Tucker: This may be the single thing that unites this country

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Tucker: This may be the single thing that unites this country

Fox News host reflects on Biden's upcoming State of the Union address on 'Tucker Carlson Tonight.'

This is a rush transcript of "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on March 1, 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.

In less than an hour, Joe Biden begins his Annual State of the Union Address.

Imagine if he dared to be honest about it. What would he say? What is the state of our union tonight? Well, in a word, it is fragile, very fragile.

The United States is poorer. It's more fearful. It's far less free than it was when Joe Biden became the President just 13 months ago.

Joe Biden inherited a divided country, a very divided country, and then he proceeded to make it much angrier. History will judge Joe Biden for that. But in the meantime, voters already are. Biden's poll numbers have dropped to the point that it's impossible to explain them without admitting that you're at fault.

It's not just unvaxxed Confederate QAnon seditionists who disapprove of Joe Biden at this point, much as the White House suggests, otherwise, it's pretty much everyone who lives here, apart from the bitter 50-something year old wives or private equity barons, they are skiing in Aspen right now and they still love Biden.

But everyone else has second thoughts, and that would include many Americans who once supported Joe Biden. It would include Hispanic voters, Independent voters, and an awful lot of Black men.

At this point, disliking Joe Biden, disapproving of his performance may be the single thing that unites this country. It is a rainbow coalition of disdain. So that's what Biden is up against tonight.

The question is, how does he explain his failures? And the answer is mostly he doesn't.

Biden is guaranteed to make sympathetic noises about inflation and gas prices. He has no choice, but to do that. But he also has no answers. He cannot fix the problems that he has caused.

Thankfully, from his perspective, and we're preparing you, this is very cynical, Biden now has a war to talk about. And of course, that's what he will do tonight.

The White House understands the invasion of Ukraine is a chance to change the subject. It is what Bloomberg News described today as a political reset.

So forget what Biden did to your country and your economy and your children's school, Joe Biden is Winston Churchill now. And by the way, Vladimir Putin is the one who is brain damaged. The C.I.A. can prove it.

We're about to hear a lot of that. How much of it can you believe? Well, some of it. Some of it is true. Vladimir Putin really did invade Ukraine. That really is bad. They're not just saying it.

Putin's invasion destabilizes Europe. Thanks to the recklessness of our leaders, we could wind up at war with Russia and that would be a legitimate disaster no matter what the outcome might be.

So that's what we know for certain. But beyond that, in the realm of any other detail, our advice is be very wary of what you hear. There is an awful lot of lying going on, an unprecedented amount of lying.

This war is a humanitarian tragedy, that we know, but the war is also a political event that various groups, including in this country are leveraging feverishly in the hope of gaining more power for themselves. That is real.

So to gain that power, they are manipulating you, the consumer of news and they are doing it in ways that are often hidden, and therefore highly insidious, and we would say immoral.

Much of the information about the war that you're ingesting uncritically has, in fact, been curated by the tech monopolies, and yes, by the Intel agencies, by the time it reaches your iPhone. Some of that information to restate is entirely real, some of it is fake.

So the question is, how do you know the difference? How do you know when you're being manipulated as you certainly are? Well, in our case, we always start with retired Colonel Doug Macgregor.

Unlike so many of the TV Generals you see, all day long Macgregor is not angling for a Board seat at Raytheon. Unlike so many of the so-called reporters you see on television, he is not acting secretly as a flak for Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon. No, Doug Macgregor is an honest man.

So we're going to start in place of a long script tonight with a conversation with Doug Macgregor about what is actually going on in Ukraine, and we're honored to do that.

Doug Macgregor, thank you for joining us.

COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR (RET), U.S. ARMY: Sure.

CARLSON: So the first question is, where are we now? We keep hearing these reports about a Russian convoy coming into the capital city, et cetera, et cetera. But big picture, where is the war as of tonight?

MACGREGOR: Well, the first five days, we witnessed a very slow, methodical movement of Russian forces into eastern Ukraine. That is Ukraine -- the third of Ukraine, which is on the eastern side of this river, called the Dnieper. They move slowly, cautiously. They try to reduce casualties among the civilian population, tried to give as many Ukrainian troops and forces as possible the opportunity to give up, to surrender.

That is over, and the phase in which we find ourselves now, Russian forces have now maneuver to encircle and surround the remaining Ukraine forces and destroy them, through a series of massive rocket artillery strikes, airstrikes with Russian armor then slowly, but surely closing the distance and annihilating what's left.

So this is a -- this is the beginning, frankly of the end of Ukrainian resistance.

CARLSON: So the ugly stuff is just beginning.

MACGREGOR: Yes.

CARLSON: Okay. So this is a question you don't often hear asked, but it is essential to our welfare here in the United States, to our strategic thinking about this: What is Putin's goal here? What's his aim?

MACGREGOR: Well, I think Vladimir Putin set out to honor his word of 2007.

In 2007 at the Munich Security Conference, he said: We will not tolerate the expansion of NATO to a point where your NATO, your border, is touching Russia, specifically Ukraine and Georgia. We see these as essentially Trojan horses for NATO's military power and U.S. influence, subversion and so forth.

He then turned to several opportunities to reinforce that over and over and over again, most recently with President Biden in the hopes that he could avoid taking action to effectively clean out eastern Ukraine of any opposition forces whatsoever, and to put his forces in a position vis-a-vis NATO to deter us from any further attempts to influence or change Ukraine into effectively a platform for the projection of U.S. and Western power into Russia.

Now, his goal, as we see it, at the moment, is to seize this entire area of eastern Ukraine. That's pretty clear. He is going to roll up to that river, up near Kyiv, he has actually moved over the river and is preparing to go in and capture that city entirely.

At that point, he has to decide what else he wants to do. I don't think he wants to go any further west. I think he'd be very satisfied to hold that point. But he would like whatever emerges from this that we call Ukraine, whether it's just the western side or it encompasses some of the east and the west of Ukraine to be neutral, non-aligned, and preferably friendly to Moscow, that he will accept. Anything short of that, his war has been a waste of time.

CARLSON: How should the United States respond at this point?

MACGREGOR: Well, I think President Biden and Sullivan, his National Security Adviser have already given some indication of their readiness to accept something like that. They're not going to have any choice. Either they accept it or then they put him in the position of having to do more than he would like to do, which would probably not go down well with NATO.

No one really wants Russian forces on their border, least of all Poland.

CARLSON: Right.

MACGREGOR: So I think Sullivan and Biden will essentially tell Zelensky, if he is still the President at that point and if he is still running any semblance of the Ukrainian government, which is largely collapsing now. If he is still there, he is going to be told accept the deal, go neutral, because there really is no choice.

