way she uses cosmetics. We have to admit, she seems pretty good at it. Painting her own face maybe her one real skill, but something useful, that's a different story.

Watch this CNN account of her attempt to assemble her own Ikea furniture.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OCASIO-CORTEZ: Oh shoot. Five-second rule. Hey, everyone --

JEANNE MOOS, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: She was munching popcorn, sipping white wine, and assembling furniture on Instagram Live.

OCASIO-CORTEZ: All right, what am I doing here?

MOOS: AOC moved into her Washington apartment three months ago, but she's been too busy to furnish it.

OCASIO-CORTEZ: Did I do this wrong? Boom. I did it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Obviously, there are a lot of self-involved people in politics, all of them pretty much, but it takes a special kind of narcissist to imagine that the world desperately wants to see you bolt together a particle board coffee table, but "New York" Magazine can't get enough of it. Here is their account of what you just saw.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

MCCASKILL (voice over): On this night, and again during another session assembling Ikea furniture in July, she shone a bright light on her own complicated, multifaceted self.

In that video, Ocasio-Cortez looks thin, her trousers sag. She is wearing her glasses and her hair is up in a sloppy just about to wash my face bun. She is wearing an old moto jacket and is sitting on the floor of her unfurnished apartment eating a bowl of popcorn and drinking a glass of wine.

For dessert, she has a small pack of fruit snacks, sent to her in bulk by Roberts's mother.

She has no agenda, nothing in particular to get off her chest. It really as if she were exhausted and wanting to talk. "I'm alone today," she says pointedly at the camera.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

CARLSON: Imagine if you were the person who wrote that. So, here's this crazed solipsist filming herself as she puts together a coffee table and eats popcorn, okay, the least compelling film made since Andy Warhol died, and this is what you call it, "She shone a bright light on her own complicated, multifaceted self." That's the moment you have to be honest with yourself and say it is time for me to retire.

By the way, the person who wrote this didn't even perceive how creepy it was. "I'm alone today," Ocasio-Cortez says pointedly at the camera.

Is it just us or does that sound like an invitation to a booty call? Maybe one step from what are you wearing? By the way, it is a little strange. It's definitely oversharing. And yet, according to the book, oversharing is the key to Sandy Cortez's success.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

MCCASKILL (voice over): She offered the reassuring warmth of Oprah, the fire and brimstone of Jonathan Edwards; the inspiration of John F. Kennedy, the intimacy of an FDR Fireside Chat. It was exhausting and reassuring and scary and comforting and extremely weird.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

CARLSON: The intimacy of an FDR Fireside Chat. Sure, except that FDR never told us about his skincare regimen. Somehow, he was able to win the Second World War anyway. You wonder how he did that. You also wonder what brand of concealer he used.

Sadly, there was no Instagram then, so, the details have been lost to history. Thank heaven, we know what Sandy Cortez uses.

Chadwick Moore is a columnist for "The Spectator U.S.A." and we're always happy to have him on our show. Chadwick, thanks so much for coming.

I know we're all a little self-involved, of course, and social media make us more self-involved. But it does seem like Sandy Cortez is a kind of living example of what could happen if you didn't get out of Lake Mead before you drowned.

CHADWICK MOORE, COLUMNIST, "THE SPECTATOR U.S.A.": Well, the book is called "Take Up Space" and Sandy Cortez is a failed theater kid, and one thing about failed theater kids is they just kind of tend to take up space, to be honest, so it is aptly named.

But when you're reading it, I was -- personally, I was shocked when I read it. I heard about the book and when I actually peeked into the pages I had -- I was very shocked by what I saw inside until I realized who it is written for and who it is written by, and it is this strange cult of people that they're not really people, but journalists, right.

And for journalists, AOC is a sort of Christ-like figure, they compare her to Christ. She is like the second coming of Christ, but not Christ because they worship some multi breasted voodoo witch doctor god. But when you read it, it's like gospel. It's like a testament.

It's witnessing and the comparison is you know, Christ came to us through the Virgin birth; Sandy came to us through an NGO. Christ is resurrected, Sandy was insurrected from several buildings away from the Capitol that day. She almost won a Science Fair, she came in second place that's almost like turning water into wine.

