Tucker: Whenever you think we've reached peak insanity, Biden doubles-down

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Tucker: Whenever you think we've reached peak insanity, Biden doubles-down

'Tucker Carlson Tonight' host slams the president's response to the chaotic withdrawal and evacuation in Afghanistan

This is a rush transcript from "Tucker Carlson Tonight" August 31, 2021. 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. 

We're starting to learn the identities of some of the large, but still own unknown number of Americans in the low hundreds, they've assured us, who were abandoned by the U.S. military this week and remain trapped in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. "The Sacramento Bee" has just reported that at least two dozen students enrolled in the San Juan Unified School District in the State of California are stranded somewhere in Afghanistan tonight. No one is certain where they are or how they're going to get home. 

The White House hasn't bothered to comment despite being asked. 

What's so interesting, the contrast that informs us really is that over the past week, this same administration has overseen the evacuation of tens of thousands of unvetted Afghan nationals, many of whom will now be moved into neighborhoods around the United States and stay permanently. They didn't seem to encounter any problems in doing this, thanks to meticulous and thoughtful planning Operation Change America Forever came off precisely according to plan. It worked flawlessly. 

But a couple of dozen American school kids trapped in Afghanistan? The White House isn't really interested in what happens to them, so they passed that portfolio to Tony Blinken which tells you how completely unimportant they consider it, quote: "If there's an American citizen left in Afghanistan," Joe Biden told us the other day, "We're going to stay until we get them all out." Right. He didn't mean that. 

So what's Tony Blinken's plan to get them all out? To rescue the American citizens trapped tonight in Afghanistan? Well, as Blinken told us yesterday, the governments of Haiti and the Republic of Congo have sent a strongly worded letter to the Taliban and beware, they mean it. You wouldn't want to see the Republic of Congo when it's mad. 

That's the kind of weak it's been. 

Whenever you think we have reached peak insanity, they double down. This afternoon, the supposed President of the United States appeared out of nowhere and decided to speak in public. Did you see it? 

How to describe the experience exactly? Weird is just the beginning. 

So, first off, for example, Biden announced that the United States is done with Afghanistan forever. We're gone and we're not coming back ever. Then Biden angrily announced that we'd quote, "hunt down" something called ISIS- K, which sounds suspiciously like a new line of cosmetics from Kim Kardashian, but apparently isn't. This ISIS-K Biden said may be hiding in Afghanistan, in which case we will hunt them down there in Afghanistan. 

So actually, we're not really leaving Afghanistan, we could be back very soon. 

The whole speech was like that. It was disorienting. 

At one point, Biden bragged about what a remarkably, really, stunningly and historically successful military and Intelligence operation we have just witnessed, all of us together. 

Apparently Biden is under the impression that the entire United States has lost electrical power and no one has a working internet connection. So, this is what he said. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We completed one of the biggest airlifts in history with more than 120, 000 people evacuated to safety. That number is more than double what most experts thought were possible.

No nation -- no nation has ever done anything like it in all of history. Only the United States had the capacity and the will and ability to do it and we did it today. 

The extraordinary success of this mission was due to the incredible skill, bravery and selfless courage of the United States Military and our diplomats and Intelligence professionals. 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

CARLSON: So no nations in history has ever done anything like this. Yes, possible. But he didn't mean it like that. He is telling us that this was the Berlin airlift, plus D-Day, plus the moon shot, plus the invention of yoga pants. This was a triumph of American brilliance and ingenuity and will. 

Fifty years from now, your grandchildren will celebrate Fall of Kabul Day with tears of pride in their eyes. My ancestors did that, they'll think. 

As we said, it was demented, it was literally demented. But over at the White House, they seemed to believe every word of it. They are losing consciousness from huffing their own fumes. Watch Biden continue. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

BIDEN: The bottom line, 90 percent of Americans in Afghanistan who wanted to leave were able to leave. 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

CARLSON: Yes. Biden went on to repeat what Tony Blinken told us yesterday, which is that the Taliban will probably allow those remaining 10 percent of Americans to leave at some point, possibly. He didn't explain why the Taliban would allow this or why we should be certain that they will allow it, in fact he did the opposite. 