CARLSON: You are hearing elements in the United States Congress, it is almost unanimous in the media, calling on the Biden administration to enforce a so-called no fly zone over Ukraine. What would be the effect of that?

MACGREGOR: Well, you end up at war with Russia because the Russians are not going to allow Western aircraft, U.S. aircraft flying over the battlefield in eastern Ukraine under any circumstances.

And Stoltenberg, the Secretary General of NATO flew to Poland to stop the Poles from essentially offering MiG-29 aircraft that were improved and modernized to the Ukrainians, allowing their pilots to come to Poland, fly these into Ukraine. He put a stop to it saying anything like that could lead to war, and NATO will not go to war.

And see, this is the interesting part. Now, everyone is talking about spending lots of money on defense and lots of money for NATO. But very shortly, people are going to begin to ask why? Why are we doing it? Because it's patently obvious that NATO is not in a position to fight, not in a position to challenge the Russians.

So I think Mr. Biden's problem tonight is not just his narrative, it is going to break down very rapidly over the next few days, as it becomes obvious that this whole Ukraine business was a fantasy on his part. He is going to end up trying to write checks that he can't cash because we can't afford a massive military buildup. We can't afford to put more forces forward.

And if we tried to do it, it will be self-defeating.

So I think we're in a real crisis now that no one has really, really figured out yet, and that is NATO itself in our position on the European continent, all of this is now at risk.

CARLSON: I think a lot of people were taken by surprise by this invasion. I'll admit that I was also, not that, of course, we're experts on Eastern Europe. But the President and his team had said for weeks in effect, we've got this under control. We have applied enough pressure on the Russians that would be very unwise for them to do this. That was a massive miscalculation, obviously. How did they screw up?

MACGREGOR: Well, two things. I think that Mr. Putin has priced in the cost. In other words, he is not a fool. He sat down with Xi in Beijing and made it very clear what he was going to do, what his goals were in eastern Ukraine and only eastern Ukraine initially.

And I think he got the conditions he wanted from Xi, of support and assistance through this process because he knew what we would try to do to him. We would try to destroy Russia financially, economically, in whatever way we can.

CARLSON: So we've just created like a real alliance between Russia and China or in any effect there now is one at some point.

MACGREGOR: Oh, a real strategic partnership. There's no question about it, because China needs Russia in order to secure Central Asia and all the routes to Europe. China wants to do business with Europe. That's why the Chinese would like Mr. Putin to end this quickly. But Putin insisted on those first five days slowing things down, because he wanted to minimize damage to property and he wanted to minimize the loss of life particularly upon in the population that he was trying to bring into effectively a new Ukraine that is Russian. He has essentially discarded that now.

CARLSON: So I just want to be absolutely clear on this point, because a lot hangs on it. So many of our leaders are beholden to Russia, have gotten rich from Russia. Joe Biden's family, Nancy Pelosi family, I mean, pick one, they all have.

MACGREGOR: Yes.

CARLSON: Putin would not have been able to do what he did, invade Ukraine, without the support of China. It sounds like what you're saying.

MACGREGOR: I think that's absolutely true. If China had not reassured him, we will stay the course with you. I doubt seriously that he would be doing this now.

CARLSON: So since everyone is in moral outrage mode, and screaming the F word at each other on Twitter, I wonder why China is not included in their outrage.

MACGREGOR: Well, that's an important question that deserves a great answer, but I'm going to let you take that one on, I'm not going to go there tonight.

CARLSON: Doug Macgregor, a man you can believe. It is a commodity in short supply right now. We appreciate it. Thank you.

MACGREGOR: Thank you.

CARLSON: We've got a FOX News Alert for you.

There is apparently some movement in Washington. President Biden, of course, preparing to head from the White House to the Capitol building for tonight's State of the Union address.

At this hour in Ukraine, by the way, it's just past three in the morning, explosions and sirens continue across the capital city of Kyiv. FOX's Trey Yingst is on the ground there with the latest footage coming out of Ukraine -- Trey.

TREY YINGST, FOX NEWS CHANNEL CORRESPONDENT: Tucker, good evening.

We've seen escalation across this country today, not only here in the capital of Kyiv, but also Kharkiv, the second largest city where two Russian cruise missiles slammed into a government administrative building on a big square killing at least six people and injuring many others.

The scenes really looking apocalyptic as first responders entered the building, trying to look for survivors, and it wasn't just in these large population centers, but also more rural areas.

In the southern part of Ukraine, a warehouse fire at a furniture factory in the southern part of the country, and all of these coming together as the Russian offensive does appear to be expanding outside of military targets, also hitting some residential areas. We saw in Kyiv today the Ukrainian capital, a TV tower that was targeted. Five people there died according to local health ministers.

This all really bubbling up at the same time though, Tucker, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is doubling down asking the West for more defensive weapons in the form of a javelin, anti-tech missile, stinger missiles and even anti-aircraft batteries that could be used to repel these sorts of attacks.

The last attack though, came in the southern part of the country where shelling increased near Crimea. There was a woman who spoke about this. I just want you to take a listen to what she had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There is now blood. (Speaking in foreign language.)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YINGST: You can hear there some frustration among people and fear as these attacks continue to take place. And here in the capital of Kyiv, martial law is underway, a curfew and there are checkpoints across the city -- Tucker.

CARLSON: Be careful. Trey Yingst for us tonight from Kyiv. Thank you.

As we told you, the President appears to be moving or about to depart for his State of the Union, moving from the White House to the Capitol building.

Police have re-installed the fence around the Capitol, the one that went up after January 6th. FOX's Kevin Corke is in Washington with the latest report on what the city is like tonight -- Kevin.

KEVIN CORKE, FOX NEWS CHANNEL WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Tucker.

Capitol Hill Police, as you point out have in fact brought back the barricades that they erected in the wake of the protests on January the 6th, as Federal authorities now claim that they expect a trucker convoy to converge here in the nation's capital in protest of COVID-19 restrictions, and so that's their reasoning for once again, erecting the barricades.

However, to be sure, the return of these barricades is an unwelcome reminder of what many critics labeled a gross overreaction to the events of the Capitol back in January, one that by the way, lasted for months.

Of course, it is back again and so are National Guard personnel from around the country, Tucker, however, that does not include the State of Florida.

Governor Ron DeSantis flat out denied Mr. Biden's request for troops noting that last year, his Guardsmen were forced to sleep in freezing parking lots, all for a, quote, "regime spectacle," which is certainly one way to describe what we're seeing here, again, in the nation's capital on a State of the Union night unlike any we have ever seen before -- Tucker.

CARLSON: Kevin Corke, thanks so much.

CORKE: You bet.

