Tucker: Weak people call for censorship

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Tucker: Weak people call for censorship

‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’ host discusses the ‘political pressure’ surrounding Joe Rogan, Spotify controversy.

This is a rush transcript of "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on February 2, 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.

Joe Rogan may be the most popular broadcaster in the English speaking world right now. Every episode of his podcast called "The Joe Rogan Experience" reaches about 11 million people and some of the episodes get an audience many times that. How many people is that? It's a lot.

For perspective, last night, CNN's highest rated show had a little over 700,000 viewers total. So Joe Rogan is big and unlike CNN, he is not especially political. His show covers pretty much everything -- comedy, science, nutrition, the paranormal, recreational drug use, exercise, mixed martial arts, music, Hollywood, and a huge range of other topics often with guests you've never heard of.

Rogan is not a reactionary, unlike most people in the media, he doesn't think he already knows everything. He is genuinely curious, and so he lets his guests speak. His longest interview lasted for more than five hours, this was a stand-up comedian.

When Rogan does talk about politics, it's pretty clear, he is not an ideologue. He interviews everybody liberals and conservatives, as well as a lot of people like Mike Tyson who could be either one, and he does it most of the time with respect and self-deprecation. He's not an expert on politics. He is not pretending to be one.

Rogan just asks questions and he notes the obvious. It's this last quality that makes the people in charge hate and fear Joe Rogan.

If you're trying to sell an absurd, obviously untrue idea, it is possible that Joe Rogan is going to call you on it, not because he's a partisan, he's not, but because he just can't help but notice, that's his secret.

A few months ago, Rogan watched the White House Press Secretary lie about the F.D.A.'s approval process for Pfizer's COVID vaccine. So he said something about it. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE ROGAN, PODCAST HOST: Jen Psaki is talking about misinformation online and combating misinformation. She distributed misinformation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Of course.

ROGAN: Because she said that it is approved by the F.D.A. and their gold standard.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Yes, what he said was true. Rogan is pretty literal actually, it is one of the reasons people trust him. And he was right in this case, Jen Psaki was lying to the country, and it wasn't even an especially clever lie. Anyone with internet access could have verified that what Jen Psaki said was a total crock from the podium, too.

But when Joe Rogan points this out, it really stings. A lot of the people listening to him believe him, and the White House took notice. So what happened next? Well, here is Jen Psaki from yesterday calling on Joe Rogan's employer to censor him. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: This disclaimer, it is a positive step, but we want every platform to continue doing more to call out misinformation and disinformation will also uplifting accurate information.

But ultimately, you know, our view is it's a good step. It's a positive step. But there's more that can be done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: "There's more that can be done." Hey, you little fascist, that's a threat. That's exactly what it is. Politicians and their spokes chicks didn't use to talk this way. They were not allowed to talk this way because the First Amendment explicitly prohibits it. You're not allowed to use government power to shut down broadcasters who criticize you. Period. And now that's exactly what they're trying to do.

So far, Joe Rogan's employer, Spotify hasn't caved to the pressure, Rogan still has a job, but the company is bending. It has deleted more than 20,000 COVID-related podcast episodes made by other Spotify hosts. Spotify claims they quote "cause harm."

How exactly can a podcast cause harm? Spotify didn't explain because of course, they couldn't explain. Podcasts don't cause harm, weapons cause harm.

Anybody who knows anything about American business right now understood what is actually going on. In a moment like this, it is virtually impossible to run a public company, no matter how hard you try. It's not just in podcasting. It's not just Spotify. It's any company with shareholders, from breakfast cereal manufacturers to tennis shoe retailers.

The political pressure is coming at these companies from all sides -- from activist investors, from the media, from their own employees. Every day is a brand new crisis. Imagine the e-mails between the CEO and the PR Department, they never stop.

And under those circumstances, it's impossible to think clearly to stand on principle or even consider your own best interest long term. That's what's going on with Spotify. They probably don't want to censor anybody. They're being pushed to.

In their case, pressure to censor Joe Rogan over his views is coming from other content providers on the site and most of them are D-listers, you should know.

The other day that annoying fake Duchess from LA and her brain dead husband threatened to walk if Spotify refused to muzzle Joe Rogan, quote: "Hundreds of millions of people are affected by the serious harms of rampant mis and disinformation every day." They yelped through a publicist.

