Updated

This is a rush transcript from "Tucker Carlson Tonight," March 8, 2021. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS HOST: Good evening and welcome to TUCKER CARLSON TONIGHT. Happy Monday.

Ten days before the last election, the 2020 election, a reporter for "The Texas Tribune" came across a very strange sight in Starr County, Texas. Starr County sits on the border right across from Mexico. It's one of the poorest places in the country. Not a lot of people visit Starr County, Texas. But this reporter did and he watched as more than 70 vehicles with Trump flags drove in parade formation from the little town of Roma, Texas to Rio Grande City.

"All aboard the Trump train," read one sign.

It was a convoy and was organized by a man called Raul Reyes, even Reyes couldn't believe the turnout. "I was expecting 15 to 20 cars max," he told the reporter. And the reason he wasn't expecting more cars is because Starr County is not exactly a Republican stronghold. In fact, just four years before in the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton defeated Donald Trump in Starr County, Texas by 60 points. That's definitive.

But things changed and they changed fast. In the span of just four years, Starr County, Texas moved from deep blue to almost red. Donald Trump finished within just five points of Joe Biden. That's a swing of over 50 points.

And the numbers are even more dramatic in nearby Zapata County. Donald Trump lost Zapata County in 2016 by 33 points, but last November, he easily beat Joe Biden. These are big changes. And you're seeing them all along the Rio Grande Valley, the southern border with Mexico.

Now to the geniuses looking at these numbers in Washington trying to figure out what they mean, the most amazing thing, the things that leaps out of them immediately is that Starr and Zapata Counties are overwhelmingly Hispanic. Starr County is 96 percent Hispanic, Zapata is 85 percent.

So how could Hispanics support Donald Trump in numbers like that? They must be QAnon people.

And not only were those two counties non-white, they are very poor, legitimately, as we said, some of the poorest places in the United States. Nearly a third of the residents of Starr County, Texas live in poverty, the median household income in both those counties, Starr and Zapata, is under $35,000.00 a year, but they are voting for Trump.

What the hell is going on?

Well, a lot of things are going on probably, but uncontrolled illegal immigration, definitely is one of them, probably the main one. And that's completely baffling to people in D.C.

If you're a Yale educated bureaucrat or a nonprofit executive living in Bethesda, of course, you see everything through the lens of identity politics, you've been told to do that. And needless to say, you obey, you always obey.

Most illegal aliens are Hispanic, so you assume that most Hispanics support illegal immigration. That's just how you think. The problem is, you're an idiot. You have no idea what you're talking about, but you have no clue how ignorant you are. How could you know, you never leave Bethesda.

Congressman Henry Cuellar is a Democrat, but he doesn't live in Bethesda. He lives in Texas. Cuellar represents both Starr and Zapata Counties. Cuellar sees what's happening. He can't ignore it.

On Saturday, he told FOX News that his constituents are being overwhelmed by an influx of migrants from Latin America, and the Biden administration is doing nothing to stop it. In fact, they're lying about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. HENRY CUELLAR (D-TX): It might have started under Trump, but when you're the President, you own the situation, whether it's a success or not a success, it's going to own that.

I think in February, we're going to get about 100,000. And again, I don't care what we call it, but I can tell you this, those numbers of people that are being released, they are purposely withholding that information. They've been told not to withhold that information.

I now know that they're bringing people from McAllen over to Laredo, processing them in Laredo, and they're going to release them in my community.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Those numbers of people being released says Henry Cuellar, the Biden administration is purposely withholding that information. Now, why would they do that?

How bad is it? Well, again, this is an elected Democrat admitting that he has no idea how many people are flooding into his community every day because the Biden administration is hiding that information.

He is supposed to be representing this county, but he has no idea how many of these people compete for his constituents for jobs. He has no clue how many of them are criminals. He has no idea how many of them have COVID.

No one knows the situation there is that out of control. And it's not just Henry Cuellar who is upset about it.

Another Democrat from Texas, State Senator Chuy Hinojosa from McAllen has charged the Biden administration is encouraging illegal aliens to come which obviously, they are. Quote, "It's gotten worse," Hinojosa said, "I don't think quite frankly the Biden administration was aware of what's happening on the ground here, which you can understand because they're just coming in and trying to get people up to speed with what's happening. But I don't think they were aware that there were that many coming across. The Border Patrol is overwhelmed, they're throwing up their hands because they don't know what to do."