CARLSON: So we said that the President will speak about Ukraine to some great extent, and of course, he will. He will announce banning Aeroflot from American airports or whatever. But it's not the only thing that he's going to talk about because he has no choice. Inflation is increasingly a feature of life in this country, prices are rising faster than they have in 40 years.

Gas prices, for example, are higher they've been in a decade.

But today, Nancy Pelosi we should note is completely insulated from any economic variation of whatsoever. Her family haven't gotten rich from China told us that you should not be worried because Joe Biden feels your pain.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): The kitchen table concerns about paying the bills, whether it's food, rent, credit card bills, the education of their children, their retirement, whatever it is, the same kinds of issues that keep people up at night and affect their opinion as to what the state of the nation is.

But there is no one more empathetic than Joe Biden. There is no one who cares more.

We are so blessed that he is President at this time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Kitchen table concerns. Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden have kitchen table concerns. When was the last time they were at a kitchen table without servants present? I'm guessing, decades, anyone? Anyone?

They'll say anything they feel they need to say.

Ned Ryun is the CEO of American Majority. He will only say what he believes is true and that is why we are happy to have him in studio tonight.

Ned Ryun, thank you so much.

NED RYUN, FOUNDER AND CEO, AMERICAN MAJORITY: Good to be with you.

CARLSON: So the hyenas in the media, and I will call them that, the hyenas in the media, people who encourage conflicts that will never touch them.

RYUN: Right.

CARLSON: Whether it's abroad, or here, whether it's BLM riots or war in Ukraine, are telling you that you should be much more concerned about what is happening in Eastern Europe, which I will say is clearly tragic.

RYUN: Right.

CARLSON: But there are a lot of tragedies here, and one of them, for a lot of Americans is being a lot poorer than they expected to be.

RYUN: That's right.

CARLSON: So how does Joe Biden address the degradation of the American economy over the last 13 months?

RYUN: He can't. I mean, this is the thing. They are fully committed to these policies. This is intentional. And I described the Biden administration as being a collision of bad monetary policy with bad energy policy resulting in an explosion of inflation.

CARLSON: Yes. Yes.

RYUN: Forty-year highs, and I think what he is going to try and do tonight is basically blame some of the Ukrainian situation on increased energy prices, when in fact, that's a lie, among many of the lies that I think will be told tonight.

Crude oil doubled in price weeks before the Ukrainian situation under Joe Biden. Natural gas increased by 75 percent weeks before Russia invaded. This is all due to bad energy policy. I think he's also going to try tonight to say that his climate bill is somehow anti-inflation, which is absolutely ludicrous. That will save the American family on average, $500.00 a year in the fine print in 2030.

The American people deserve relief now, but they're not going to get it from the Biden administration. And I tell people, if you really want to know how this is going to play out, look at Germany. Germany tried this 20 years ago. In 2000, they committed: We are going to do renewable energies. We're going to commit to this. They've spent almost $600 billion, and as a result, the German people are paying twice as much for electricity now, three times as much as any American family. And oh, by the way, they're having to actually get 55 percent of their natural gas from Russia.

So the Biden approach to all of this is: Let's increase our energy prices while making us less energy dependent. There are no real solutions for the American people in any of these plans.

CARLSON: Well, especially since, as you point out in your first sentence, the Fed has driven so much of this. I mean, they've printed so much money, they were like Scrooge McDuck phase where they were just like rolling around in a swimming pool full of dollars, which by definition are worth less, so why doesn't anyone ever say that?

RYUN: No, I mean, it's all monetary policy as Friedman so famously said, but essentially, we've been throwing free money out of helicopters keeping interest rate arbitrarily low. $1.9 trillion on the COVID Relief Plan and all of a sudden, you know, people are going: How did this happen? Well, it's pretty obvious how it happened. They have no solution.

But I keep on going back, Tucker. I'm conflicted. Is this a clown show led by an imbecile? Or is it, if you truly hate America, would you do anything differently? I mean, truly, would you do anything differently if you truly are head of the country?

CARLSON: Well, I know Susan Rice personally. She is not an imbecile. Whatever you think of Susan Rice, she is not stupid. So she's headed the Biden policy.

RYUN: That could be intentional then.

CARLSON: Well, it does sort of seem that way. I wonder, like in the end, and I think people are upset. I'm upset watching the images out of Ukraine. I mean, they are horrible, watching civilians suffer, which is always a byproduct of every war no matter what they lie to you right, that's true.

RYUN: That's true.

CARLSON: However, you've got to think like, over time, like maybe next week, people are going to say: Yes, that's so sad, I am not sure we can fix it. But what about our country? When does that start to reemerge?

RYUN: I mean, that's the whole reason why Donald Trump won in the first place. Because somebody actually stood up and said, you know, we should probably focus on the American people. The American people first and last in all things.

And I think our ruling class's establishment has decided we don't really care.

CARLSON: They don't care.

RYUN: The American people are not a priority for this ruling class, on any level, whether it's an energy policy, whether it's trade, whether it's immigration, whether it's foreign policy, it's an afterthought at best, the American people.

CARLSON: So, when Roger Wicker, stands up and says, let's have a Hot War with Russia.

RYUN: It's absolutely insane.

CARLSON: I think what you're really telling me is, I don't care about this country at all.

RYUN: No. And you can see this -- and the ruling class, when I say that it's both Republicans and Democrats.

CARLSON: Oh, I couldn't agree more.

RYUN: They have completely lost contact with the priorities of the American people. The whole premise of the American Republic was to prioritize the American people first and last in all things, and now, they're an afterthought.

And until the America First types, I think, get back into control of the commonsense approach on all fronts -- energy, immigration -- I think you're going to see more of these trends where the American people are going to be massively abused by these policies.

CARLSON: Yes, because it wouldn't take anything radical at all.

RYUN: No, it is commonsense.

CARLSON: Right. I know.

RYUN: You're going to see a rise of common sense. I think the American people had enough. When you see that Biden has 28 percent approval on inflation, he is at 23 percent with Independents, a lot of the American people are waking up and going, we don't think you have the solutions, we need commonsense again. That's all America First is. It's the triumph of commonsense.

CARLSON: Moderate, reasonable, pro-human. Like it's not hard. It's not hard.

RYUN: It's not.

CARLSON: Ned Ryun, appreciate you coming.

RYUN: Thank you.

CARLSON: Thank you.

Well, tonight, the President is expected to tout his nomination of one Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. He is going to tell us she is the most qualified nominee he could find. But that's not how he found her on the basis of qualifications.

By the way, every American wants to believe the Supreme Court nominees are the most qualified. That's embedded in our DNA, we want that.

But Biden didn't even start there. He said: I'm going to pick someone based on appearance, and this is the person I picked. So how should we feel about that?