In the same speech that he praised the Intelligence community's extraordinary success, Joe Biden admitted in the same speech that yes, the Intelligence community, the extraordinarily successful Intelligence community completely missed the fact that Afghanistan's government would fall apart in a weekend. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

BIDEN: That assumption that the Afghan government would be able to hold on for a period of time beyond military drawdown turned out not to be accurate. 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

CARLSON: "It turned out not to be accurate." The President of Afghanistan who is a college professor, hand-picked by the college professors who run our government, the conspiracy of morons running the world, that guy fled the country in an hour without telling anybody including his handlers at the C.I.A. They had no idea. 

But that was an extraordinary success says Joe Biden. Nothing could have been done to avoid the disaster that you have watched, to avoid the images you're seeing on your screen right now. That would be the Taliban dressed up as American soldiers checking out the helicopters we left for them. 

We had no choice but to leave $90 billion of sophisticated military equipment to the Taliban. We armed the Taliban 20 years after we arrived in Afghanistan to beat the Taliban back to the Stone Age, they are now one of the best armed militaries in the world, and that was a great success. Why didn't the Biden administration figure out how to take this equipment with us or at least destroy it? No one has answered that question. 

But the key thing is, they are not ashamed by it -- at all. In fact, now they're telling us they want to give the Taliban more aid, direct cash payments. It sounds like we're making this up. Every night we think, will people believe the script? Yes, because it's real. 

Watch the National Security adviser, the Rhode scholar, Jake Sullivan explain it today. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

JAKE SULLIVAN, U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: When it comes to our economic and development assistance relationship with the Taliban, that will be about the Taliban's actions. It will be about whether they follow through on their commitments, their commitments to safe passage for Americans and Afghan allies, their commitment to not allow Afghanistan to be a base from which terrorists can attack the United States or any other country, their commitments with respect to upholding their international obligations. 

It's going to be up to them, and we will wait and see by their actions how we end up responding in terms of the economic and development assistance. 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

CARLSON: You've got to think the Taliban are sitting around with their teapot gazing up at CNN from their carpets and thinking, that kid is the National Security adviser for the Great Satan? Maybe it's not so great. You really think they'd take Jake Sullivan seriously? 

Those of us who were born in the United States wouldn't even consider taking Jake Sullivan seriously for a second. You couldn't count on that kid to get your Starbucks order right, and he is threatening the Taliban we're not going to give you more aid. We just gave them $90 billion. They have one of the biggest Air Forces in the region. Right? 

So, the Biden administration is not going to admit anything, and the key thing they're not going to admit is that we just left a whole lot of American citizens including school children in a country we turned over to barbarians with a history of killing Americans. No one is going to admit that. 

Instead, the geniuses, the Rhode scholars are going to treat the Taliban like the rest of our allies, which means paying them a lot of your money and telling you that they're doing what we tell them to do when they're not.

So, what we're witnessing is a total lack -- a total and profound and obvious lack of accountability on the part of the people making decisions that affect your life and that have ended the lives of many Americans. 

This bothers people. It doesn't matter who you voted for in the last election, that's not an acceptable system and the people who are bothered most not surprisingly are the ones who just lost their sons in Kabul. 

Mark Schmitz had a son called Jared who was killed in the Kabul bombing. He has met with Joe Biden. Here is what he said, quote: "I'm not trying to insult the President, but it just didn't seem that appropriate to spend that much time on his own son when you're the one responsible for ultimately the way things went down. You kind of feel like that person should own it a little more." Yes, you think? Lecturing us about his own son who had nothing to do with Afghanistan, with all respect? 

Why won't you stop talking about yourself for a minute and apologize to the people whose sons you got killed? 

Last week, we talked to the father of one of the Marines who was killed in the bombing in Kabul, Kareem Nikoui was his name, that Marine's mother, Shana Chappell just posted a message for Joe Biden on Facebook, it ended this way, quote: "You turned to walk away and I let you know my son's blood was on your hands." Okay, she is a grieving mother, her son was just killed. 

Facebook in response censored her. Instagram, which Facebook owns deleted her account entirely, and that's what happens when you contradict the head of the Democratic Party, that elderly man wagging his finger in your face from the White House telling you how to raise your kids. 

What we just saw in Afghanistan was a military triumph. You must agree or we will make you disappear. If you go along with it, you can go on CNN. Watch. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

MATTHEW DOWD, CHIEF STRATEGIST, BUSH-CHENEY 2004 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: He needs to do his job competently and well, which so far I think he has done. It's proved -- I mean, he's done what nobody thought possible so far on COVID. Obviously, he is faced with a delta variant and trying to make that work better. 