But of course they don't mean it. They are not going anywhere. These two Grifters have a $25 million podcast deal with Spotify for essentially no work. So far, we believe they produced just over 30 minutes of content. That means these two have been paid about a million dollars for each minute of talking they've done. That's a good gig. It's too good to leave.

But their performance does raise the question. What exactly about Joe Rogan's podcast has caused quote, "serious harm"? We are literal, too, so we scoured his archives to find out. And it turns out as usual, the opposite is true. Joe Rogan is actually a force for safety in this world.

Watch this clip in which he warns the public about the dangers of approaching gorillas in the wild. It turns out, sneaking up on a gorilla, as Joe Rogan pointed out could lead to actual serious harm.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROGAN: ... so soft, we think it's okay to look at a wild animal in its eyes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's how stupid we could be.

ROGAN: Hi. Hey, we're cool. We're cool man. We are from National Geographic Society. We've just come to make sure your baby is okay.

[Bleep] crazy 800-pound Silverback comes through the trees. It is right in your face. He's got fangs and he only eat vegetables. I mean, the fangs --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know, shredded.

ROGAN: The fangs are only designed to [bleep] you up.

And you can't even imagine what an 800-pound gorilla's strength is like, because you would think of it as like an 800-pound man, but it would really be more like a 3,000-pound man.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: He is interested in animals by the way. He's curious that's part of the allure.

People in the media are paid to be curious, to ask questions, to wonder about other people. None of them do. They just want to lecture you. This guy actually is interested. But no one is criticizing him seems to know that. It doesn't seem like they've actually listened to his show, Neil Young probably never has.

Neil Young is an elderly folk singer from the nation of Canada. Young has already pulled his music from Spotify in protest of Rogan's open mindedness. Does Neal young actually own his own music? We don't know. But we know that the gesture received widespread applause from the usual morons who then revealed themselves to even dumber than you thought they were.

"Variety" Magazine, for example, still exists, informed us that Neil Young stands against Joe Rogan makes him quote "a hero" to the younger generations. Right? Because if there's one person kids of today revere, worship like a god, it's 76-year-old Neil Young. They take Neil Young over Joe Rogan any day, because young people everywhere are anxious to side with the Biden administration and demand the firing of any podcast or interviews people Kamala Harris disagrees with. It's hilarious.

They're more out of touch than Neil Young is. But at CNN, they have convinced themselves, it's all totally true because Joe Rogan is peddling misinformation, therefore he must be stopped.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: You think about major newsrooms like CNN that have health departments and desks and operations that work hard on verifying information on COVID-19, and then you have talk show stars like Joe Rogan, who just wing it, who make it up as they go along.

And because figures like Rogan are trusted by people that don't trust real newsrooms, we have a tension, a problem that's much bigger than Spotify, much bigger than any single platform.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: People are trusting Joe Rogan over eunuchs. Can you imagine? Damn the people. They should be watching CNN. CNN has departments and desks and entire operations designed to verify information and filter out misinformation and that's why they described ivermectin which in Joe Rogan's case was prescribed by a human doctor as quote, horse dewormer, and did it on like nine different shows. And those same standards led them to suggest famously that a passenger jet must have been sucked into a black hole.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Whether it was hijacking or terrorism or mechanical failure or pilot error, but what if it was something fully that we don't really understand. A lot of people have been asking about that, about black holes and on and on and on.

They also referencing "The Twilight Zone," which is a very similar plot. That's what people are saying, I know it's preposterous. But is it preposterous, do you think?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: We can't get enough. Yes, that clip was from eight years ago, but we watch it every single morning along with our Pilates and sauna just to get ready for the day. And if you want to watch a lot more like that, CNN has just announced you can subscribe to CNN+ and Don Lemon will be on there constantly for a small extra fee. So that's their answer to Joe Rogan, more nonsense, but the lowest rated dummies in the entire TV business.

Joe Rogan, meanwhile, consistently turns out interesting, informative programming, just by being curious, just by asking obvious questions. That's all it takes. Care about what other people are saying, watch the world around you, take an interest in something beyond yourself, and when he does that, they don't like it.