Jonathan Turley is a legal scholar. He just authored a column pointing out that this is a bad way to pick a Supreme Court nominee. He joins us tonight.

Professor, thanks so much for coming on. I don't think of you as ideological in the slightest, or -- I don't even know what your politics are.

JONATHAN TURLEY, FOX NEWS CHANNEL CONTRIBUTOR: Thank you.

CARLSON: But is this the way that a president ought to pick the single most important appointee of his presidency?

TURLEY No, not the way he did it. You know, it's really striking how unnecessary this was, how unprecedented it was and how unfair it was to the nominee.

You know, he could have said, like, past presidents have said that he would like an African-American or a woman on the Court, but he expressly said that he would consider no one else, except people that fit that threshold criteria.

And many in the press have misrepresented history on this. They said that previous Presidents did that. That's not true.

Reagan, Trump, Bush that they cite, all had short lists that were diverse, they stated their intention to find people to diversify the court, but they didn't do this threshold exclusion.

And what's ironic about it is that you couldn't do this type of threshold exclusion if you were a school or a business. The Supreme Court has declared that unconstitutional or unlawful.

Now, the reason it's unfair is that Judge Jackson is a remarkably accomplished jurist. She's been on the court for a long time. She has a stellar resume, a stellar reputation.

She didn't deserve this. This wasn't of her making, and I think she would have been on the short list without that type of threshold criteria.

CARLSON: So I think everything you said is not only reasonable, but also consistent with like the American ethic, in every way. So you said that in the column, and I believe you were, and I should just point out what's obvious to viewers, you're not any kind of ideological right-wing or anything, you were attacked for this?

TURLEY: Oh, well, I got a lot of criticism. You know, this is -- I'm just commenting about this nomination. You know, I pointed out that because she's a Trial Court Judge, for example, her many opinions aren't very useful in judging her judicial philosophy, because Trial Judges have to follow the precedent not just of the Supreme Court, but of the Court of Appeals, the vast majority of those columns are the typical -- I'm sorry, of those opinions are the typical things you get on the Trial Court. They resolve insular issues related to cases.

And the left -- many of the critics on the left were vociferous in saying well: How dare you? She has a lot of experience as a Judge something, that I readily accepted.

The fact is that we don't know a lot about her judicial philosophy. There are only a few of these opinions where she delves deeply into these issues. But also when she was an Appellate Judge, she declined to answer the question put to her whether she follows the type of living Constitution approach of many on the left.

And she said the reason she wouldn't do that is it wouldn't be appropriate because she has to follow the methodology of the Supreme Court. Well, that was really odd. You know, you have to follow the precedent of the Supreme Court, you're allowed to have your own judicial philosophy and past nominees have discussed it, including Justice Barrett, who discussed it at length.

So we're going to see how this unfolds in the confirmation process and how much we can learn about her view of judicial interpretation.

CARLSON: I mean, you've got to kind of -- look, I don't know her and I want to think the best because she is likely to be on the Supreme Court. But I have to ask you an honest question. If a President, maybe the next President said, I'm looking for a white guy between 50 and 60 for the Supreme Court. Jonathan Turley.

Would you feel patronized? I mean, would you accept that job? Or would you feel too patronized? Too diminished to accept?

TURLEY: Well, I think that's -- well, Tucker, I think that is part of the problem here because she didn't deserve this. She earned a right to be on the short list. She has a very accomplished background.

She has many people who just think the world of her, and this was done in a primary debate when Biden was told by Representative Clyburn that he wanted him to make this pledge. He walked out and made it. But he didn't say, I intend to look for an African-American woman. He instead said, I'm only going to consider African-American women.

And that's when many of us went "Whoa," you know, that's different from what has happened in the past.

CARLSON: Well, he has no fine motor skills, of course, left. Jonathan Turley, thank you for your analysis. I appreciate it.

TURLEY: Thank you.

CARLSON: So we think, though he may not know it, Joe Biden is about to emerge from that door and get in a car and drive to the Capitol to give us the State of the Union. He will declare a new war on terror. He already has, this one directed against American citizens.

He is expected to emphasize his efforts tonight. He will not mention people like Matthew Perna. Perna is a 37 year old man from Pennsylvania who walked inside the U.S. Capitol Building on January 6th. Police ushered him in. He didn't break anything. He didn't damage any property. He didn't hurt anyone.

He shouldn't have been there. But you judge.

For that crime, Joe Biden's D.O.J. hounded Perna for more than a year. Days ago, Perna finally committed suicide. You can read his obituary online if you feel like crying because it's that sad.

Julie Kelly knows his family. She has covered the story and so many like it and she joins us tonight.

Julie Kelly, thanks so much for coming on. This is one of the saddest stories I've read in a long time. Have I misstated it? I mean, it seems like this guy was ushered in by cops, technically shouldn't have been there, but he didn't do anything else that I know of, did he?

JULIE KELLY, "AMERICAN GREATNESS": Well, he really got caught up in this crowd that was going into a set of open doors in the Capitol. There were Capitol Police officers right there. This is in the D.O.J.'s charging documents. He didn't have a weapon. He didn't assault anyone. He didn't vandalize any property.

But for that, for over the past 13 months, he has been tormented not just by this Justice Department, by the D.C. District Court, and of course the news media, national and local news media.

His family said that he died of a broken heart. He was betrayed by the country that he loves, treated unfairly in this justice system, which of course he was.

To your point, he finally pleaded guilty to obstruction of an official proceeding. There was no official proceeding going on, three trespassing charges, two of which are based on a lie about Kamala Harris, and he thought he would spend maybe a few months in prison.

This D.O.J. though came back and wanted to throw the book at him and have him spend years in prison for spending about 20 minutes in the U.S. Capitol committing no violent crime, really doing nothing wrong, except being a Trump supporter.

CARLSON: And now he is dead. So this morning in the Republican Conference meeting, all the Republican Members of Conference meet occasionally together, one member burst into tears talking about the sadness of watching people die in Ukraine, which I'm not mocking. I mean, it's incredibly sad to watch it.

But I wonder how many Republican members have shed tears over this man's unnecessary death?

KELLY: I have only heard from two Congressman, Republican Congressmen, one woman and one man, you could probably guess who they are.

CARLSON: Yes, I can.

KELLY: Asking me about what happened to Matthew Perna. His family is absolutely devastated. This did not have to happen. But Tucker, this is a broader problem. This is destroying thousands of lives.

Matthew Perna as his lawyer told me was driven to the edge when he found out D.O.J. might seek as much as 71 months in prison for him, a man with no criminal record, college graduate, had a job, with a loving son, a patriotic American. He actually was a Bernie Sanders supporter before Trump.

And so ultimately, now, these people have blood on their hands. That's the bottom line.