Now, that's not a problem if you're Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, it's cool. But if you actually live there, and you're poor, it's a huge problem, and you shouldn't be surprised by this.

Our policymakers realized a long time ago that they could simply hide most of the relevant data on illegal immigration, and no one would bother to look into it.

Case in point is the total number of illegal immigrants living in the United States, it's been 11 million officially for decades. Everybody repeats that. They keep repeating that number, even when all available evidence contradicted that number. That number is a complete lie.

There is some research out there, some good research, totally nonpartisan, and the best research suggests that there are at least twice that number of people living here illegally, and possibly many more, quite possibly more than 30 million.

But journalists and the politicians they protect don't get to the bottom of because it doesn't bother them, because they're all part of one class. They're the professional class. They run the Democratic Party, and more illegal immigration means cheaper, low end labor for them.

It doesn't really matter what effect it has on the country. It doesn't really matter what more crowding does to the natural environment. We've got about a hundred million more people living in the United States than we had 30 years ago. What does that do to the environment? No one cares.

Who does it hurt? They don't care.

Of course, if you are being hurt, you do care. If you're living in poverty in the Rio Grande Valley, none of this is an abstraction. The actual numbers matter very much to you.

FOX's Casey Stegall recently did what most journalists are refusing to do, he went down to the border to try to understand, on foot, with a camera, the scope of the illegal immigration surge that has intensified since Joe Biden became President.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CASEY STEGALL, FOX NEWS CHANNEL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The wave of migrants currently flooding America's southern border runs the gamut from entire families to children all alone. And now once again, larger packs traveling together.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Huge groups are coming in, because they know that they're going to be let go.

STEGALL (voice over): U.S. Border Patrol agents say it's not at all uncommon to encounter clusters of 20, 30, 50, sometimes even groups of more than a hundred migrants wandering the desert and surrendering, as the overall apprehension numbers keep ticking up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are between 700 and a thousand daily.

STEGALL (voice over): Which translates into a shortage of detention beds and space, even as additional temporary overflow facilities are brought online.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARLSON: This is obviously humanitarian crisis, mostly for Americans, but not just for Americans, for the migrants themselves.

Whatever happened to "those kids in cages"? All those unaccompanied minors? Maybe some of them don't have their parents with them. Nobody cares anymore.

It's hypocrisy. Yes. But it's so in your face, you have to conclude the hypocrisy itself is the point. They humiliate you and wear you down by ignoring their own previous statements and blowing right past you with their new agenda.

As Congressman Cuellar pointed out, all of this is intentional from the way they're hiding the data to the complete 180 on the child overflow facilities.

People living in Starr and Zapata Counties voted the way they did for a reason. Is it surprising to you that they are being punished for it now? It shouldn't be.

But this is a bigger story than just South Texas. It's not just affecting border towns in the Rio Grande Valley. What you're seeing is an attack on an entire social class, an attack on working people, the ones who've been hurt the most by COVID, the ones who saw their lives destroyed after a year of incoherent health mandates from incompetents posing as experts.

And just to rub it in, in case you missed the point, the administration is demanding that American citizens, unless you're Gavin Newsom, but the rest, remain under Corona law forever.

Meanwhile, foreign nationals living here illegally can do essentially whatever they want.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice over): Officials with the City of Brownsville, Texas report at least 108 migrants tested positive for COVID since the end of January, more than six percent of everyone they screen.

A city spokesperson tells FOX News, they don't have the authority to detain those people and prevent them from getting on buses and traveling elsewhere.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So the illegal immigrants, some infected with coronavirus get on a bus and just take off. Who knows where they're going? No one knows where they're going. No one is checking. That would be racism.

Meanwhile, a mom in Ohio dares to watch her son's football game sitting alone in the stands, and for doing that she gets Tasered, wrestled to the ground, arrested all for not wearing an obedience mask.

It's awful on every level and a functioning media would expose it. But instead our media create diversion so that you won't notice it is happening in the first place.

Watch the race lady on MSNBC, Harvard educated, but totally oppressed tell you that you have no moral right to worry about COVID.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: You know who the absolute worst is? Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Yes, he's a repeat offender. He's deflecting criticism by dishing out anti-immigrant xenophobia.