So when you -- you have to really approach this book, from an anthropological study of the people writing it, this tribe of people known as the Brooklyn journalist, and you really learn a lot about their creation myths, about their worldview, and how they see things just by taking apart --

Look at this, one thing I really loved about this book is they have a whole section called "The Art of the Dunk." So someone at "New York" Magazine discovered this word dunk, and they feature a bunch of AOC's tweets. And what they do is they take the tweets, and they dissect them with lines and numbers, and they explain how each part of the tweet is successful in the effective dunk AOC has.

And they say the left can't meme, but I don't understand. They tend to think about meme-ing a lot and they even have diagrams about meme-ing. So it's quite amazing.

CARLSON: So I can't believe I used to work at "New York" Magazine. They were serious people then, it would be my defense. You for years were a journalist in Brooklyn. Were the other journalists you knew in Brooklyn as hysterical, neurotic, and personally unhappy as Sandy Cortez so clearly is?

MOORE: Yes, they were, but at the time it was bottled up, okay. There was a lid on things, and you could always see it like it was boiling under the surface. They are always miserable people, everyone I worked with in liberal media, for sure.

And you didn't really see it come out in the way that you did after really, Donald Trump came along and they really haven't been able to put that back in. They just keep doing what they're doing now, and there is really no hope for them.

I feel bad for a lot of them. It's kind of sad to watch, but it was always there for sure. They just didn't -- they had more control over it, I think and they were more ashamed of it back then.

CARLSON: Right. I think that's -- I think that's right, and now with Freudian psychiatry dead, they have no one to talk to, but Instagram. That's what they are telling us all. Chadwick Moore, great to see you tonight. Thank you so much.

MOORE: Thanks. My pleasure.

CARLSON: So we did it. We fell for it. We took the bait. We opened the show with Sandy Cortez. We are as frivolous as she is, but it felt good. We feel better.

Now to the real news, Justin Trudeau continuing to crackdown on human rights in Canada. Protesters arrested, bank accounts frozen. The finances of people who disagree with Justin Trudeau stolen. Police tonight blocking in the truckers.

We will have the very latest from Canada.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: We've been telling you all week the Justin Trudeau has ended democracy in Canada, but here's the thing, he actually did.

Canada is no longer run with the consent of the governed, far from it. Justin Trudeau declared martial law. He has given himself the power to end the freedom of assembly. He has seized private bank accounts and crypto wallets. He now reserves the right to control all money in the nation of Canada.

Meanwhile, his state broadcaster, the CBC, has been targeting anyone who criticizes him specifically donors to the truckers protesting vaccine mandates. They're now under attack by state media.

Authorities in Ottawa have announced plans to steal the pets of truck drivers and euthanize them if the drivers are, quote, "unable to care for their animals as a result of enforcement actions." We're going to kill your dog.

In the face of all of that, demonstrators nevertheless remained in Ottawa. That's their legal right under Canada's charter. They were not damaging property. They weren't hurting anyone. They were protesting the obvious tyranny of their government, which again, is their right in Canada and the right of any citizen in a free society.

In response, this morning, Justin Trudeau ordered a violent crackdown on them. Thousands of police officers in tactical gear marched into Ottawa, if it looks like something out of Belarus, it is, but it is happening right here in North America.

When they arrived downtown, the police shattered truckers' windows and dragged the drivers away. They kneed several demonstrators in the head. At one point this afternoon, horses begin trampling Canadians as they protested.

You're seeing them fudging on your screen right now. The horses ran over several demonstrators including a woman on a mobility scooter. Reportedly, one man had a heart attack in the face of all of this, at least one. Instead of helping, the police stood around him.

This kind of violence sponsored by Justin Trudeau continued all day. Police repeatedly tackled Canadians, arrested them for the act of protesting. Journalists for the act of filming it on camera. Here's just one example.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is disgusting. Disgusting.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh my God.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh my God.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They are now attacking older people.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Disgusting.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So here's the definition of tyranny. It's oppressing your own citizenry, ignoring the most basic standards of human rights, and then preventing the rest of the world from seeing what you're doing and that is exactly what Justin Trudeau has done. He's ordered police to target independent media. There aren't many in Canada, they are the only reason we know what's happening there tonight, but that's exactly what Trudeau's forces have been doing.