CARLSON: I wonder if Liz Cheney cares. I mean, this man is dead. Does Liz Cheney care? She supports this. It'd be interesting to know. When she comes on the show, we could ask her.

But in the meantime, we're grateful that you came. Julie Kelly, thank you.

KELLY: Okay. Thanks, Tucker.

CARLSON: We've got a FOX News Alert for you.

We are hearing reports ahead of the State of the Union that Russian military are just outside Kyiv and could be ready to go in. We've been hearing that for more than a day. We don't know.

FOX's Bill Hemmer is at the big board to help us understand exactly what this looks like more capably than anyone else could. Bill Hemmer, good to see you.

BILL HEMMER, FOX NEWS CHANNEL ANCHOR: Try and figure it out, Tucker. Good to see you, too.

There are two stories I want to share with you, Tucker. One is the status for the Russian military. Where are they? What have they occupied? What have they taken? Everything in red here, north of the capital of Kyiv, along the western border with Russia here, in the Ukraine, they've taken that area.

They've held this area for the past eight years in Donbas, that's not new. Same with Crimea here. They have moved into the southern region of the country as well and they have held these territories. Now, they haven't taken any major cities just yet, but there is a pretty good battle as of five hours ago here in the southwest town called Kherson, so we are watching that throughout the night hour. That's one story right now, Tucker.

The other one you just mentioned. That's a convoy and what's the status of it? What's happening? I mean, this thing just runs forever, and to be honest with you, it hasn't been running anywhere for the last two days. Because if we look at this map here, it's been pretty much stationary. There is just a number of reasons that we can point to, but nobody really knows.

Let me show you what you're looking at here, Tucker. Here is the capital city, Kyiv down here. Here's the Antonov Airport, okay? This is about is about 20 miles direct flight there into the city, but everything you see north of there, Tucker, and this yellow line, this route that kind of jigs and jags, it is way up here to the town of Prymors'k that's 40 miles, okay?

All right, do you want to pop it in there and listen?

CARLSON: Obviously, Joe Biden getting into the Presidential limousine, armored. Look how thick those doors are, headed from the White House to the Capitol.

Now going back to Bill Hemmer.

HEMMER: And we'll see him in a couple minutes on the Hill, Tucker.

I just want to finish this little thing here, okay, because this could be a big deal. This could be where the entire war goes one way or the other. Now, we don't know why this convoy has stalled. Are they resupplying? Are they out of stocks? Are they regrouping? Or were they ordered to stop in place right here? We don't know.

But we do know at the moment that if that convoy were to move on the capital city of Kyiv, that country is going to see devastation it hasn't seen since the early 1940s.

So we'll wait on that and see what we get tomorrow. For two days, we have been waiting on this, and right now, Tucker, we do not know.

CARLSON: Bill Hemmer, thanks so much for that.

HEMMER: You bet.

CARLSON: We always appreciate the clarity.

So what's unknown, what is not at all clear is where this is going. We, of course know the war in Ukraine is a tragedy. It could be a complete historic disaster.

Our leaders don't seem too worried about that. Adam Kinzinger is all over Twitter calling for a Hot War with Russia. Seem reckless? Yes, it's insane.

But don't worry, Kamala Harris has been dispatched by the White House to keep things perfectly under control, and she is of course what we call at the State Department, an area expert. Here she is on a radio show today explaining what's happening in that part of the world. Listen.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

HOST: Break it down in layman's terms for people who don't understand what's going on and how can this directly affect the people the United States?

KAMALA HARRIS (D), VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So Ukraine is a country in Europe. It exists next to another country called Russia. Russia is a bigger country. Russia is a powerful country.

Russia decided to invade a smaller country called Ukraine. So basically, that's wrong.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

CARLSON: Cat in the hat does war in Eastern Europe.

Tulsi Gabbard is a far more sophisticated observer of the world. She's a former Member of Congress, currently in the U.S. Army Reserves and we are always honored to have her on our set.

Tulsi Gabbard, thanks so much for coming on.

TULSI GABBARD, FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE: Thank you.

CARLSON: So you've been saying almost alone, among people we have talked to you for literally years that a conflict with Russia could quickly become nuclear.

Are you satisfied that the people charged with preventing that historic disaster are capable of preventing that?

GABBARD: Not at all, and I think this clip that we just heard, is evidence of that. In a normal circumstance, that would be pretty funny to hear.

CARLSON: Yes, it would.

GABBARD: If the consequences were not so real, if the consequences were not so serious, and as Vice President Harris and President Biden have both said, she plays a key role in decision making in this White House.

We've heard Biden and now Jill Biden, First Lady Jill Biden both refer to her as President many times, and further pointing to the reality of how unqualified she and others within this administration are at this critical time where the world needs strong leadership, where the world is facing this prospect of potential nuclear war and nuclear disaster.

We are so far beyond the possibility of a new Cold War. We are hard and fast in a new Cold War with Russia. And as you mentioned, there are many people on Capitol Hill and others who are pushing for us to turn that Cold War into a hot war, which would propel us very quickly towards that prospect of nuclear war between the two world's nuclear powers.

CARLSON: What's missing in the equation here is any real input from the citizenry?

GABBARD: Exactly.

CARLSON: So you've been a soldier and a legislator, so just describe if you would like, what is democracy exactly? We are supposed to be defending it in other parts of the world, is it occurring here? Do we have a democratic process for going to war?

GABBARD: That right there is the heart of hypocrisy in everything that we are seeing here is that you have the Biden-Clinton foreign policy leading this whole thing saying, we have to go and do this to promote or defend democracy abroad, and yet, it is their policies right here at home that is undermining our own Democratic Republic.

It is undermining our own freedom of speech and leaving the American people wondering, what is this all for? How does this serve the interests of our freedom of our National Security and our safety here at home? Not once have I heard President Biden or anyone from his administration actually address that core and essential question of what are we trying to accomplish? And how does it serve the best interests of the United States of America and our people, because we're the ones who are going to pay the price, whether that be economically, or whether that be through this existential threat of nuclear war that we are facing right now.

CARLSON: So just to understand, if I'm a citizen -- well, I am a citizen and a taxpayer and an interested party in all of this, just watching it happen to my country. I want to be able to read as wide a variety of sources on what's happening as I possibly can, not just ones that have a stamp of approval from Biden or the C.I.A. or Google, but I can't.

So why is no one fighting back against that? Why can't I have all the information I want to have.

GABBARD: And this is the problem is that this administration, government, the power elite in the media, they have designated themselves as the sole authority who can say, well, this is the information with Big Tech, Google does this.