GOV. GREG ABBOTT (R-TX): The Biden administration was releasing illegal immigrants -- illegal immigrants into our communities who had COVID. The Biden administration was spreading COVID in South Texas yesterday because of their lack of constraint of testing and quarantining people who had come across the border illegally.

REID: So for that absurdly racist claim, Governor Abbott is the absolute worst, for the second time this week.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: "An absurdly racist claim," says the race lady from Harvard. So taking precautions against COVID is racist.

Just the other day, they were telling us exactly the opposite. Tomorrow, they will tell us something completely different again. They don't mean any of it. Maybe we should ignore them.

What actually matters is keeping our country from falling apart, and right now, effectively, we have no southern border. That's a much bigger problem than COVID.

Jonathan Fahey is the former Acting Director of I.C.E. He understands how quickly the situation is changing on the southern border. He joins us tonight.

Mr. Fahey, thanks so much for coming on. How would you describe the southern border tonight?

JONATHAN FAHEY, FORMER ACTING DIRECTOR OF U.S. IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT: Well, the southern border, again, to your point, this was so predictable that we would have this chaos and they call it a crisis, but this is really an effectuation of their plan all along, it was to have an open border and to have amnesty.

And I think you hit it -- made the best point is that the people on the border are the people that are bearing the cost, but often with this policy and so many others, the people that bear the cost, that bear the burden of this, they pay for it, never have a seat at the table to discuss it. It's the rich, the Democrats and the illegal immigrants are the ones that decide our immigration policy.

The legal immigrants, the American people, they pay the cost in terms of lower wages, overcrowded schools, reduced access to medical care. They don't even have a seat at the table, and when they tried to raise their voice, they're called names, they are called racists, they are called xenophobic, and their concerns are legitimate.

And the American people are great people and legal immigrants are great people, too, and they deserve a seat at the table. They deserve to be heard on this, and so many of our politicians are afraid to stand up for them and are afraid to stand up for our country.

And it is worth noting that it is illegal to come into our country illegally, which is often lost in this debate or discussion entirely.

CARLSON: One of my producers said to me today, I'm not sure why we're calling this a crisis. If I offer free hamburgers and a thousand people show up at my hamburger stand, that's by design.

I mean, this is manufactured. A crisis is when something happens accidentally, the people doing this are pleased by it, aren't they?

FAHEY: They are totally pleased by this. They planned for it. They campaigned on it.

I mean, this is the same party that has been fighting to keep criminals in the country through the sanctuary city policy that has now become a Federal policy. So of course, this was predictable.

If you say you could come to our country, commit crimes, even the most serious crimes and still get to say -- what does that say to people that want to come to our country? It says we have an open border, we have amnesty, because as soon as you get here, you enjoy every right, privilege and benefit that every American citizen enjoys.

The American citizens get reduced wages, and they bear all the cost and the elites like you talked about, the Democratic Party and the illegal immigrants benefit.

CARLSON: Exactly. Jonathan Fahey, I appreciate you coming on. Thank you so much.

FAHEY: Thank you.

CARLSON: We have almost 350 million people living in the country right now. How many do we want? How crowded do we want America to be? Is it good for the natural landscape? This is a beautiful country. Will it be beautiful when we get to 500 million?

Where's the Sierra Club, by the way? If you care about the environment, you should care about this. If you care about God's creation.

Well, up next, our public health experts telling us that everybody needs to wear a mask probably two, even after you get the corona vaccine.

Well, tonight, an urgent warning from an air traffic controller that these mask mandates could be really dangerous to air traffic. That's straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: The iron law of life is that everything has unintended consequences because we can't see the future. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

So from the unintended consequences files, here's this.

Tonight, we're learning that mask mandates might constitute a risk to air travel. An air traffic controller sent this e-mail to journalist, Alex Berenson. Quote, "Managers are making sure we're wearing masks while speaking directly to pilots. It has created an issue because they can't hear us clearly."

"Worst case scenario," again this is from an air traffic controller, " ... is a pilot thinks something we say, reads it back wrong, and it results in disaster."

Alex Berenson is investigative journalist. We're happy to have him on tonight. Alex, thank you for this.

Where did this -- where did you get this? Where did this come from -- this warning?