Watch this exchange with Dr. Robert Malone who was one of the inventors of mRNA technology.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ROBERT MALONE, PIONEER OF MRNA TECHNOLOGY: The how question of a third of the population basically being hypnotized and totally wrapped up in whatever Tony Fauci and the mainstream media feeds them, whatever CNN tells them is true, the answer is mass formation psychosis.

When you have a society that has become decoupled from each other and has free floating anxiety, and a sense that things don't make sense, we can't understand it and then their attention gets focused by a leader or series of events on one small point, just like hypnosis. They literally become hypnotized and can be led anywhere.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: That was the interview that pushed CNN completely over the edge, not because it was false, but because it was entirely credible. Hypnotizing the public, that's our job, they said, mass formation psychosis. Yes, that's us.

So of course, they immediately set about encouraging the tech platforms to ban that interview. Dr. Malone, again, one of the inventors of mRNA technology being used in over a billion doses of vaccine currently in people's bodies. That's the man who was talking.

Credible? Yes, no one more credible than that, and that's exactly why they hated it. That's exactly what they said you couldn't hear it.

Now that same month, it was just past December, Rogan spoke to a doctor called Peter McCullough about ivermectin. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. PETER MCCULLOUGH, CARDIOLOGIST: Sanjay Gupta and the CNN correspondent, there was no fair balance there. He parroted a talking point that our head of the National Allergy and Immunology branch parroted. They said that there was no data for ivermectin. They said it was a horse dewormer.

Now, either they knew or they should have known the 63 supportive studies and of the over 30 randomized trials.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So those are facts and if you think the wrong, tell us how they're wrong. But why shouldn't people hear that? Why shouldn't they be allowed to?

Well, because Dr. Peter McCullough, who certainly has the credentials to do it criticized the people in charge. He mocked CNN for ignoring dozens of clinical trials, making fun of a drug that could have helped a lot of people, possibly save lives.

What do you think of that? Well, that's immoral, of course.

But notice what Joe Rogan didn't do in the face of that information. He didn't call for CNN to be censored because they spread disinformation. He did say we've got to pull CNN off the air, they are killing people. Because he's not for censorship. You know who is for censorship? Weak people are for censorship.

I can't handle what you're throwing at me, shut up, or else. That's exactly what they're saying. Strong people don't behave that way, only the weak. Everybody knows that. They can smell it.

And the reason Joe Rogan is successful, because he's not weak. That's the truth.

Tulsi Gabbard knows this very well. She's a former Member of Congress from Hawaii. She knows Rogan very well and we thought it would be interesting to hear her take on all of this.

Tulsi Gabbard, thanks so much for joining us tonight.

So you're watching and you know, God knows, I probably should have added this to the script, but you know, we don't know where this is going. It's hard to imagine they're going to pull Joe Rogan off the air. But, you know, again, you don't know once the ball starts rolling.

What do you make of the attempts to censor Joe Rogan?

TULSI GABBARD, FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE: It is yet the latest indicator about the real danger that we are facing as a society right now in this country is that this fundamental freedom, guaranteed to every one of us as Americans, this freedom of speech is being threatened.

People are being intimidated. Their financial security is being threatened. They are being censored or being intimidated into censoring themselves.

This freedom is the fabric of our Constitution, and the fact that this is what we're facing that the powers that be decided, well, if you don't -- if we don't like the things that you're saying, then we will find a way to silence you and censor you. This is something that every single American should be afraid of because we need to have the confidence in America that we can express ourselves, that we have the freedom to speak without the threat of punishment looming over us.

That right there is literally the difference between living in a democracy or living in a dictatorship.

CARLSON: I think that's exactly right, and for the White House Press Secretary to call for censorship from the podium in the White House Briefing Room is real. I've never seen anything like that ever, and I'm 52.

Let me ask, I think, this is revealing and this is why I thought it was worth talking about. Joe Rogan is not a right winger. It is not like they can say: Oh, he's a scary QAnon character. He is certainly not. He seems pretty apolitical, pretty much a centrist. They simply hate him because he is obvious questions or am I missing something?

GABBARD: You're not missing something. You know, he is somebody who is curious. He encourages dialogue, of course, he's got his own opinions about things, but he can't be put in a box and he can't be controlled.

Again, he is one example. Unfortunately, he is not the only example. There are many others who have experienced the brunt of this punishment, who are either being attempted to be silenced or censored or who have been, and this this goes to a bigger point here, Tucker that we are facing right now with the prospect of a Supreme Court vacancy.