This is the information we want you to see and hear, because this is what we deem as true, and all of this other information is what we deem as false and therefore, we're going to make sure you don't get access to it. We are going to make sure that you don't hear it, and if you dare to challenge what we are putting forward to you, the Biden administration, the Department of Homeland Security will sic their Domestic Terrorism Unit on you because you are anti-authority.

You dare to challenge their authority, dare to question the line, the narrative, the policies they put forward, and you're going to see more examples like we're already seeing of people, like parents who care about their kids going to School Boards and protesting, being targeted as domestic terrorists.

CARLSON: They called you a traitor to your country while you were serving in the U.S. military and serving in the U.S. Congress.

GABBARD: On the Armed Services Committee, going to classified hearings, dealing with issues of great importance to our own National Security. Why? Simply for challenging their policies.

CARLSON: So to close this out, what advice would you give to our viewers who have sincere questions about where we're going when they are denounced as traitors to their country?

GABBARD: Keep asking questions and keep exercising your right to free speech. If we do not take a stand and speak up now for our freedoms for each other, our country, and our security, then we are at risk of losing it forever.

CARLSON: I find that really moving. Thank you for saying that. Amen. Tulsi Gabbard.

Well, just in time for Joe Biden's speech, Nancy Pelosi has dropped the mask mandate in Congress. That's happening all over the country interesting. FOX's Matt Finn has that story for us tonight. Hey, Matt.

MATT FINN, FOX NEWS CHANNEL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Tucker.

Here in LA County, the Health Director announced hours ago that the county is expected to drop its indoor mask mandate on Friday; and here in Los Angeles, we've been required to show proof of vaccine and wear masks to access most indoor restaurants, bars, and gyms. Boston also just announced hours ago that it will lift its indoor mask rule on Saturday, citing improving COVID numbers.

Nationwide, other major cities and states are also ending vaccine and mask mandates. New York City is scrapping its vaccine passports for businesses and dining, and statewide, in New York, tomorrow will be the first day students can go to school without masks in nearly two years. California, Oregon, and Washington announced their school mask mandates are also ending soon. Although individual School Districts and counties may still require masks.

And just ahead of President Biden's State of the Union address tonight, the U.S. Capitol's physician announced yesterday that masks will now be optional citing C.D.C. guidance amid a 90 percent drop in COVID cases nationwide -- Tucker.

CARLSON: FOX's Matt Finn with a rare good news story. Thanks so much for that.

FINN: Thank you.

CARLSON: So Joe Biden will take multiple victory laps tonight. Circles of the best, you can't get lost. But the rest of us are wondering how do we prevent these mask mandates and lockdowns, vax cards -- show your papers -- from ever happening again in this, a free country.

Well, our next guest has thought a lot about this. He warned for a year and a half about the profound societal harms of regulations like this. Here is Dr. Jay Bhattacharya in October of 2020.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. JAY BHATTACHARYA, PROFESSOR, STANFORD UNIVERSITY: The lockdowns have been absolutely deadly, deadly in the United States, as you say. For instance, the C.D.C. found in June that one in four young adults had seriously considered suicide, which is an astronomically high number.

It is mind boggling the cost of the lockdowns and it hits the poor the hardest. The poor, the working class.

We should take the money we're spending to address COVID and protect the vulnerable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: To say something like that in 2020, as a physician took real bravery. So we are honored to be joined once again by Dr. Jay Bhattacharya. He is a Professor of Medicine at Stanford University. Doctor, thanks so much for coming on.

I can't imagine the abuse that you took after you said that, and that was not the only time you said it. You said it repeatedly and you had data to back it up. Do you feel vindicated in seeing the lifting of these restrictions?

BHATTACHARYA: I mean, it's sort of a bittersweet vindication. We have had a million deaths almost, we've had in the United States, many more worldwide, and we've also had the harms of the lockdown. And society has been driven apart by these mask mandates, by all these restrictions and this fear mongering.

And I think, it is a sad testament to how poorly that our society has performed in addressing a pandemic like this.

CARLSON: You know, I have to say, in your answer, you began by citing the death numbers, and those seem to me under covered. I mean, the whole point of this was to reduce the harm of the virus. So if you get numbers that high, more in the second year of the pandemic than the first year, maybe that's just like the most obvious evidence, it doesn't work. It hasn't worked.

BHATTACHARYA: Yes, I mean, I think the problem is that we've had this scientific groupthink with people like Tony Fauci and Francis Collins who is the head of the N.I.H., essentially, they used the same playbook over and over again to create this illusion of consensus around their preferred policy.

They did this with lockdowns calling me a fringe epidemiologist. They did this with early treatment, marginalizing argument. They've done this with the origins of the virus. It's a very strange way to go about trying to find all of the knowledge we can to address a very serious problem, a pandemic.

Instead of trying to seek out outside voices and try to get good scientific debate and discussion just so that you can find the best outcome, the best way to deal with it. Instead, they've marginalize people on the outside and created and adopted a response that utterly failed.

CARLSON: Final question, has anyone apologize to you? You were attacked so bitterly? Now, it turns out you were right all along and very brave to say it at the time. Has anyone said, you know, I'm really sorry about what I said about you?

BHATTACHARYA: I haven't got too many apologies. But I have had a lot of folks reach out to thank me for speaking up. You know, I think it's just -- it's my job. I don't have -- I didn't really have a choice. This is my -- I've done infectious disease epidemiology for decades. If I didn't speak up now, then what is the point of my career?

CARLSON: Man, well, I'm impressed you did and grateful that you did and you're willing to do it publicly including on this show. So thank you, Doctor. Great to see you tonight.

BHATTACHARYA: Thank you.

CARLSON: So today is the Texas Republican Primary, the gubernatorial races, the first primary of the 2022 midterm season. Polls have closed in most of the state. It will close statewide in just a few moments.

Immigration is one of the top issues into these primary races. Several Republicans are to unseat the Governor -- the sitting Governor of Texas, that would be Greg Abbott. You don't expect Joe Biden to say a lot about the fact he has opened the doors to more than two million undocumented foreign nationals. One of the most profound crimes ever committed by an American President in American history. Probably won't mention that.

So we're going to talk to Miranda Devine who has been covering this for quite some time. She's a columnist at "The New York Post" and our friend. Miranda Devine, thanks for coming on tonight.

So what does Joe Biden -- I mean, if you were to poll people, you know, what are the biggest problems in American immigration? It is always at the top or near the top of the list? So what is Biden going to say?

MIRANDA DEVINE, FOX NEWS CHANNEL CONTRIBUTOR: Hi, Tucker. Look, I wouldn't be surprised if he says anything. It is a black mark against his record, and you know, he is going to be talking a lot about Ukraine's border, but he won't be talking about America's border.

And we know that Democratic politicians love having a wall around their Capitol when Joe Biden is giving his State of the Union address, but they don't want to have a wall to stop illegal migrants from invading the country.