ALEX BERENSON, AUTHOR: Well, it came in -- I have a Protonmail account, alexberensonauthor at Proton which is pretty secure. No e-mail is a hundred percent secure, but it's pretty secure, and people will regularly contact me, you know, with -- it could be this, it could be a couple of weeks ago, a doctor at a major Midwestern, you know, academic center said to me, I ran some numbers on post vaccination visits to the emergency department and you should see that.

And so of course, the first thing I do when I get something like this is I say, hey, can you prove to me you're real. I don't want to get cat-fished. I don't want to put out information that's not true.

And so -- and people are actually quite willing, to my surprise, they're generally quite willing to send either a work ID or even a driver's license. And so this gentleman did send proof that he was who he said, and usually, you can tell anyway. The e-mail is going to be written in a certain way when it's somebody who's real, they're going to have knowledge.

But he did that, and so I put it out this morning. Now, he didn't say -- he didn't even say, hey, we've had a near-miss. He just said, this is a real risk, and I think people should be aware of it. And it's pure mask theater, there's absolutely no reason that I should have to be wearing my mask, you know, as I'm speaking to a pilot. And I thought that was a really good point.

And, you know, several thousand people have retweeted that. And you know, now I'm talking to you about it, and hopefully someone at the F.A.A. will pay a little attention to this.

CARLSON: Yes, let's not pretend that there's no downside. There's a downside to everything, and I have to ask you, this is an amazing story, and it honestly baffles me.

C.D.C. issues new guidance today for people who have been fully vaccinated against coronavirus. This seems like very weird guidance. What do you make of it?

BERENSON: Well, it is weird. Here's the problem, okay. It's increasingly clear that the vaccines aren't quite as effective as that 95 percent headline figure was given.

So the honest thing to do would be to say, look, the vaccines aren't 95 percent effective. They're not going to be the miracle that ends this tomorrow or in a week or a month. We're still going to have to live with this on some level.

But you know, once you're vaccinated, things do look better for you. You can drop a lot of the nonsense that you know, we've been telling you, you need to do for the last year, and you can go out and you can hang out with people.

But I think the C.D.C. is very afraid that there will be cases of people getting vaccinated and sick or dying, as has happened in Israel. We know that's happened in Israel.

And so, I think that they're trying to cover their rear ends here with guidance that's totally unrealistic essentially.

CARLSON: Yes. Well, lying begets lying. I mean, they should just be honest, and we would trust that if they were.

Alex Berenson, I appreciate your coming on tonight. Thank you. I hope we see you soon.

BERENSON: Thanks for having me. Thanks, Tucker.

CARLSON: Thank you.

Well, over the past year, BLM activists have succeeded in making almost every major city in this country a lot more dangerous. Many people have died as a result of that.

Defunding the police was a major plank in their platform. Another was getting more criminals out of jail. Who are those criminals exactly?

We've got some exclusive reporting tonight on a specific case in Seattle that highlights what is happening in many places across the country.

Activists and politicians in the City of Seattle have succeeded in keeping a 16-year-old called Jakwaun Shannon out of jail. Shannon has been accused of hit and run, several drive-by shootings, attempted robbery and assault among other crimes. But Jakwaun Shannon is not in jail tonight. He was released to his home.

In 2019, the mother of one of his victims responded to the total lack of punishment in his case.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it's a disinjustice to Jakwaun and my seven- year-old son who was hit by a bullet. Our whole world, our whole stability, our whole peace of mind has been taken from us.

And I'm just really outraged. And I'm shocked, and I'm really disheartened that he was offered house arrest in the first place.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

CARLSON: So they're against gun violence, but not actual gun violence. Just against you defending yourself, but when some guy runs around and shoots people, home detention.

Jason Rantz is a Seattle radio host. He joins us tonight. If you go around shooting people, I mean, that's about the most vicious thing and destructive thing you could do. Why don't you go to jail in Seattle again?

JASON RANTZ, SEATTLE RADIO SHOW HOST: Well, in this case, you have the aunt of Jakwaun who is well-connected. She is an influential local activist who helped bring at the time a Councilmember who is incredibly influential plus former mayoral candidate, a group of activists to lobby on this kid's behalf.

They essentially told the Judge that the whole community would come together and help keep this kid on the right path.

At the time, he was 14 years old, but one of the most ridiculous points that was made in front of this Judge, Theresa Doyle, was that this was just a kid being a kid and we don't necessarily know at that age that our actions have consequences.