Today, they threatened a FOX News camera crew in jail. A Rebel News reporter was thrown to the ground. Police also arrested the livestreamer ZOT, someone whose footage we've been using for two weeks now. They arrested him while he was recording. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I already told you, okay. This is your last warning.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are not going by here, okay. If I tell you again, you are going to be arrested.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Okay.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is your last warning.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Okay.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go on the other side of the road if you want to film.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can I go that way?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can't go that way unless you were first down that way. You are under arrest.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For what?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You came out of here, now, it's your problem.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So where is our State Department on this? This is our closest ally in the world. Canada is one of our biggest trading partners. We share a border of 5,500 miles with Canada. So what happens in Canada is a deep concern to the U.S. government.

Our State Department exists to wag its finger in the faces of foreign governments and lecture them about human rights. The Joe Biden State Department has said not a word. We called them today to see if they had any reaction at all to the suspension of civil liberties in Canada and they didn't, they refused to condemn any of it or even comment.

So the lawless crackdown you just saw going on in Canada right now will have consequences for all of us because Trudeau has not just ended freedom of assembly and speech arresting journalists, as part of his emergency authority, Trudeau also gave himself the power to control all money in Canada, seize the bank accounts and crypto wallets of private citizens. On what basis? We don't know. He just asserted it.

His Deputy Prime Minister has announced those seizures are in progress now. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRYSTIA FREELAND, CANADIAN DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER: The names of both individuals and entities, as well as crypto wallets have been shared by the RCMP with financial institutions, and accounts have been frozen and more accounts will be frozen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So when you imagine tyranny, you imagine people being loaded into some sort of transport to go to a camp. But this is 2022, tyranny looks a little different now.

Tyranny is when they take all your money and you have no power whatsoever and that's exactly what Trudeau's government is doing to anyone who dissent. They're targeting crypto exchanges. That's where people keep their cryptocurrency, so they convert it quickly into cash.

Money on those exchanges is no longer safe, defeating the whole point of cryptocurrency. Jesse Powell is the CEO of the crypto exchange, Kraken, just wrote that Canada quote: "A hundred percent will force his company to freeze assets without judicial consent."

Again, lawlessly, they are just doing it. He added this, quote: "If you're worried about it, don't keep your funds with any centralized regulated custodian. We cannot protect you." You almost never hear businesses telling customers we can't protect you. That's honest.

So what are the criteria here? On what basis are Canadian authorities raiding currency platforms and seizing digital currencies? Well, Canada's so called Justice Minister explained the criteria the other day. He announced that Canada's government doesn't need a Court Order in order to take all of your money, here is the standard.

If you've ever supported Donald Trump, then you can lose access to your bank accounts. Your political views will determine whether you have any money at all. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID LAMETTI, CANADIAN JUSTICE MINISTER: Well, I think if you are a member of you know, a pro-Trump movement who is donating hundreds of thousands of dollars and millions of dollars to this kind of thing, then you ought to be worried.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So again, without becoming hysterical about it, we cannot overstate the importance of what we're watching right here. It is a preview.

Canada is not the last country in which this will happen, in which a neoliberal government will become a fascist government overnight, while smiling and talking about diversity.

You should know the Biden administration once again has not condemned this. In fact, they're emulating it. The White House is currently right now preparing to release an executive order on cryptocurrency that could come as soon as next week.

According to Yahoo, the plan is for the Federal government to quote, "... come up with a government-wide strategy to regulate digital assets." The F.B.I., meanwhile, has just formed a new unit quote, "Focused on digital asset seizure and blockchain based law breaking."

Now what does that mean? What we're learning from Canada, blockchain based lawbreaking means that you donated money to a cause the government doesn't like. For instance, against vaccine mandates, and the State Department has no problem with that at all.

So what does this mean for our financial system? If you ran a big bank, you'd be very concerned about this. Once the government announces they can zero out people's bank balances, if they don't like their Twitter feeds, people tend not to trust banks, you can get bank runs. They understand that. There is a lot of volatility ahead. This is a scary moment.

Marty Bent is the founder of "Tales from the Crypto," a Bitcoin podcast. He joins us tonight to explain. Marty, thanks so much for coming on. I don't think I've ever seen anything like this and it is easy to play the tape of people getting run over by horses, but the idea they could just seize your digital currency strikes me as a very big deal.