I think the Afghanistan thing went way better than most people expected two weeks ago. 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

CARLSON: What's funny is that that guy who has got a track record of failure decades long is one of the geniuses who put us in Afghanistan in the first place, and then lied to the American public about it for many, many years. His name is Matthew Dowd. He has never apologized for that and said he has doubled down calling anyone who disagrees with anything he or any of the politicians he has worked for, he's called them unpatriotic. 

What makes this all even more nauseating is that the Biden administration appears to agree with it. They are not even self-aware enough to know how badly they have failed. They have no capacity for self-reflection. 

As if to prove that, the State Department spokesman just tweeted out a column from Jennifer Rubin, the dumbest person ever to work for "The Washington Post" about what a great job they're doing. Here is the headline, quote: "The State Department deserves more credit for its effort to evacuate Americans from Afghanistan." 

The column does concede that yes, there are Americans trapped in Afghanistan. Yes, they were abandoned by the U.S. military, which exists to protect them, but it didn't for some reason, quote: "It is possible some of the 250 might not make it out. Could some Americans face physical abuse? Absolutely." It's like Animal House. 

Other things we did wrong, sure. But on the flip side, Jen Rubin says, quote: "The herculean effort to extract thousands of Americans after the Taliban seized control of the country should not go unnoticed or unappreciated." Notice the double negative, the hallmark of the moron. 

But it's not just dumb old Jen Rubin, it's what the State Department believes. Those are the people The Pentagon now tells us are in charge of rescuing those school kids from Afghanistan. 

As Americans wonder how to get home, because they've been abandoned, these people are congratulating themselves and that should not surprise us because it's exactly what The Pentagon has been doing for decades with no repercussions whatsoever. 

This is the Secretary of Defense in 2011. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

ROBERT GATES, FORMER UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: And what you've accomplished is extraordinary because over the last year, essentially, you have ejected the Taliban from their -- from their home territory. And if we can hold this territory and expand the bubble, then I think -- I think by the end of the year, we can turn the corner in this conflict. 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

CARLSON: Well, the end of the year would have been, let's see about well, exactly 10 years ago so, we don't mean to single out that guy who is probably one of the smarter people to oversee this disaster for the last 20 years, only to point out that this disaster did not start 10 days ago, it started in October of 2001. 

"The Taliban was ejected." If you're getting the sense that the same people have been reading the same script for two decades, you're on to something and they're still doing it right now, today, they're pretending everything is fine. 

Watch as The Pentagon's top spokesman explains that yes, Americans are trapped in Kabul, but that's really no different from when American tourists in say the Caribbean lose their passports. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

REAR ADMIRAL JOHN KIRBY (RET.) PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: It's not completely unlike the way we do it elsewhere around the world. I mean we have Americans that get stranded in countries all the time and we do everything we can to try to facilitate safe passage. 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

CARLSON: So let's say you're on a water slide in the BVI and somehow you lose passport. It's kind of like that, if you're in Kandahar when the Taliban take over. So, you get oily creatures like the one you just saw when institutions are not held accountable for their bad decisions for like let's say 20 years. 

They can say whatever they want, no matter how ridiculous, no matter how absurd and they know there will be no repercussions. 

Today, Joe Biden had the opportunity to punish the people who have been responsible for these failures for more than 20 years. Instead, he called the whole thing an extraordinary success. He mentioned his son, Beau, for some reason and after he was done with his prepared remarks, he just walked away. 

Enterprising reporters shouted questions and for a moment, it appeared possible that Joe Biden might answer them, he turned back and walked toward the podium then we realized he had just forgotten his little obedience mask, so he grabbed it and walked away. 

Brit Hume is FOX's News senior political analyst, he joins us tonight. Brit, thanks so much for coming on. 

What's so -- I mean, I think all of us who are, you know, over the age of 13 acknowledge that human beings make terrible mistakes often. What's so infuriating, almost to the point of becoming intolerable is their unwillingness to say, I'm sorry, we screwed up. Here is what went wrong -- just admit publicly and with sincerity what the rest of us are seeing. Why won't they do that? 

BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS CHANNEL SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: It's been a refusal to do that since this debacle first began to unfold, I think that has characterized this President and his administration's response to it. 

Yes, there were heroic things done by the military and I think as well by diplomats working on this to try to get as many people out as they could, but they were responding to an emergency of their own creation. 

CARLSON: Right. 