The qualification of a Supreme Court Justice, the foremost and most important quality must be someone who is committed to upholding our Constitution, who is committed to upholding the freedoms we are guaranteed in that Constitution -- freedom of speech, civil liberties, and so on -- not being chosen based on their gender, their sex, their race, or even their politics.

We need to be looking for a Supreme Court Justice who is committed and has a track record of upholding our Constitution. That's it.

CARLSON: I always laugh when you say things like that, because I always wonder, you know, why do hate Tulsi Gabbard so much? Because like Joe Rogan, you're a threat, because you defend the essential, the ancient American values of the country was based on. You do it in very reasonable way that is nonpartisan and that's the threat. So I appreciate you doing that once again on our show.

Thank you, Tulsi Gabbard.

GABBARD: Thanks.

CARLSON: Pretty amazing story. An American skier, so she was born and raised in this country, and thought by many people will be representing the United States, her home country in the upcoming Winter Olympics has announced, no, she is going to be representing China.

What's that about? We'll tell you straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: You probably heard CNN President, Jeff Zucker, got fired this morning. In a statement, Zucker said he has been dating a colleague, didn't disclose it, and when his bosses found out, they made him leave. That's not true.

Everyone in the TV business already knew about Zucker's relationship with the head of CNN's Marketing Department. Every executive in television has known about it for years, it was definitely not a secret. So Jeff Zucker did not get canned for his sex life. New management wanted him out of CNN for other reasons, including bad ratings, and maybe others that we'll find out later.

So the relationship was just a pretext for what you saw. But as usual with CNN, you've got to wade through a lot of lies to get to what actually happened. So what happens next at CNN?

Well, for starters, let's hope to get rid of the eunuch and his weird pop- eyed accomplice. The two have made a career of trying to kill free speech in this country. No news organization should ever employ people like that. It's disgraceful.

As for who replaces Jeff Zucker, we hope it's someone better. CNN is poison, we want that channel to improve. With Zucker gone, it's at least theoretically possible it could happen. We didn't like Jeff Zucker, we said that very clearly, for a long time. We attacked his programming decisions, we slammed his political agenda, we called him names, and we meant every word of it.

Still, on this day, when we should be celebrating Jeff Zucker's departure, we're not celebrating. Why is that? Because we see a pattern here.

There are an awful lot of contemptible leaders in Corporate America, maybe most of them, but only a certain kind of CEO ever gets fired. It's not the weak ones, the guys who do what they're told, issue the cringy statements and let the H.R. Department run everything, those people tend to keep their jobs until they retire. People like that just want to get it over with and cash out.

They don't take risks. They don't dare to build anything. They're just caretakers. If their dignity is the price of job security, they are happy to pay it.

More than at any time in our history. America is run by people like that. It's only the strong who are punished. Strong leaders tend to be abrasive. They're arrogant. Sometimes they're what we now call abusive. They ignore convention, they say outrageous things in public and private.

They don't blend in with the group. Often, they alienate the more sensitive types around them. They don't have maternal instincts. A lot of modern people are put off by strong leaders, but you've got to have them. Creative masculine energy is the essential quality in any civilization. It's how we got civilization in the first place.

But increasingly, boisterous masculinity is systematically suppressed to make way for a timid caretaker class, for people who think the whole point of society is to get to zero COVID infections or eliminate all traffic deaths.

Those may sound like virtuous goals. In fact, they're signifiers of decline. Not dying can never be the whole point. If it is, you're already dead.

Our current leaders are fearful because they are old, but the opposite is also true. They kept power into their 80s because they put safety first. They put it over creativity, over courage, over leadership. Nancy Pelosi never built anything, neither has Joe Biden or Mitch McConnell. They're not capable of building anything.

At the very best, they can preserve what others have built, not that they've even tried to do that.

So Jeff Zucker, whatever else we have said about him and meant, Jeff Zucker tried to do something new. We hated what he did. We did not share his vision. We found it repugnant and destructive, but at least Jeff Zucker had a vision. Too few still do.

Eileen Gu is 18 years old. She is a skier. She was Born in San Francisco.

She is a favorite to win several gold medals in the Winter Olympics in China this year, but she's not going to be competing for the country of her birth or her citizenship, instead she's going to be on China's Olympic team.