MARTY BENT, FOUNDER, "TALES FROM THE CRYPTO": Well, first of all, thanks for having me on, Tucker. But yes, they can only seize your digital currency or Bitcoin if you're holding it on an exchange like you mentioned, it's much harder for them to seize it if you're in control of your Bitcoin by holding your own private keys, which is the beauty and the importance of Bitcoin as a monetary revolution. It allows you to actually control your money. It is a digital bearer instrument, it is digital cash.

So as long as people are taking control of their own private keys, it's significantly harder to stop the spread of Bitcoin and prevent people from sending transactions.

CARLSON: Without getting too technical here and thank you for saying that, so the promise of cryptocurrency is still in place that you can operate transactionally without government oversight. How complicated is it not to use an exchange, but to hold the keys for yourself? Could the average person do something like that?

BENT: Yes, it's very easy. I mean, there's plenty of mobile apps that can go download, whether it be Blue Wallet, Green Wallet, you can find those in your iOS stores or Android apps. These are open source wallets that anybody can download and easily create private keys in their Bitcoin from an exchange directly to a wallet. They can back up their wallet with 12 words, that if they were able to memorize them, theoretically, they could walk around with their Bitcoin in their heads.

So it's very simple to access these software that enables you to take control of your Bitcoin and actually custody it yourself.

CARLSON: I mean, you've got to think, if they are zero out people's bank accounts for political reasons, there's going to be a rush to cryptocurrency. I mean, in one sentence, do you expect that? Do you expect crypto to become more popular after this?

BENT: I think certainly we've seen the actions by the Canadian government wake people up like, oh, if they can do this to our bank accounts for protesting about civil liberties, like how far will they go to stop us from transacting using the traditional system?

And so I think over the last few weeks, people are really beginning to recognize the beauty of Bitcoin and the utility it provides as a distributed network that nobody can control as long as you're controlling your own Bitcoin and you have those words written down secured, you have the freedom to control your money.

CARLSON: Which is, it turns out the core freedom. Marty Bent, thanks so much for that explanation. Good to see you.

BENT: Good to see you too, Tucker. Thank you.

CARLSON: So we learned last month that our closest ally in the world, obviously is Ukraine. I think there is a warm place in the heart of every American for Ukraine whose borders are far more important than ours and we've been hearing that any day now, Russia is going to invade our closest ally, Ukraine.

The President is telling us that again, it is for real this time. We've got details.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: So for days, media outlets in this country repeated claims by the Biden administration and told us that Russia was going to invade Ukraine on Wednesday, February 16th, which was two days ago, no invasion. Today, Joe Biden did not address that disinformation that came from his administration, instead, he said he is certain Putin is going to invade Ukraine any day now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We have reasonably the Russian forces are planning to and intend to attack Ukraine in the coming week -- in the coming days. We believe that they will target Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, a city of 2.8 million innocent people.

We're calling out Russia's plans loudly and repeatedly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Now, no reporter asked the obvious question, which is why is this a deep concern to America? Why is that more important than inflation or homelessness or fentanyl or our border? No one asked that. But some did ask why we can trust Biden's assessment when all his previous assessments were wrong. Here was his answer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: And do you have any indication about whether President Putin has made a decision on whether to invade? Do you feel confident that he hasn't made that decision already?

BIDEN: As of this moment, I'm convinced he's made the decision. We have reason to believe that.

QUESTION: You are convinced that President Putin is going to invade Ukraine, is that what you just said a few moments ago?

BIDEN: Yes, I do. Yes.

QUESTION: What reason do you have to believe he is considering that option at all?

BIDEN: We have a significant Intelligence capability.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: "We have significant Intelligence," just trust us. I mean, maybe they're right. We have no idea. Maybe Russia is invading right now.

The point is, why is this the President's central concern? They are so deeply worried about Ukraine's territorial integrity. Meanwhile, we don't even have a border. It's wide open.

U.S. border authorities reported 154,000 encounters with illegal aliens at the border in January, in one month. That's almost doubled in our encounters from January of last year.

Now many of these illegal aliens are flying commercial aircraft at your expense around the country to be resettled again at your expense in places where no one's consent has been even requested. Amazing.

Todd Bensman is the author of "America's Covert Border War." We're happy to have him join us tonight. Todd, thanks so much for coming on. So give us a sense of the scale of this. It just seems historic.