HUME: There isn't a military strategist that I know of or planner who does not think that this whole evacuation was seriously under-planned, undermanned, and poorly thought out, and rushed. So, clearly there is that, and that is Biden's doing. 

Biden wanted out, he wanted out in a hurry, he wanted out by August 31st, and he got -- he got the military out of there, which seemed to be his chief objective. 

Suppose he had come out today and said, look, it was the right decision to get out, but we didn't execute it well and I'm responsible for that. These are my decisions. I regret them deeply. I apologize for them. I am deeply, most of all regret the loss of life that this may incur, and I -- and I promise you that if we have to send troops back in there to get our people out, we will and the Taliban ought to know that, but the bottom line is, I'm responsible, I'm sorry, we're going to do better. 

My guess is, and you don't see this in modern politics, but my guess is the public would be much more forgiving of him than they are likely to be now. 

CARLSON: I mean this, I truly mean this. I would be grateful to hear that from him or any other President. It just seems like it's counterproductive for them to tell us that what we're seeing on television is not a disaster, that everything is great, it's a massive success, and you sort of wonder like how long can they keep saying that? What is the plan here? Do you have any idea? 

HUME: Well, I think in political terms, Tucker, what I suspect is that this is an effort to rally the faithful, to give the faithful something to say and you heard in the words of Matthew Dowd there whose silliness is almost beyond comprehension that that, you know, this was a success beyond what anybody imagined. 

Biden was saying that as well. You see pieces of that in social media where people are trying to stick up for them, but the verdict I think by and large across the news media has been almost unanimous condemnation of this as a failure. And it is pretty well set now, I think in the minds of journalists who are covering Washington, covering The Pentagon, covering the State Department, covering the White House, that this has been a calamity. 

That's not going to be easy to overturn and I think the public having seen weeks of this has probably reached the same judgment, whether they will be willing to forgive Biden or let this thing pass into the recesses of their memory remains to be seen. I have my doubts. 

CARLSON: I do, too. I really do. Brit Hume, thanks so much for that. 

HUME: You bet. 

CARLSON: So, the administration has brought in tens of thousands of totally unvetted Afghan nationals who never worked with the us military, and of course has left behind school children and many others, but one of the people Joe Biden also left behind is an actual translator who helped to save his life in Afghanistan a decade ago. One of the guys who probably should have been taken out of Afghanistan and wasn't. 

He has a message for Joe Biden straight ahead. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) 

CARLSON: Erik Prince founded Blackwater. He is a really smart and interesting person who spent an awful lot of time in Afghanistan. We spoke to him for a recent episode of "Tucker Carlson Today." He told us that back in 2008, men from Blackwater helped rescue Joe Biden when he was trapped in Afghanistan. Watch. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

ERIK PRINCE, FOUNDER, BLACKWATER: So they were on a congressional visit to Afghanistan in the winter and their U.S. Army helicopter got lost in a blinding snowstorm and set down in Taliban territory on the side of a mountain and the U.S. military launched a ground convoy to get them and they got lost and the Blackwater guys launched and they did not get lost and we recovered them. 

We rescued them from Taliban territory, I think that was the winter of 2008. 

CARLSON: You rescued Joe Biden and John Kerry and Chuck Hagel. 

PRINCE: Afraid so. 

CARLSON: Are they grateful? 

PRINCE: You wouldn't think so, no. 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

CARLSON: Yes, no, they're not grateful. 

One of the guys on the scene who helped rescue Biden was an actual Afghan interpreter called Mohammed. Now that very man is trapped in Afghanistan, he was abandoned there. He brought, of course all the wrong people home. He just sent this message to Joe Biden, quote: "Hello, Mr. President. Save me and my family. Don't forget me here." 

Sean Parnell is a former U.S. Army Airborne Ranger and a candidate for the United States Senate in the State of Pennsylvania. He joins us tonight. Sean, thanks so much for coming on. 

You hear all this chin-tugging about our allies left behind, meanwhile the overwhelming majority of people we've imported are not allies. There is no evidence they are. This guy was an actual ally and he is still stranded there. 

You're getting the impression we are picking the wrong people maybe on purpose. Why? 

SEAN PARNELL, U.S. SENATORIAL CANDIDATE FOR PENNSYLVANIA: Yes, well, Tucker, I'm just going to tell you just listening to your monologue, I don't think that Joe Biden cares and that's the tragedy of this whole thing. 

CARLSON: I know. 