Now over the objections of the prosecutor and that mother whose audio you just played, Jakwaun was put on home monitoring and he was pushed into restorative justice programs, which essentially serve as an alternative community programs to keep people out of jail.

Now, the one, one of them that he was put into was run by a police abolitionist, and a leader of a local movement for No New Youth Jail, which means exactly what it says. They were successful in getting an already approved youth jail detention center from being completed.

So the case goes through the motions. It was delayed over COVID. Cut two, he is 16 years old. He ends up pleading guilty to three counts. He is put on probation.

A little over a month after being put onto probation, he is arrested, and now was charged in a violent carjacking. He was arrested while wearing a No New Youth Jail t-shirt.

So it turns out that this idea that the restorative justice programs was going to help this kid didn't work not because restorative justice programs aren't necessarily good, some are. But when you've already at the age of 14 turn to this level of violence, the court should not be thinking about, how do we save this kid? The court should be thinking about how do we save society from a criminal with a lot of red flags.

Now, right now he is in fact, behind bars. He is in detention now.

CARLSON: I mean, he is a 16-year-old boy, he needs a dad. That's the main thing boys need, especially 16 year old boys, where is his dad?

RANTZ: His dad has been in and out of jail his entire life, according to a family friend who I spoke to. This is a kid who comes from a broken home. And in that regard, he is a victim.

We know that when you don't have a strong family structure, you end up possibly going down this pathway, which is why if this kid was simply hit for stealing some candy bars at a 7- Eleven, and he is hanging out with the wrong crowd, okay, yes, you go ahead and put him to Restorative Justice Programs. They're not irredeemable.

However, the second that you pick up that gun, the second that you do drive-by shootings or an attempted carjacking and first degree assault, that's when I think we need to start shifting our thinking and saying, let's put him in detention. Let's put any of these folks in detention. Focus restorative justice there while they're serving time, and then we help the actual victims in the community.

CARLSON: Exactly. Just once again, they're not against gun violence, their cities are filled with it. What they're against is self-defense. So there's a difference.

Jason, I appreciate your coming on. Thank you for that, and really smart analysis and thought.

RANTZ: Thank you, Tucker.

CARLSON: Well, we now know that Andrew Cuomo, the sexual harasser, did things that are worse than sexual harassment, like covering up thousands of deaths.

Our media would rather forget about how thoroughly and embarrassingly slobbered over Andrew Cuomo last year, but you know what, we haven't forgotten. So we saved the tape. We knew this day was coming. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Well, last week, "The New York Times" published a story entitled " A Vexing Question for Democrats: What Drives Latino men to Republicans?"

As we said at the top of the show, this is an important question. It's an absolutely real phenomenon. It's really interesting. It'll change American politics.

But "The New York Times" is so dishonest at this point, such an out in the open political operation that the paper literally blamed right-wing misinformation for the shift.

Here's a verbatim quote, "Some of the frustrations voiced by Hispanic Republican men are stoked by misinformation, including conspiracy theories, claiming that the Deep State took over during the Trump administration and a belief that Black Lives Matter protests caused widespread violence," end quote.

In other words, they thought BLM destroyed entire neighborhoods in Minneapolis, Kenosha, St. Louis, Louisville, and Washington. They didn't realize it was QAnon that did that.

Candace Owens is an author and commentator and a smart person. She joins us tonight. So why can't Hispanic men just accept that it was QAnon that totaled Minneapolis, like it's not hard, just believe.

CANDACE OWENS, POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Can I just take a moment to just thank our lucky stars that we have "The New York Times" available to think for Hispanic people and to think for black Americans and to do the thinking because, I mean, God forbid we have these Hispanic men and women walking around trying to think for themselves.

Fortunately, we have these pedantic articles that look at them and say, let me explain to you what happened. And by the way, Tucker, don't you dare believe your lying eyes.

I know all summer we saw churches being just burned to the ground in Washington, D.C. We saw Target being rioted, looted; car smashing in its retail shops, taking things. We saw Rayshard Brooks attack a police officer and in response, they burned a Wendy's to the ground in Atlanta. Remember that story?

We saw this all summer for weeks on end in response to George Floyd protests. And they are assumed -- I guess we're supposed to pretend it never happened. Tucker, that never happened. And this is just a big, nasty, QAnon conservative conspiracy theory that Hispanic men are falling for, because they're not smart enough Tucker, to think for themselves.