TODD BENSMAN, AUTHOR, "AMERICA'S COVERT BORDER WAR": Well, 154,000 in a single month is unacceptably high. You mentioned that it has doubled from January from last year, but the year before that January it was 36,000 just to give you an idea.

The numbers totally are about two million for just one year, the last -- the first year of the Biden administration and this is directly on his shoulders. It was his policies that set this thing off, and I think anybody should forget that.

There is something interesting about these numbers, though 154,000, they are declining, month by month. The peak of this, what I call the Biden border crisis was in July at 219,000. Last month, it was 178,000, and so the numbers do seem to be kind of creeping down and there might be a few good reasons for that, some interesting explanations for that as well, one of which is that the Biden administration is looking at these poll numbers, terrible polling for the midterm elections and they are ordering up some pretty trumpian kind of deterrence based policies like air deportation flights.

Very significant numbers of Guatemalan women and children, they are flying all the way back to the tarmac in Guatemala, and also in Honduras, and El Salvador, and they just restarted air repatriation flights to Haiti, and I think that maybe there's a chance that, you know that those are radioactive to migrants who are coming up.

Nobody wants to cross the border, spend a whole bunch of smuggling money if they think that they're going to be heading all the way back to square one. It is a possibility.

CARLSON: Yes. Well, if you made them cool their heels in Tijuana indefinitely, that might be even a greater deterrent, I would think. You know, but what do I know?

Todd Bensman, great to see you. Thank you.

So one upside of the coronavirus pandemic obviously, it destroyed American education, but it gave parents a chance to see exactly what was going on in their kid's classroom. Bottom line, there's never been a better time for homeschooling. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: We opened this hour with breaking news on Sandy Cortez, so obviously we are the show to go to if you're looking for what's happening in the world of pop stars. Now, there is news tonight from Nicki Minaj.

Trace Gallagher joins us. There is no one better to explain what it is. Hey, Trace.

TRACE GALLAGHER, FOX NEWS CHANNEL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Tucker. It is not often a public health department gets into Twitter battle with a celebrity or anyone for that matter, but here we go.

This week, Nicki Minaj who has been outspoken about not taking the vaccine tweeted quoting: "Nothing like watching someone speak confidently about something they know nothing about." The Philadelphia Department of Health thought it was important to call out Minaj by reminding everyone of her tweet from last September, where she stated her cousin in Trinidad had a friend who got vaccinated, became impotent with swollen testicles, then told everyone to pray on their vaccination decision, and quote, "Make sure you are comfortable with your decision and not bullied."

She didn't say don't get it or that she wouldn't take it, she said pray on it. But the Department of Health included a wide-eyed emoji which is a subtle way of saying Nicki doesn't know what she's talking about. You know, because health departments across the country have been spot on with this whole COVID thing.

Anyway, Nicki is now responding. Quoting again: "Philadelphia's public health account is posting Nicki Minaj tweets for engagement. They are attempting to shame people for advising others to pray, be comfortable, not be bullied. I've never seen a vaccine trigger this amount of shaming and fear tactics, have you?"

By the way she also retweeted somebody else who said because of the health department going after Nicki, they decided not to get the vaccine. Minaj wrote: "Good job, guys. You just convinced more people to not get the vaccine you want them to get. Yay." She said. We'll keep you up-to-date of the battle as it goes forward -- Tucker.

CARLSON: Amazing story. Trace Gallagher, thanks so much.

GALLAGHER: Yes.

CARLSON: People don't think or talk too much about architecture, about the way homes are designed, or even their towns are designed, but there is a reason that things are built the way they are. They're either pro human or they're anti-human. And unfortunately, so much of our architecture in our city planning is anti-human.

Andres Duany is one of the very few urban planners who thought deeply about architecture and planning that brings people together, that makes them happy. He founded the Congress for the New Urbanism. He's got a plan to build cities, where people might actually know each other once again. We had an amazing conversation with him on a brand new episode of "Tucker Carlson Today." Here's part of it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDRES DUANY, FOUNDER, CONGRESS FOR THE NEW URBANISM: The town plan, it really affects your life. Like for example, a kid that has to be driven everywhere is a kid with no freedom at all, you know?

CARLSON: Right.

DUANY: And an older person that no longer can drive is a prisoner, highly isolated. So we design our places that are walkable, above all walkable, where you can get to your daily needs by walking. You could have a car, but you don't have to use it.