PARNELL: Here is a guy that's been a bureaucrat in Washington for 50 years, the only thing that he has been able to improve in that time is his own bank account. And you want to know how I know he does not care? It is because no one has been held accountable from the very beginning of this tragedy, right? 

You've had general -- like right on this show, Tucker, I said right here a couple months ago that generals focused on critical race theory would cost lives on the battlefield and that -- that maybe just maybe they should focus on a withdrawal from Afghanistan. 

Our Intelligence Community didn't know the President of Afghanistan was fleeing the country, but they could read your text messages. We abandoned Bagram, we ceded Kabul to the Taliban, we allowed the Taliban to protect American citizens. All of that is insane. Now tragically, Americans are dead. Thousands -- hundreds if not thousands of Americans are trapped behind enemy lines, thousands of our allies are as well. 

And Tucker, there is something wrong from a leadership standpoint with the senior leaders in this country. There is a massive disconnect between the door kickers on the ground, the people that are serving front towards enemy and the people that are serving in air conditioned offices in The Pentagon and quite frankly, I think that they've forgotten just the core tenet of leadership. 

Leadership lesson number one: It is not about you. Leadership is about serving others. If service is beneath you, then true leadership will always be beyond you, and career politicians like Joe Biden that's how they are. That's how they're wired, that's all they really care about and I think that you're seeing that lack of attention and that lack of care playing out in Afghanistan right now right before our eyes every single day. 

CARLSON: It is. It's a lack of attention and a lack of care. I think you hit it right directly on the head and I appreciate that. Sean Parnell, thank you very much for summing that up. 

PARNELL: Thanks, Tucker. 

CARLSON: You did call it, by the way, you're right, I remember that. 

So American citizens are not the only ones who were left behind, and if you love dogs, this will upset you. You've probably already seen it on the internet. 

A whole bunch of dogs from the Kabul Small Animal Rescue were stranded in Afghanistan after the U.S. military left. Pictures of these dogs are everywhere on the internet. 

The SPCA has just confirmed that the Biden administration could have evacuated these dogs, but didn't care to quote: "In the end, the dogs and their caretakers were explicitly not allowed to board military aircraft and numerous private charter aircraft were not granted access to the airport either." Now, there's a lot going on in the world right now and so maybe you're thinking, why care about dogs? 

But if you think about the expense, the effort, the danger that American soldiers have been put into to rescue Afghan citizens, some of whom are not our allies, it does make you wonder, why not the dogs? 

I've got four dogs in my bed at night, and no Pashtuns. Some Americans care about dogs. 

Daphna Nachminovitch is the Senior Vice President of PETA, cares about dogs. Daphna joins us tonight. So, thanks so much for coming. 

DAPHNA NACHMINOVITCH, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF PETA: Thank you for having me. 

CARLSON: There are these pictures that -- and there's one -- of course -- on the screen that are just infuriating, I think to most normal people in this country who love dogs. Why weren't these dogs allowed on the plane? Was there some good reason for that? 

NACHMINOVITCH: That's an excellent question, Tucker. The reality is, we heard from not just Americans but from former and current employees of the Department of State and Department of Defense who were deeply concerned about the fate of almost 200 dogs, not just the Kabul Small Animal Rescue dogs who, of course remain a major concern, but also service dogs, working dogs, bomb sniffing dogs belonging both to the American forces and Afghan Forces. 

And believe it or not, companion animals belonging to American families who had evacuated and who we are told have since been released onto the streets of Kabul to fend for themselves. These are companion animals who have no survival skills and don't stand a chance unless there is intervention and that's what we are calling on President Biden to do now. 

CARLSON: You know, not every -- you hate almost to say this, but not every culture appreciates pets and dogs the way the United States does, and dogs as you just pointed out do not stand a chance on the streets of a capital like Kabul, particularly right now in a moment of chaos. 

They don't take up much room. Again, is there some reason -- I mean, it's so transparently cruel and mean, like why would you do that? Why would you keep dogs off an airplane? 

NACHMINOVITCH: That's a good question, Tucker, and we don't know the answer to that. We have asked the U.S. government why this happened, we have asked them to rectify it, and we encourage Americans who care about this issue to visit https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__peta.org&d=DwICAg&c=uw6TLu4hwhHdiGJOgwcWD4AjKQx6zvFcGEsbfiY9-EI&r=kJ8f_Q6dvX3AsDP-NC79Q-X4IyH70YKVhyH4eVON4dc&m=vcBmaqDAr1PKLK7y8cGyo0zz2Hb4OuwBuDtqsNhZtVo&s=wFXi0yUlll9FSbaxr9Yk0IWqD9CEfYyPaCeXdWUGTSQ&e= and join us in calling on President Biden to interfere now. 