She has one parent who was born in China, and she switched sides despite the fact she's American. What does this tell us about the moment we're living in and about our future?

Will Cain is the co-host of "FOX and Friends" Weekend. He's also the host of "The Will Cain Podcast," which is excellent. He joins us now. Will, thanks for coming on. This seemed like a significant story. Do you think that it is?

WILL CAIN, FOX NEWS CHANNEL COHOST, "FOX & FRIENDS" WEEKEND: I think it is. I think it's a significant story if we consider that this is about something much bigger than Eileen Gu.

CARLSON: Right.

CAIN: First, Eileen Gu, I mean, it is incredibly I think the only word we can arrive at is ungrateful for her to betray and turn her back on the country that not just raised her, but turned her into a world class skier with the training and facilities that only the United States of America can provide, for her to then turn her back on that in exchange for money is shameful.

It's ungrateful, like a child that says, I'm out of here. I'm moving somewhere else after being raised in a warm home. That's what she is and she will soon, I suspect, Tucker come to regret it.

I mean, take a look at the Chinese tennis player who dared to speak out about sexual harassment and then mysteriously disappeared.

Eileen Gu, I think has had to sacrifice her American passport, so welcome to China. I hope stardom and the riches that you have earned through betraying America are all worth it because you have definitely sold out.

CARLSON: Well, that's exactly it, and look, you know, this girl is 18. You know, you make dumb decisions, you get stupid tattoos, you renounce your citizenship to go to China, whatever. You know, young people do dumb things.

But there shouldn't be collective revulsion as we watch this, like we shouldn't make it easy for people to betray their own country, should we?

CAIN: We shouldn't, put unfortunately, and this gets to the point which you and I both alluded to a moment ago, this is about something much bigger than Eileen Gu. Look, she's supported by, she is sponsored by Victoria's Secret, Louis Vuitton, the Chinese companies like Ultra, which uses Chinese forced labor to bring in cotton to make the shoes and athletic apparel that these athletes make money off of.

And these corporate CEOs somewhat tied to the point you were making a little bit earlier about the inherent weakness in American corporations, and I would add to that the inherent immorality of capitalism, devoid from a moral principled grounding is what we're looking at here because there is not an American company, honestly, Tucker, there are very few American companies that wouldn't and haven't already done the same thing as Eileen Gu.

They've already turned their back on the United States of America in exchange for Chinese riches, and that's why she's a symbol. You want to look at something to be really upset about, it is not the ungrateful child of America. It's the corrupt and weak corporations of America.

CARLSON: No, it's totally right. I honestly think the shareholder system, the public company model that we have can't continue. It doesn't actually work. I mean, these companies aren't going to thrive if they can't think long term and think clearly in the end, what do I know? Seems that way.

Will Cain, I appreciate your analysis. Thank you.

CAIN: Thanks, Tucker.

CARLSON: So scientists at Johns Hopkins sat down and took a very close look at the lockdowns. Did they work? Did they save lives? And the answer is, no, they didn't save lives. We know that now. We'll tell you the numbers, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: How many infants have died if COVID? It doesn't matter. It looks like they are the getting the vax, too. FOX's Trace Gallagher has that story for us tonight. Hey, Trace.

TRACE GALLAGHER, FOX NEWS CHANNEL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Tucker. The process here is backwards and unprecedented. In this case, the F.D.A. requested that Pfizer-BioNTech submit data so vaccines for children six months to five years could be approved more quickly.

Normally, it's the companies that want the F.D.A. to fast track these vaccines, and it is all concerning because Pfizer is acknowledging that test results were disappointing. The study showed that for kids between two and five, the two-dose vaccine regimen did not provide the needed protection against symptomatic COVID-19.

So while the F.D.A. is likely to approve two shots for young children beginning as early as March, the CEO of Pfizer has already said a third shot will be necessary. And now, the F.D.A. is issuing defensive statements quoting here: "We want to set the record straight on the recent developments on the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children six months through four years, nothing has changed about our process for evaluating COVID-19 vaccines, and we are not changing our rigorous scientific standards," except maybe it's why even CNN's medical analyst and former Planned Parenthood doctor is now hesitant. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Well, I'm ambivalent right now, John, which is not something that I ever thought that I would say about vaccines for under five year olds. I'm the mom of two little kids under five. I can't wait until they are vaccinated.