And I think what makes America pretty awful is that the car is mandatory.

CARLSON: Yes.

DUANY: If you do not have a car, almost at an individual level, every individual has a car, you would literally starve to death in a couple of days, you know? And --

CARLSON: We're so used to that that we don't imagine there's an alternative.

DUANY: An alternative, yes, and yet, up to about 1950 before the cars were widespread and before everyone essentially had one, every place right across cultures you needed your daily needs within walking distance, it was absolutely normal. The Romans did it. The Chinese did it. Everybody did it. And then the car eradicated that discipline.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: You think we'd be thinking and talking a lot more than we are about how we actually live how our lives unfold. Andres Duany is one of the few who is and definitely one of the smartest. If you're interested on the topic, we recommend that conversation on FOX Nation.

So parents are voting at their School Boards, pulling their children out of public schools, they're doing it for a reason. They don't want their kids to be indoctrinated by crazy people.

Rachel Wilson is a homeschooling advocate who lives in a rural Midwest. She understands what's happening and the scale of it, she joins us tonight. Rachel, thanks so much for coming on.

So how big has homeschooling become in the face of the collapse of public education?

RACHEL WILSON, MOTHER: Thank you so much for having me on, Tucker. This pandemic, we are now two years into it, and homeschooling has increased fourfold from the beginning of the pandemic to last fall according to a U.S. census survey.

CARLSON: Wow.

WILSON: In addition to that -- yes -- the biggest that we've ever seen, and in addition to that, we're hearing data scientists tell us that a full 25 percent of all jobs in North America will be remote by the end of this year. So I don't think this trend is going anywhere.

And I think a lot more parents are going to be finding themselves at home a lot more often with their children, which I think is a wonderful silver lining to this situation. I don't think that anybody watching the show could say they're fully satisfied with how authority figures have handled this pandemic.

We see oligarchies around the world trying to institute a great reset and kind of remake society in their image. But the good thing is that what man intends for evil, God uses for good.

So we have a golden opportunity here, which is that the biggest demographic of people who have left the workforce and either stayed home or started working remotely are mothers of school aged children.

So we're in a special situation to take advantage of this and use it to our own benefit to kind of get away from sending our kids somewhere seven or eight hours a day to be indoctrinated by people who quite frankly, are enemies to a more traditional conservative or Christian way of life.

And instead of those people teaching our children, our morals, our culture, or values, we can go back to having parents and mothers teaching our kids those values.

CARLSON: I mean, what you described is beautiful, and they are avowed enemies of your family and of your children.

Very quickly, I think the main concern for a lot of people thinking about this is, well, will my kids grow up to be weird? I mean, are they socialized at all with no classmates?

WILSON: Right. People have a lot of concerns or worries when they think about homeschooling. Public education is actually kind of new. It's only really been the standard for about a century and prior to that, we had other ways of educating people.

So the good news I tell people is that it's really not that hard. You do not have to be an expert. You don't have to be a teacher, and you don't have to worry about not being able to socialize your kids either.

We have so many ways that we can do that now, especially with the internet, all the bad that comes with it, there is a lot of good, too. So we can get children into church, we can get them into intramural sports, and a lot of public schools also let kids do sports and band and things like that through the school as well.

CARLSON: Well, they should, you pay for them.

Rachel, thanks for joining us.

WILSON: Yes, exactly.

CARLSON: Also, you're a firearms instructor I should point out. Great to see you.

WILSON: Yes.

CARLSON: Thanks so much.

WILSON: Thank you.

CARLSON: Republicans almost defended their own voters last night, but then, four U.S. Senators decided to betray their voters. We will tell you they are, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Republicans in the Senate came so close to defending their voters for the first time in a long time. They could have blocked Joe Biden's vaccine mandates. They had a chance to pass that amendment last night. That's because several Democratic senators were absent and because the amendment was part of a must sign spending bill.

But the measure failed by one vote, 47 to 46. Why? Because four Republican senators didn't bother to show up.

They are Richard Burr of North Carolina, Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, Mitt Romney of Utah, and needless to say, needless to say, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Where were they? They were overseas at your expense because this isn't the first country on their priority list, Ukraine is what matters. So they refused to defend you, just so you know.

Have the best weekend with the ones you love. We'll be back here Monday, 8:00 PM Eastern. Have a great night.

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