This is not just about working service dogs, it is about companion animals and animals who were formerly street dogs who were rescued and now have been turned back onto the streets of Afghanistan to fend for themselves and are now again homeless for no reason whatsoever. These are thinking, feeling animals who are terrified and if the U.S. government won't help them, then who will? 

CARLSON: That's such a -- it's such a great -- it's such a great point and you know, you always hear people Obama was always that's not who we are. Well, you know who we're not? We're not the kind of people who keep dogs off the plane. We're just not. No one wants to live in that country, I don't.

Daphna, I appreciate your coming on tonight. Thank you very much. 

NACHMINOVITCH: Thank you for having me, Tucker. 

CARLSON: So something amazing just happened in Washington because there's so much going on and most people didn't hear about it. The so-called January 6th Commission is trying to force big wireless carriers like AT&T to hand over the text messages and other personal communications data from the Cloud of sitting Members of Congress and members of the Trump family. That has never happened in American history. 

Nancy Pelosi doesn't like your politics, so she gets to read your text messages. 

Marjorie Taylor Greene is about to have her text messages handed over to Nancy Pelosi, she responds next. 

Right now on https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__tuckercarlson.com&d=DwICAg&c=uw6TLu4hwhHdiGJOgwcWD4AjKQx6zvFcGEsbfiY9-EI&r=kJ8f_Q6dvX3AsDP-NC79Q-X4IyH70YKVhyH4eVON4dc&m=vcBmaqDAr1PKLK7y8cGyo0zz2Hb4OuwBuDtqsNhZtVo&s=ymPYeuTP1f7GdoA6-_JvQvU541GYWmWfc2jkdS7A4XY&e= , by the way, you can still order a signed copy of "The Long Slide." We'll be right back. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) 

CARLSON: Democrats on the so-called January 6th Commission are now demanding that the big wireless carriers like AT&T turn over the personal communications of Members of Congress, as well as the Trump family. We will quote CNN on this, quote: "In its request to Verizon for example, the select committee asks that the cell site location information, call data records, and content, cloud or storage content and subscriber information be preserved." 

Oh, so in other words when you disobey Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Democratic leadership, they seize your text messages. Does that sound like a free country to you? No, and we can't allow it to happen if we want to live in a free country. 

Some senior Republicans appear to realize this, Kevin McCarthy is the top Republican in the House. He is he's the House Minority Leader, he just provided this show with this statement, quote: "Adam Schiff, Bennie Thompson, and Nancy Pelosi's attempts to strong-arm private companies to turn over individuals' private data would put every American with a phone or computer in the crosshairs of a surveillance state run by Democratic politicians." True. 

"If these companies comply," he continues, " ... with the Democrat order to turn over private information, they are in violation of Federal law and subject to losing their ability to operate in the United States. If they pursue this path, a Republican majority will not forget and will be ready to hold them fully accountable under the law," end quote. 

That sounds like a threat and we fervently hope it is. 

Marjorie Taylor Greene represents Georgia in the U.S. Congress. She is one of the members whose private communications are being demanded by Nancy Pelosi and she joins us tonight. Congresswoman, thanks so much for coming on. 

REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): Thank you, Tucker. 

CARLSON: So you just got there, did you know that if you voted in a way that Nancy Pelosi didn't like, she would strong-arm a company into turning over your private text messages. Was that part of the deal as you understood it? 

GREENE: Absolutely not. As a matter of fact, I think it's outrageous after what America has been through especially this past week and what the Joe Biden administration has done leaving Americans behind in Afghanistan, service dogs, fully arming the Taliban. Now, they want to drag Americans and American taxpayers through another witch hunt just like we saw with Russian collusion conspiracy lies and what they did to President Trump spending over 30 million on what turned out to be nothing more than absolute Democrat political warfare. 

This is what they're trying to do to all of us, but this is leading us into waters that we've never been in in America. 

CARLSON: Right. 

GREENE: You see America was never meant to be a communist country, but these are the tactics that Democrats are wanting to use. 

CARLSON: Well yes, I mean demanding your text messages if they don't like your politics. Now, we've been tough on Kevin McCarthy for being weak. That statement is not weak. That statement is a flat out promise, threat, whatever you want to call it. If you do this, there are consequences. 