But I would wait until we find that the vaccines are safe and effective and I'm not sure that we can say that at the moment because we just don't have the data.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GALLAGHER: And the data we do have, ain't great -- Tucker.

CARLSON: Amazing. Trace Gallagher, science based, appreciate it.

GALLAGHER: Yes.

CARLSON: So two years in, we are starting to see some real numbers, not just about COVID, but about our leaders' response to it.

So a new analysis by the decidedly non-right wing Johns Hopkins University has concluded that COVID lockdowns in 2020 didn't work. This is a direct quote from Johns Hopkins.

"While this meta-analysis concludes that lockdowns have had little to no public health effects, they have imposed enormous economic and social costs where they have been adopted. In consequence, lockdown policies are ill- founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument."

Sorry for the raised voice. It wrecks people's lives, millions of people's lives. But Tony Fauci said they were absolutely necessary to save millions. Remember?

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: The fact that we shut down when we did and the rest of the world did, has saved hundreds of millions of infections and millions of lives.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

CARLSON: And he is still in charge.

Marty Makary should be in charge. He is not. He's a surgeon and public health policy researcher at Johns Hopkins. He joins us tonight. Doctor, thanks very much for coming on. It's so frustrating to read this, to read, you know, the top line analysis from this study that I'm just going to stop talking and ask you what you make of it.

DR. MARTY MAKARY, FOX NEWS CHANNEL CONTRIBUTOR: Well, it's interesting, there's really only been one narrative on this entire topic, and it is probably one of the biggest interventions in the history of public health. And this study, which came out today from my institution looked at 34 different studies that asked this question, and they concluded that the lockdowns had no significant reduction in mortality, and an aggregated reduction of about two-tenths of one percent.

Now compare that number, which turns out to be about 1,800 individuals to the number of non-COVID deaths, what we call the excess non-COVID mortality in the United States. It was 124,000 excess deaths in year one. So over two years, it was about a quarter million people who died.

Many, many scientists have not begun to peel back this number to understand why were more people dying than the normal death rate in the United States for reasons not related to COVID? Well, we're now understanding that 60,000 to 70,000 of them died from substance abuse, deferred cancer care, that statistic takes years to accrue. We know about the self-harm and suicide numbers.

And there are hundreds of kids in Baltimore alone that the teachers described, never logged on to their virtual learning modules ever, and they were lost to follow up forever in the school system.

So we're now starting to recognize the collateral damage. And by the time we finally get the research that catches up with public opinion, people may already have their own narrative written. Johns Hopkins itself did not even put out a press release about this study, and if you look at the media coverage, it's one of the biggest stories in the world today and yet certain media outlets have not even covered it.

CARLSON: You know, you hear people say the architects of these policies should be brought up on felony charges, imprisoned or whatever. Let's just start with telling the truth. Don't you think it would be a palliative, it would be good for everyone if they would just admit that they were wrong? Why is that so hard?

MAKARY: Well, look, I've done that for myself. I called for the lockdowns, Tucker, when we saw what was happening in China, it was scary. We didn't know if we were going to lose our nation's children.

CARLSON: Yes --

MAKARY: And pretty quickly, we started to get the data from Northern Italy that showed us that not only was it not equally distributed in the population, but the harm was so profoundly skewed towards older people, and people with comorbidities. Even in the early days of New York we got data that was largely ignored that 80 percent of the deaths were in people over 65, and half of them roughly were in nursing homes.

And yet we continued to treat this as if everybody was at equal risk, and we continue to do that today in schools where children bear the biggest burden of the restrictions in this country.

So I think the public is hungry for honesty and basic humility from public health officials because you've got to evolve your position as the data come in.

CARLSON: That's exactly where. I thought Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. No, I was wrong, and I'm really sorry about it, but it's okay. You know, you can admit it. I wish they would.

Thank you for your honesty, Dr. Marty Makary, much appreciate it.

MAKARY: Thanks.

CARLSON: So the Pentagon just told us Joe Biden is sending thousands of troops to Eastern Europe. Why are we doing this? There is actually a reason. Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri is one of the only people in Washington to state clearly what that reason is. He is joining us next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: So there is a reason that we're speeding toward war in Eastern Europe and pretty much alone in the Senate, Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri is naming the reason.