CARLSON: That is so -- that is so insightful. It actually hadn't even occurred to me just how patronizing, how -- I mean, when you lie that obviously and expect people to believe you, what you're really saying is, I think you're stupid.

OWENS: Yes. And this is what we talk about all the time. You know, me and the Blexit Foundation, it's just the bigotry of low expectations. People don't even realize their implicit biases. They don't even realize what they're saying, when we write these things.

When they say, well, black people just don't understand, Hispanic men just don't understand. So listen to me, a latte-sipping reporter in New York who is going to explain to you what is reality, even though it is the exact opposite of the reality that they are attempting to portray in their world.

It is insulting. And by the way, I like this kind of writing, Tucker, because this is the reason that Hispanics are fleeing the Democratic Party because they are tired of this. They're tired of being treated like toddlers who can't think for themselves, and they are most especially tired of being flat out lied to in the way that this writer has lied to America about what actually took place in this -- not just this country, but in other countries all summer because of the George Floyd riots.

CARLSON: I love -- so I'm assuming a lot of these voters, at least the ones we've been talking about are mostly lower income, some of the lowest income people in the country actually.

I'm assuming they're not like daily "New York Times" readers. They have come to this conclusion just by watching. As you said, don't believe your lying eyes. They don't have to, like consume a lot of this crap. They're watching MSNBC, and they're like, oh, yes, there's a Deep State. Oh, of course, BLM is wrecking our cities. It's just like, a kind of pure empiricism.

OWENS: Right. And here's another thing is that Hispanic values, they just don't align with a Democratic Party. You know, your average Hispanic person, first and foremost, if they're coming from a place like Cuba or Venezuela, they know what socialism is. You're not going to make socialism sound prettier, put a bow on socialism for a person fleeing those countries.

In another regards, they are deeply religious, deeply faithful. So this idea that we should be having abortion, you know, at nine months in the womb, is not going to stick with them.

They have better values and principles, and most of the democrats and the politicians are simply not fooling them because you know what, Tucker? Hispanic men and women are bright enough to figure out what's going on in this country.

CARLSON: Of course, they see the snarling attacks on masculinity, and they think I'm not for that. I mean, who is for that anyway? It's so freaking nuts.

Candace Owens. It is so nice to see you. Thank you.

OWENS: Thanks.

CARLSON: So Deb Haaland is set to be the Secretary of the Interior and we're told it is exciting because she is a Native American. But there's more to the story there. Not attaching Deb Haaland, but it's a really, really interesting story and so we investigated it and we'll bring you the results, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: A former Congressman from New Mexico called Deb Haaland is Joe Biden's incoming Secretary of the Interior, and that's not a small job. Make fun of it, if you will, but the Interior Department manages about a fifth of the entire surface area of the United States. It's got 70,000 employees and an enormous budget.

So it has lot of power to run it. What does Deb Haaland plan to do with all this new power? Well, no one has asked her. They're too busy celebrating what she looks like.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Congresswoman Deb Haaland appearing before senators for her confirmation hearing today. She would make history as the first Native American Cabinet Secretary if she is confirmed.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: She would be the first Native American Cabinet Secretary if confirmed.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She is a historic pick in this respect. She is going to be the first Native American to serve in this role. The Interior Department, of course, governs public lands, tribal lands, and so this is going to be a very exciting pick for many Democrats.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: It's very exciting that Deb Haaland is a Native American, that CNN's position. They don't explain why it's exciting. But it's a good question: why is it exciting? None of us choose how we were born. It's nothing that we did or that we earned. So it seems a little weird to be quote, "excited" about an accident of birth.

How excited would CNN be if Deb Haaland were unusually tall or had red hair was born left handed. The good news for Deb Haaland is, since she was born the way that she was, no one is allowed to criticize her as MSNBC has explained.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REID: Well, they're desperate to launch a counter attack against the Democratic President, at this point attacking any old thing will do. But we're also talking about Republicans here. So the go-to is the same go-to as usual, pick out the women and the people of color and just go off.

And so several Republicans have decided to target Biden's Cabinet nominees of color like Deb Haaland.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So that's who Deb Haaland is. She is a person of color. The most important thing about Deb Haaland is her ethnicity. That's the unanimous message from our professional class.