And look, three million people trying to break in illegally into this country is an invasion in anyone's language, and that's on Joe Biden. He has ceded control of the southern border to the cartels, the most evil people in the world and he has set off a humanitarian crisis on the poor people who have had to put themselves in the hands and their children in the hands of these cartels, and as well as the drug crisis.

We now have fentanyl pouring over the southern border in record quantities and that is due to this unholy alliance of the cartels and China. It's now the greatest thing that kills young Americans, and so where is Joe Biden's fabled empathy now?

CARLSON: Such a good question and such a bitter question, and when you phrase it that way with that kind of clarity, boy, it just makes your blood pressure go up. We appreciate the honesty.

Miranda Devine, thank you so much.

DEVINE: Thanks, Tucker.

CARLSON: So at exactly the moment when you need more information, not less, less lying, not more, Big Tech has aligned with Intel agencies to curate everything you learn about the war being fought in your name in Ukraine and censor anyone who disagrees with them and the censorship is increasing.

Senator Mark Warner has called on his donors in the tech monopolies to censor pro-Russia social media posts. And they obliged, including by Americans, by the way, and they get to decide what pro Russia is.

Meanwhile, the television network, Russia Today, which is Russian state media is being censored all over the world. It's not an endorsement of Russia Today. To note, it might be interesting to know what the other side is saying. It might be good to have more information, not less.

Glenn Greenwald has been making this point for a long time. He's an independent journalist. We're happy to have him join us tonight. Glenn, thanks so much for coming on.

The censorship seems very open without apology, and it seems more widespread than maybe I've ever seen it.

GLENN GREENWALD, JOURNALIST: Definitely, without any precedent that I can remember as well. I mean, you'll probably recall in the days after 9/11, Bill Maher, when he was at ABC was fired because he said that he doesn't think the 9/11 hijackers should be regarded as cowards, that whatever else you want to say about them, it's evil. But it takes courage to fly a plane into a building and end your life for a cause.

And there was a lot of sense, even when we were attacked in the immediate aftermath that maybe it's not a good idea for people to just be fired because it all creates this atmosphere where no one can speak, it's so much worse.

I think one of the things that's gotten overlooked when we talk about Big Tech is how closely aligned they are to the U.S. security state. They have huge contracts, the Pentagon, the CIA, for Cloud services, for all kinds of other services, and so often their censorship is purely aligned with U.S. foreign policy, in a way, I think it's quite odious.

CARLSON: There used to be that be -- and you grew up in the United States, as I did. We're roughly the same age, there was a sense when we were kids that we are Americans. We can read whatever we want. They had banned Books Week at libraries where librarians fought back against censorship, which didn't really exist when we were kids.

What about that idea that as an American citizen, you have a right to read whatever the hell you want. Back off. What where is that?

GREENWALD: Yes, so just for the record, I'm significantly younger than you, except that we're in the same generational grouping. But I mean, I wonder that because, you know, one of the first articles I ever wrote after I got into journalism was when the British historian, David Irving was criminally convicted in Austria for teaching things about the Holocaust that were prohibited, namely denialism.

And I wrote an article about how all Americans instinctively recoil from that because we just have embedded within us the view that government shouldn't be dictating what we can and can't hear and what we can and can't say.

Fifteen years later, Tucker, there is almost -- there is very little of that ethos, certainly not as a consensus and I'm so grateful for the First Amendment because without it, I'm certain that we would have all kinds of laws being enacted, empowering the state, not just to ban ideas, but to criminalize them as well.

CARLSON: Well, you'd be in prison like you -- you would you be in -- I mean, we'd be bringing you know, extra under arm deodorant, right without the First Amendment, but it seems like they're getting around it by just employing effectively their agents in the tech monopolies to crush free speech.

GREENWALD: One of the things that I think has been very under noticed is that for the past 18 months, with the Democrats with their control in both Houses of Congress have repeatedly summoned tech executives to Congress and explicitly said to them, if you don't start censoring more the way we're telling you to, you will suffer legal and regulatory reprisals.

And there are Supreme Court rulings that say that, of course, the First Amendment bans the government from directly censoring, but it also bans the government from pressuring or coercing private actors to censor on their behalf in the way the Constitution prohibits, and that is exactly what's been happening and still is happening ever more so with this war.

CARLSON: That's horrifying. And you have been one of the voices fighting back against it, and so we're grateful for that. Glenn Greenwald, appreciate it.

GREENWALD: Good to be with you, Tucker.

CARLSON: So Joe Biden's State of the Union Address begins in just a few minutes, to bring it all together, to give us a sense of what's actually happened in this country over the past 13 months, we close out tonight with Victor Davis Hanson, who as you know, is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford.

Professor, thanks so much for coming on. So how would you sum up the state of our union?

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON, SENIOR FELLOW, HOOVER INSTITUTION: Thank you. Well, I think it's been one of the most catastrophic first years in presidential history, Tucker. I mean, every single issue is not only proven to be ineffective or even disastrous, but the polls show that, whether it's the border or Afghanistan, or inflation, or energy or critical race theory.

And so he's in a dilemma, because these are starting to have not only effects of systematic shortages and existential crisis here at home, but they have national security consequences.

So when we look at Ukraine, he's in a dilemma. How can he tell the Ukrainians that you have to have secure borders and defend them when he has no concern about our own borders? Or how can you tell the Ukrainians, we're here to help you, we're going to pump oil, we're going to lower these petro dollars that go into the coffers of Vladimir Putin when he helped cancel or jawbone the East Mediterranean pipeline that would have brought natural gas to Europe or he cut -- I guess, he voluntarily destroyed three million barrels of U.S. production. He begged Vladimir Putin to pump oil. So how can you do that?

How can you say the U.S. military deters Russia? It always has when we are suffering from the Afghan disaster and humiliation and the woke military and its fixations on white rage and climate change. How can you organize the world to have a financial very risky boycott -- unnecessary boycott of Russia -- when we're printing $2 trillion or $3 trillion a day, and he wants to print more, and we're in $30 trillion of debt?

So in a perfect real world, he would do something, Tucker, like, I guess the German Chancellor or the Swedes or the Fins, and he would kind of have a mea culpa, and he would come out and say, look, we've got to pump, pump, pump gas and oil. We can't buy oil from Putin. We've got to defend our borders. We've got to have an effective military, but I don't think he can do that.

So I think it's going to be incrementalism. It's going to be this Strategic Petroleum Reserve, suspend the gas tax, the bogeyman of -- I don't know who he is going to blame -- people, or he's going to say things are all right.

But he is not going to address what has to be done because he's a hostage of the far-left base and he is just incapable.