He is calling on the Biden administration to drop support for Ukraine joining the NATO Alliance, trying to push NATO on Ukraine. Hawley wrote to Secretary of State Tony Blinken saying that Ukraine joining NATO does not help America, it doesn't advance our interests and we should focus instead on China.

In response to this, the weepy Illinois Congress person, Adam Kinzinger wrote this typo filled rant on Twitter quote, "I hate to be so personal, but Hawley is one of the worst human beings in a self-egrandizing (misspelled) con artist." Way to go ad hominem, Dumbo.

Separately, the White House accused Josh Hawley of working for Putin. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PSAKI: If you are digesting Russian misinformation and parroting Russian talking points, you are not aligned with long-standing bipartisan American values, which is to stand up for the sovereignty of countries like Ukraine but others, their right to choose their own alliances, and also to stand against very clearly the efforts or attempts or potential attempts by any country to invade and take territory of another country. That applies to Senator Hawley, but it also applies to others who may be parroting the talking points of Russian propagandist leaders.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So obviously, that's completely ignorant because she is completely ignorant. Go back to Oberlin, honey. But what's so galling is to be lectured as unpatriotic by people who affirmatively dislike the country, who think its history began in 1619 in sin, who accused America of being systemically racist, who don't like America are whipping around and attacking anybody who has honest questions unpatriotic. It's outrageous, actually. They have no right to do that.

Meanwhile, Biden is announcing he is sending thousands of American troops to Eastern Europe, many Republicans support that, of course, Lindsey Graham does, if it's a bad idea, he's on it. But Josh Hawley does not support it. He represents again, Missouri in the Senate. He joins us tonight.

Senator, thanks so much for coming on. So, you're a Russian agent. I mean, I can't even engage in that, because it's so outrageous that someone who doesn't like America is accusing you of being unpatriotic. But get to the heart of this, if you would, pushing NATO to join -- rather Ukraine to join NATO. You're against that why?

SEN. JOSH HAWLEY (R-MO): I'm against it because it would mean more troops, more American troops, Tucker in Europe at a time when we need to be focusing less on Europe and more on our major security threats elsewhere, China, and then, of course, our own Southern border.

I mean, listen, if we expand NATO, it means that the United States will be providing additional security guarantees that we will be more embroiled in European conflicts. This isn't the time for that. We can't do everything. The United States can't do everything. We've got to focus on the safety of the American people, and the number one threat to that abroad right now is China, in addition to of course, our problems on our Southern border.

CARLSON: So has anybody, so you're a sitting Member of the United States Senate, only a hundred of you there, obviously, you're a top lawmaker, you're the heart of the democracy. Has anyone ever explained to you in clear terms what the point of NATO is, at this point, 30 years after the fall of the Soviet Union?

HAWLEY: You know, I think that there is a lot of, shall we say, legacy, thinking about NATO where it just sort of runs its own steam. Here is what the point needs to be, we need to say to our NATO allies, they need to do more in their own defense. And Ukraine is a perfect example.

Listen, I think that we should help Ukraine defend themselves. I'm not in favor of Russia, taking over Ukraine, far from it, and this administration has coddled Russia and stuffed money in their pockets with the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and all kinds of other things.

So if you want to look at somebody who is responsible for what's going on with Russia and Ukraine, just look at Joe Biden, but listen, we need to be saying to the Europeans, you've got to do more in your own defense, we've got to focus on China and the pressing security threat there.

The United States can't do everything. That's what a partnership is and that's what we should be saying.

CARLSON: I mean, I personally could -- not that interested in any of it, but especially not when you know, hundred thousand Americans are dying every year of opioid ODs. But I have to say, your Republican colleagues haven't jumped up to defend you from the charge that you're working for a foreign government, that you're a disloyal American, that you're effectively committing treason. Is there a reason they haven't?

HAWLEY: Well, you know, first of all, I mean, those charges are so ridiculous and outrageous from an administration that has coddled the Russians and coddled Putin. But again, I think a lot of folks just haven't thought about what NATO should be doing in the 21st Century and haven't thought about the fact that we have to make tough choices, and right now we've got to put American security interests first.

And that means we've got to focus on China, and we've got to focus on our own borders, we need to ask our European allies to do more.