But since we're playing identity politics here, which obviously is disgusting, we wish we weren't, identity politics is stupid and immoral, but since we are, it's fair to ask a few more questions.

Deb Haaland identifies as a Native American, on the other hand, Haaland sounds very much like a Scandinavian name. And that stuck out to some of us who have Scandinavian names. So what's going on here?

Well, in fact, Deb Haaland is every bit as much Scandinavian as she is American-Indian. Her father was Norwegian and that means in addition to everything else, Deb Haaland is America's first Norwegian-American Interior Secretary since Thomas Kleppe served in the Ford administration almost 50 years ago.

In their quiet, brooding way, the Scandinavian community we can tell you is beaming with pride. Finally, one of ours has made it. Little girls with names like Larsen and Hansen and Dal will watch Cabinet meetings on C-SPAN and know that they too have a chance to oversee one-fifth of the American landmass someday.

When Deb Haaland speaks, she'll be speaking for millions of Norwegian- Americans, people whose ancestors have been here in the Americas for more than a thousand years. Their voices can now be heard.

Deb Haaland, hero to the Nordic people. She is welcome in our sauna anytime.

"The Daily Caller" Andrew Kerr reported that Andrew Cuomo was undercounting nursing home deaths in May of last year -- last year. But the media ignored that story. Instead, they spent all their energy slobbering over Andrew Cuomo.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You've been commended for your clear and your calm leadership. People from all over the country and the world have tuned into your press conferences. Your statewide approval rating, a career high 84 percent. You came in second only to President Obama as the most trusted Democratic leader in America.

Think about something grander, bigger presidential?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He is no holds barred. He says exactly what he is thinking. As you know, that's his style.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can see that and you ask the tough questions. I tell you that much as well.

STEPHEN COLBERT, TALK SHOW HOST: They found that the Cuomo brothers, you and your brother, Chris tied as the most desirable men in New York.

In the movie of this, when it's finally made, who do you want to have play you?

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Think about running for President? Tell the audience.

NICOLLE WALLACE, MSNBC HOST: Governor Cuomo, I think is one of the heroes on the frontline.

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think he is doing a hell of a job. I think he has been the lead horse here.

CARL BERNSTEIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Real leadership, the kind President of the United States should have provided.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: This has been a remarkable show of leadership by Governor Cuomo in recent days. He is providing hope, but not false hope.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Oh, they're so craven, subtle tattletale, suck ups. They're rude to waiters, but they suck up to those above them. It's unbelievable. But now they've changed their view. They're saying that Andrew Cuomo must resign not because he killed people, but because he said naughty things to women.

For Democrats, that is a convenient strategy. Yesterday, for example, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who may be actually the worst Governor in America was asked about nursing home deaths in her state. What did she want to talk about? Andrew Cuomo's sexual harassment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. GRETCHEN WHITMER (D-MI): I think the allegations here are very serious and need to be taken seriously. And I do think that an impartial, thorough, independent investigation is merited and appropriate.

I think that these are serious allegations, and if accurate and true and -- I think we have to take action.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: How can she be a Governor of a state? It's unbelievable.

Seth Barron edits the "American Mind." He joins us tonight. Seth, you've been pretty on this Cuomo story for a very long time. How did you feel as you watched the anointed priesthood of the American media slobber on this guy?

SETH BARRON, MANAGING EDITOR, "AMERICAN MIND": Well, as long as they were wearing their Trump goggles, it was easy to see Andrew Cuomo as the Love Guv. But then in the cold light of 15,000 nursing home deaths and a series of awkward come-ons. You know that the Love Guv seems a little gruesome.

It's been an amusing trip for anyone who's been watching. Yes, as you pointed out, "The Daily Caller" said back in May that there were under counting the deaths. You know, Andrew Cuomo bungled the entire response, but because everyone was so fixated on painting Trump as the real enemy, they just had to laud Cuomo as this, you know, this new great leader.

So what's happened now is it's not really surprising. Everybody has just come back to Earth and woken up and you know, seeing what's really in front of their eyes.

CARLSON: May I ask you, since we're all being -- now, we can all be totally honest about Andrew Cuomo and I don't mean this in a mean way. But I just have to say it, he talks like he's in "Goodfellas." I mean, he literally looks like he's doing some sort of mafia impersonation. Does anybody ever say that out loud? Or are you not allowed to say that?