I don't see any other way out of it other than to make that clear, do you? 

GREENE: Well, we have to make it that clear because you see, if Congress - - if Members of Congress can have our personal cell phone data exposed so that our Democrat colleagues and unfortunately, some of our so-called Republican colleagues can rifle through, just to hurt us politically in the next election, then we are going into a dangerous place in this country.

It is no longer Republicans versus Democrats, it's more like Americans versus communists. And you see it's not just us that will be in extreme danger, it is the American people because we never want to have a Federal government where they are willing to break Federal law, violate our privacy, search and seizure, and demand from private companies to hand over this data. 

And these cell phone companies, these telecommunications companies, they better not play with these Democrats because Republicans are coming back into the majority in 2022 and we will take this very serious. 

CARLSON: Well you should shut them down. I mean, you should take those companies down. Would it be okay if Nancy Pelosi forced a private security company to raid your house at gunpoint at three in the morning because she doesn't like your politics? Like where is this going? This is the single craziest thing I've heard in in memory out of Washington. 

GREENE: Well, it's outrageous and it should let everyone know these Democrats are not the Democrats that maybe your mommy and daddy voted for. These democrats have fully changed and they do not care about your privacy. They will do anything to achieve their political means and that means violating Federal law. 

And we will, these telecommunications companies, if they go along with this, they will be shut down and that's a promise. 

CARLSON: Good. I hope they're afraid of you. They should be. They should be. 

They're very short-sighted, they think Democrats are going to rule forever, but they should be afraid to wade into partisan politics like this. You know, they are public utilities. Back off. 

GREENE: Absolutely. 

CARLSON: Marjorie Taylor Green, I appreciate your coming on tonight. Thank you so much. 

GREENE: Thank you, Tucker. 

CARLSON: So, we spent a lot of time beating up on the government of China, and all of it, we think has been well-deserved., But if there are signs that the Chinese government is paying closer attention to its citizens and its children, well, you've got to be honest about that and we're going to be. 

We'll tell you what they're doing in China that we could learn from. Never said that before, but in this case, it's true. That's next. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) 

CARLSON: You've got to wonder how many hours we've spent on the show attacking the Communist Party of China, a lot. It's a totalitarian government. Our leaders admire it and that ought to make you very nervous, that's been our position and still is our position, and probably always will be. 

On the other hand, we want to be as honest as possible about things we see, so when the Chinese government does something virtuous, it doesn't happen much, but we're willing to say so. 

Here is what they've done. China has announced it will limit private equity firms from raising money to buy residential properties in China. Why is that? Because Chinese citizens, it turns out need somewhere to live. Real estate bubbles are bad for everybody except of course for a small number of real estate speculators. 

As the Chinese government put it houses are for living in, not for speculation, and that's a very good point. They may have learned it from watching say the State of California. In California, the average home is now over $800,000.00 in part thanks to speculation and homelessness is totally out of control. The Chinese don't want to copy that model, nor do they want a California-style popular culture, one that worships celebrity over achievement.

Obsessing over sleazy famous people on social media, Chinese officials announced that is quote, "poisoning the minds of the country's youth." Can they stop the youth from worshiping celebrities? Probably not, but at least they're worried about it and that's a start. 

They are also by the way worried about video games in China. Online gaming for children in China will now be limited to three hours a week on the weekends. This is being done the government says quote, "To prevent the addiction to online games." Is that a crazy idea? 

Well, according to a recent study in this country, the average American kid plays video games for more than 15 hours a week. A poll from the University of Michigan found that 86 percent of parents believe their children spent too much time playing video games apparently the other 14 percent weren't paying attention. So, it's a legitimate problem. 

What's interesting is when was the last time you heard one of our political leaders even mention video games or housing market speculation or celebrity worship as a problem? Now, before you respond by saying that politicians shouldn't be involved in our personal lives, remember that the C.D.C. already very much is involved in our personal lives. 

So, maybe our government could take just a moment from bossing us around to improve our actual lives once in a while. Just go ahead and try, even if you fail, it will be an improvement. At least, we know you noticed. 

The families of several victims of 9/11 have just sent a message to the President to mark the end of the war in Afghanistan. We'll tell you what it is straight ahead. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) 

CARLSON: Just thinking, you know Kabul fell in a day, the President of Afghanistan, the college professor got on a plane with the cash and left and most of us were really surprised by this because for 20 years, the foreign policy establishment and its many licks fiddles in Congress have assured us that everything was fine. We are building democracy, we're doing a great job. That's what our trillions were buying. 