CARLSON: I think Ukraine's Eastern borders are more significant than the Texas border. But that's just me, because I'm a patriotic American.

Senator, Hawley, great to see you tonight.

HAWLEY: Thank you.

CARLSON: It is so frustrating, because it's so crazy.

Well, we spoke recently to someone who's not crazy at all, our friend Jason Whitlock. He came on "Tucker Carlson Today" for an hour-long interview and he explains since he's covered sports for 35 years why the major sporting leagues, the NBA, and the NFL, for example have become tools to indoctrinate people.

Then the conversation went on and it was so interesting, it is such a legitimately interesting, so we split into two parts. Whitlock told us what he sees as the biggest threats American society faces.

Here's part of it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: When we know that toxic masculinity is the most dangerous poison --

JASON WHITLOCK, HOST, "FEARLESS WITH JASON WHITLOCK": Yes.

CARLSON: Flesh it out a little bit. Why is it a good thing?

WHITLOCK: There is irresponsible masculinity. There is no toxic masculinity. Masculinity is a good thing. That's how we became number one. That's how America became great.

And that's why I looked at like the COVID fear, and I'm just like, man, people in the 1900s would look at us like we've got to be the biggest cowards in the world.

CARLSON: We are.

WHITLOCK: We're afraid of everything.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Well, you can -- pardon me, you caught me with the sexy glasses there for a second. You can watch the whole conversation, the full conversation with Jason Whitlock on FOX Nation. Get it free at tuckercarlson.com. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: So last night, we dared to tell you about the ongoing tragedy of the City of Baltimore, one of the great American cities, a city filled with people in total misery, a city of people being murdered, a city of children who can't read. We told you about one Baltimore High School where a majority of the students are reading at an elementary level. Here's a report from local news.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice over): In Reading, 628, Patterson High School students took the test, 484 of them or 77 percent tested at an elementary school Reading level. That includes 71 high school students who are reading at a kindergarten level and 88 students reading at a first grade level. Another 45 are reading at a second grade level. Just 12 students tested at Patterson High School, we're reading at grade level that comes out to less than two percent.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So the kids can't read, more people are being murdered in Baltimore than ever in its history. People have allowed this to happen. They didn't like it when we called them out for it last night. Trace Gallagher has been tracking their response. Hey, Trace.

GALLAGHER: Did not like it at all, Tucker, and what they're saying here is that you didn't do your homework. But what you were saying last night is that the test scores had dropped dramatically and the Baltimore Schools came back with this saying that test scores don't define all the students, but they failed to explain exactly what does define the students considering that test scores are a widely used barometer of student's ability.

They went on to say that you criticized them for the limiting or stopping of arresting students who commit crimes, and their response to that was they arrest students who commit crimes when it's appropriate. But again, they didn't find what exactly is appropriate.

You also said this watch, and we'll talk on the other side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Here's one of the biggest black majority cities in the United States. Tens of thousands of Black people who live in Baltimore are in misery because their kids keep getting murdered.

Last year, Baltimore's murder rate was higher than it is in El Salvador and Honduras. Now, those are countries the State Department tells us to, quote, "avoid due to crime." So it's fair to say things are incredibly violent in Baltimore, they have been for a long time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GALLAGHER: Not only did the schools respond, but now the Baltimore Mayor has responded in a tweet quoting here: "We don't have any room for racist vitriol in our city or time for comments that don't contribute towards building a better Baltimore. I remain focused on reversing the deep rooted systemic inequities that have plagued our communities for longer than Tucker Carlson has been alive."

There is more on this we can get into as the week progresses, Tucker, but so far no definition of exactly why they're angry at the report you did last night.

CARLSON: Yes, well they're angry because we told the truth. Brandon Scott is a disgrace, letting Black people die and then calling you racist if you point it out. That's not going to work anymore, pal.

We appreciate your report tonight. Thanks so much, Trace. Good to see you.

We are out of time, unfortunately.

We will be back tomorrow. Sean Hannity right now.

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS CHANNEL HOST: You know, it is so wrong that these kids are not being taught to read, to write, to do math, science, computers. It is a tragedy. We are failing them on a spectacular level as you pointed out.

How about focusing on that and saving these kids' lives so they have a good future.

CARLSON: They don't care.

HANNITY: And a good job down the line. Tucker, thank you.

CARLSON: Yes.

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