BARRON: You're not allowed to say that? I mean, listen, his father, Mario Cuomo used to say that the mafia doesn't exist. But Andrew Cuomo has been talking this way since he was in his early 20s, with his weird repetitions and his odd phrases, so it's nothing new.

CARLSON: I feel like we're in front of a social club in Brooklyn. I'm not against it, it is kind of old fashioned and interesting, but it's so noticeable. It's like no one ever says it.

Anyway, Seth, it's great to see you tonight. Thank you for coming on.

BARRON: Thanks, Tucker.

CARLSON: So there's so much going on in the news. It's easy to become sad and dispirited and pessimistic, but if there's one person who maintains optimism in the face of everything, it is our friend, Dana Perino, and she has a new book out tomorrow on that very topic. She joins us after the break to explain what it's about.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: There's so much going on, and honestly a lot of it is depressing. It's pretty easy to get dispirited and down. When that happens to us, one of the first people we call is our friend, Dana Perino because she has seen it and she stayed cheerful throughout it.

Tomorrow, she has got a new book related to this. The book is called "Everything Will Be Okay: Life Lessons for Young Women from a Former Young Woman," obviously. Dana is the co-anchor of "America's Newsroom" in the morning, co-host to "The Five." And we're happy -- very happy to see her tonight.

Dana, congrats on the book. I love the title.

DANA PERINO, FOX NEWS CHANNEL HOST: Thank you for having me.

CARLSON: "Everything Will Be Okay." Will it? How do you know that?

PERINO: Well, it will. But it doesn't mean that that's a passive thing. Right? The book is about action. So I wrote the book because I felt like young women and you're a dad of daughters, right, so you know that they are talented. They are ambitious. But they are wracked with anxieties and worries.

They put a lot of pressure on themselves, they have some insecurities and I want to tell them, first of all, you won life's great lottery, you were born in America. Secondly, if you're an educated woman, and you're loved by your family, you're in the driver's seat, and everything will be okay.

But you have to start making really good decisions. You have to be disciplined, I'd say that there's freedom in discipline. You have to make good -- you have to take personal responsibility. But also you have to find a way to transform that energy that you've seen, which is the worry, and the doubt, and the concern and turn that into fuel, so that they can find some serenity.

And I include even in there something I call a serenity checklist. Because I feel like a lot of them are, you're worrying their 20s away, and it's following them into their 30s. It's holding them back from opportunities, from jobs, promotions, even personal relationships.

So I'm so excited for people to finally get this book in their hands. I want it to be their guide to just making them feel a lot better.

CARLSON: Which seems like one of the keys to not worrying so much is just getting older. I mean, do you think you reach an age where you realize actually, a lot of this doesn't matter at all and won't be remembered, isn't of cosmic significance, so who cares?

PERINO: Yes. So -- and that's another reason that I say "Everything Will Be Okay: Life Lessons for Young Women from a Former Young Woman," so it's in a way, you know, take it from me, I have a chapter in there, like, who is Dana Perino anyway?

I also talk a lot about integrity, how that is your most valuable asset, you have to protect it at all costs. And I talk about something called kindness endorphins. A lot of people love to exercise because they get endorphins. But studies show, Tucker, that the more kind you are to others, the more it can reduce your anxiety and I think that that then helps unlock things.

Plus, this book is coming out a year anniversary to our two-week lockdown to slow the spread. For many people, work has changed quite dramatically. We're not so much just working from home, we are living at work.

So I have some tips in there, how to basically network and stay relevant even though, you know, a lot of people are still working from home, although it's getting better.

CARLSON: I love the kindness endorphins. Wow. I'm excited to read this book. Thank you, Dana. You are a believable person to write it. That's for sure. Thank you.

PERINO: Thank you. Thanks. Thanks so much.

CARLSON: Before we go, I want to give you some quick breaking news from another channel. It's called the Cable News Network.

We told you Chris Cuomo was the only CNN anchor who likes showing off his chiseled physique, we were wrong.

On Sunday, the Dwarf King aired footage of himself, oh, his chief minion rather wearing no pants. The footage shows our little media hall monitor, calves and thighs fully exposed while he appeared for a television report on CNN.

Your move, Chris Cuomo.

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