What do those people have to say now? What does Lindsey Graham have to say about that? 

At some point, when we get a little time in the next week, we're going to put together a montage of Lindsey Graham talk about how great Afghanistan is for the last 20 years and ask him like, did you believe it when you said this? He's always welcome on the show to explain, maybe he'll come. 

Well, nearly 2,000 survivors of 9/11, twenty years ago as well as first responders and the family members and many of the victims have just sent a message to Joe Biden. They don't want Biden to attend memorial events commemorating 9/11 unless he declassifies American Intelligence documents detailing what the government knew about 9/11 before 9/11. That's still classified for some reason. 

Brett Eagleson is one of those 9/11 family members who joins us tonight. Brett lost his father on 9/11. 

Brett, thanks so much for coming on. It is hard to believe that as we approach the 20-year anniversary, the U.S. government through all these different administrations has continued to hide Intel about what it knew before 9/11. Why are they hiding this? Do you have any good theories? 

BRETT EAGLESON, FAMILY MEMBER OF 9/11 VICTIM: Tucker, I don't know the answer to that and I wish somebody would provide it to us, but the justification for government secrecy itself is classified. 

So, the government has invoked what's known as the State Secrets Principle on all documents related to Saudi Arabia's involvement in 9/11 and the justification for that principle itself is classified, so it's just -- it's painstakingly hard for us, as family members to be 20 years on and still be begging our government for closure. 

We have begged everyone. We have met with senators from both sides of the aisle. We have begged from administration to administration and the U.S. government abandoned Americans in Afghanistan, just like they're abandoning the 9/11 families. 

And it is a really hard thing to come to terms with, Tucker, is that your government doesn't have your back. We've been fighting -- I've been on your show a handful of times and thank you for covering this by the way. 

I've been on CNN. I've been -- it's just astonishing to me, Tucker, why our government fails to release this information and the message to President Biden remains that unless you honor your campaign promise to us, don't bother coming to 9/11 because we refuse to go through another ceremony where a political leader stands up and says that how much 9/11 means to them and how much they grieve for us and how important it is, yet behind closed doors, thwart us, thwart our efforts in foreclosure. 

CARLSON: I just have got to say, I don't believe for a second this has anything to do with Saudi Arabia. Nobody cares about Saudi Arabia. This is protecting, I think, U.S. officials, Americans like what -- how did they screw up? 

I mean, if history is any guide, the people they are protecting are usually themselves, right? I mean the Saudis? Come on. Do you think that's really what this is about? 

EAGLESON: Tucker, I mean, there's a lot of theories, right, and the biggest theory out there is embarrassment. Embarrassment by our own Intelligence failures, embarrassment because of the fact since day two we probably knew that the Saudis were very much involved, but yet we started a war in Iraq. 

And you know one point I just wanted to make and your former colleague, Catherine Herridge just broke this story, which was lost in the whole shuffle of Afghanistan over the weekend. Catherine Herridge broke a story about a pilot, Pilot Brown was his name who was approached by the F.B.I. in 2012 about a document that the F.B.I. found in a Saudi government employee's apartment. Do you know what that document was, Tucker? It was a diagram of how to fly a plane into a building. 

How much more of a smoking gun can you get than that? But somehow this document gets lost in the news of Afghanistan and somehow our government feels like they're justified in keeping this information from me and from thousands of other family members. What reason is it that our government continues to keep this information under lock and key? 

There is a crew, there is a group within the F.B.I. as we speak, as I sit here today I assure you, there is a group within the F.B.I. that was there prior to 9/11 and that they use the bureaucracy to prevent this information from seeing the light of day, and we need a President that's going to stand up for once and for all and take our side. 

CARLSON: Yes, why are we paying our taxes? And I'm not surprised Herridge broke this. She is excellent, one of the few I pay attention to. 

I appreciate it. Brett, Godspeed. We couldn't be rooting for you more fervently. I appreciate your coming on. Thank you. 

EAGLESON: Tucker, thank you. You continue to have us on and we continue to be grateful. Thank you so much, sir. 

CARLSON: Always, always. Thank you. 

That's it for us tonight. We'll be back every night at eight. The show that's the sworn enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness, and groupthink, and generally the enemy of absurdity. 

Sean Hannity takes over. 

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