And when the Europeans show more courage to deviate from their own base than he does, we are in real trouble.

CARLSON: Shouldn't he include an apology tonight to the country?

HANSON: I would. I would say I've made I made a terrible error. I'm sorry, you're paying record prices to commute, you can't heat your homes and I cut three million barrels almost of oil production, and I cut Federal leases. I cancelled ANWAR, I cancelled Keystone and I was wrong.

I'm sorry about the U.S. military. Its main directive is to keep you safe, battlefield efficacy, not white rage and not climate change and we will never have another humiliation in Afghanistan.

And I'm sorry, I'm printing money, because we're not in a financial position, really to put the screws on Russia by denying them the energy markets. And I'm really, really sorry that I let the border open, because that took -- that eroded the credibility that I have on borders and the need for every country to have secure borders.

And so we all are deploying what Vladimir Putin -- I would also apologize this fact. We knew he was on the border in November. And now we see this columns sitting there 42 miles long. Why didn't -- if you really want to deter them, why didn't you send thousands of javelins and stingers in November and December and January? Why all of a sudden, as everybody is saying, now we've got to do it.

But you know, it's because we've lacked leadership and it doesn't do any good, as I said earlier to call Putin a killer or a bully unless you take measures to stop him. It's much better to be quiet and carry a big stick than to be loud and obnoxious with a twig.

So yes, he owes an apology to the American people, but we're not going to get it. We are going to get more of the blame game and everything is good and incrementalism, as I said, and it's tragic. It really is because these domestic disasters now have policy ramifications overseas for our very existence in the future and we've got to correct it.

CARLSON: That's for sure.

HANSON: Real quick.

CARLSON: Professor Victor Davis Hanson for us tonight wrapping up a drama- packed evening, but it continues. Thank you for that.

Joe Biden's State of the Union address right now.

BRET BAIER, FOX NEWS CHANNEL CHIEF POLITICAL ANCHOR: We are now just minutes away from President Biden's first State of the Union address, always a big moment here in Washington.

It comes as the president deals with a huge list of major challenges from the war in Ukraine to inflation and crime at home. Good evening. I'm Bret Baier.

MARTHA MACCALLUM, FOX NEWS CHANNEL ANCHOR: And I'm Martha MacCallum.

The President is now in the Capitol Building. He is ready to deliver the big speech that he hopes can perhaps be something of a reset for an administration that has faced some challenges and the poll numbers to be sure over the course of the last year.

BAIER: The President's approval numbers are at record lows entering a crucial midterm election season in which Republicans are highly motivated to retake control of the House and Senate further limiting his legislative options.

MACCALLUM: The address will be followed by the Republican response as usual, and this time it will be from the Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds. There will also be, as we watch, Justices of the Supreme Court file in. There is also going to be another rebuttal this evening or response from Congresswoman Tlaib, who is also going to chime in with her thoughts on the speech.

BAIER: As the Supreme Court Justices come in, we're reminded of the nomination just made by this President to fill a seat by Justice Breyer, who is leaving.

The President's address comes as the war between Russia and Ukraine rages on. State Department correspondent Benjamin Hall is live in Lviv, Ukraine tonight. Good evening, Benjamin.

BENJAMIN HALL, FOX NEWS CHANNEL, FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Bret.

Look, today we saw Putin intensify his attacks on urban centers. We saw him hit the capital city of Kyiv taking down a major television tower. He also hit the second city of Kharkiv in a much bigger way than we've seen him do so far. And one U.S. officials seemed to suggest that he was facing a number of logistical and supply issues particularly in that 40-mile long column, that convoy that is moving towards Kyiv.

In fact, it has barely moved at all in the past 24 hours, and so some people are saying he is now shifting his focus, shifting his tactics to start this kind of bombardment. And in fact, the Russian Defense Ministry reached out to everyone in Kharkiv, sent a message saying leave the city, flee the city because we're going to start hitting it in a big way.

And so tonight, a lot of people are going to be listening very closely to see whether or not President Biden offers some kind of some harshness and more support for the beleaguered people of Ukraine -- Bret.

BAIER: Benjamin Hall live in Lviv. As we look at the First Lady, Dr. Jill Biden arriving in her seat and giving a hug to the Ukrainian Ambassador as this war rages on in Ukraine.

Let's bring in our panel: Ben Domenech. He is the publisher of "The Federalist;" Dana Perino, co-anchor of "America's Newsroom" and co-host to "The Five" and Harold Ford, Jr., former Tennessee Congressman, CEO of Empowerment and Inclusion Capital.

Good to be in the same room. It's also good to see the option of no masks, which you can see the Speaker and the Vice President have taken.

Dana, what about this?

DANA PERINO, FOX NEWS CHANNEL ANCHOR: Well, I do believe as Martha said, the President is hoping that this could be a speech that helps him reset. But I do think that if you look at the polling numbers that Martha referenced, they are in the high 30s, really averaging in terms for the President's overall approval.

And when you look across the board in terms of economy, immigration, inflation, in particular, energy issues across the board, he is really far down, including on COVID. And the reason they're not wearing masks today is that this is a decision that they could have done weeks ago, and I said it before they were going to wait until the State of the Union, and I don't think a lot of people will forget that. They could have done it weeks ago and that includes for children.

I do think that Ketanji Brown Jackson will provide a grace note tonight for the President and Ukraine provides an opportunity for him to talk about something different, but I don't think that people have just formed an opinion about the President, they have formed a judgment.

BAIER: As you look at the Cabinet coming in, Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

MACCALLUM: Getting a big round of applause. We also saw General Austin, the Secretary of Defense coming in, obviously, a lot of focus on these individuals as we have been trying to navigate the very unsettling situation that is unfolding in Ukraine tonight.

So a lot of focus on these two individuals.

BAIER: Ben, quickly.

BEN DOMENECH, FOX NEWS CHANNEL HOST: It just seems to me that this is going to be a speech in which the President has to deal with a lot of issues that a month and a half ago, he did not think he was going to have to deal with when it comes to foreign policy, handling those issues, how he approaches them is going to be a real challenge.

And I think that, you know, in a speech that could have been short, sweet and try to reset, he is going to have to deal with many more complicated issues than perhaps this administration thought.

MACCALLUM: We have about 10 seconds, quick though, Harold.

HAROLD FORD, JR., FOX NEWS CHANNEL HOST: If we can come together around protecting freedom and democracy in Ukraine. If I were the President, I'd ask the Congress. Let's push the reset together and figure out how we'd come together and figure out how we get covered compromises so a whole range of things that we've talked about.

BAIER: All right, let's take a moment to listen to the action down on the floor as we pause for the top of the hour.

President Biden just minutes away. Our special coverage of the State of the Union Address, his first, continues in just a moment.


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