Tucker: Why isn't Dr. Fauci investigated for his role in COVID pandemic?

close

Video

Tucker: Why isn't Dr. Fauci investigated for his role in COVID pandemic?

'Tucker Carlson Tonight' host examines why the NIAID director helped fund research at the Wuhan lab

This is a rush transcript from "Tucker Carlson Tonight," May 10, 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.

How do we assess the Biden administration's response to COVID? Well, here's one marker. It tells you pretty much everything that the White House that is supposedly so committed to science, chose as its head COVID coordinator, a man with no background at all in Science or Medicine. His name is Jeffrey Zients.

Zients ran Joe Biden's presidential transition team. That's his qualification.

He is a former management consultant from Bain who sat on the Board of Facebook. Jeffrey Zients is a political operative. That's who is overseeing COVID response for Joe Biden.

The good news is because Jeffrey Zients is nothing close to being an actual scientist, he doesn't talk like one. Occasionally, he says things whose significance the rest of us can understand clearly.

Listen to Jeffrey Zients from CNN yesterday and it becomes very clear how the White House understands this pandemic. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFF ZIENTS, WHITE HOUSE COVID-19 RESPONSE COORDINATOR: The light at the end of the tunnel is brighter and brighter. Let's keep up our guard. Let's follow the C.D.C. guidance and the C.D.C. guidance across time will allow vaccinated people more and more privileges to take off that mask.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: There it is. "The C.D.C. guidance across time will allow vaccinated people more and more privileges to take off that mask," end quote. A sentence like that raises so many questions, it is kind of hard to know where to start. But, how about here?

If vaccines work, why are any vaccinated people wearing masks ever anywhere? Seriously, Jeffrey Zients should be required to explain that slowly and with numbers so the rest of us who didn't serve on the Board of Facebook can understand. No one has asked him to explain that, of course, he hasn't. Nor has anyone asked Jeffrey Zients just how effective masks are at preventing the spread of COVID-19.

Our public health authorities act as though masks are absolutely critical, but are they absolutely critical? Where are the serious studies that prove that? Do they exist? If they do exist, is there a reason they are being hidden from the rest of us?

And finally, when did masklessness become a privilege? For thousands of years until about 12 months ago, masklessness was the global status quo. Virtually everyone on Earth lived without masks and that was not considered weird. Masks were weird. They were unhealthy and menacing.

Yet, Jeffrey Zients has just informed us that things have changed. Going forward not wearing a mask, even after you've been vaccinated is quote, "a privilege," a Scooby snack, a gold star, a pat on the head that may or may not be granted to you exclusively by the Democratic Party on the basis of no science, but purely because they're in charge and you're not, and that's called public health. And it's absolutely critical to the existence of our species that you comply with it reflexively without asking questions or thinking about it.

And this will all continue, Jeffrey Zients explained, quote "across time." What does that mean exactly? How long will this terrifyingly irrational exercise continue? For the answer to that question, we go now to a man even more partisan than Jeffrey Zients.

Here's the nation's most highly credentialed political operative, Tony Fauci, letting you know that actually, this mask thing is never going to end.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHUCK TODD, MSNBC HOST: But is the mask going to be something we have with us in a seasonal aspect?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: You know, that's quite possible. I think people have gotten used to the fact that wearing masks clearly if you look at the data diminishes respiratory diseases. So it is conceivable that as we go on a year, or two or more from now that during certain seasonal periods, when you have respiratory-borne viruses like the flu, people might actually elect to wear masks to diminish the likelihood that you'll spread these respiratory borne diseases.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: A year or two or more from now, in other words, never. You're never taking off the mask. Get ready for a lifetime of filthy wet cotton covering your mouth, reduced oxygen flow to your brain, and a world where every stranger looks the same because no one has a face.

When Kamala Harris and her husband kissed the other day while wearing masks, they were giving you a preview of your daughter's wedding. In a masked world, human beings never really touch each other.

Is that public health? No, it's not public health, it is a kind of punishment.

Tony Fauci is punishing the country, you, us, everyone. The question is why is he doing that? Maybe he likes it. That's possible.

But you've got to think that at least part of Tony Fauci's authoritarian germ hysteria is a cover for something else. Could it be that Tony Fauci is trying to divert attention from himself and his own personal role in the COVID-19 pandemic?

Now, what do we mean by that? We cannot recommend more strongly a new piece by Nicholas Wade who for more than 50 years has been one of the preeminent science writers in the world. For 30 years, Nicholas Wade worked for "The New York Times." He edited the science section there, but this piece did not run in "The New York Times," it ran on "Medium." And the piece explains where this virus almost certainly came from.

In it, Nicholas Wade makes it clear that more than any other single living American, Tony Fauci is responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic.

Wade lays out a nearly insurmountably large amount of evidence that this virus originated at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Central China. It seemed to make sense, this show and others had raised the possibility from the early days of the pandemic. But this piece, all but proves it.

At the time the outbreak began last fall, the Wuhan lab was conducting experiments on how to make bat viruses infectious to human beings. Those experiments were funded by American tax dollars. Those experiments were -- their funding -- approved and directed by Tony Fauci in Washington -- by Tony Fauci.

That is hard to believe, but it's true, and the piece lays it out.

Many of the Wuhan experiments fell under the direction of a Chinese researcher called Shi Zhengli, known as the "bat lady." She was China's leading expert on bat-borne viruses. Her job was to genetically engineer coronaviruses so that they infect human beings and do so as easily as possible.

This work, Nicholas Wade notes involved, quote, " ... doing gain-of- function experiments designed to make coronavirus infect human cells." Now, why was this research going on? We'll have to ask the scientist who did it.

But the fact remains, these were some of the most dangerous experiments ever conducted by mankind, and yet we know that China was not taking necessary safety precautions and we should not be surprised by that.

Several years ago, American diplomatic cables warned about low and lax standards at the Wuhan lab. In fact, the Wuhan facility was classified as a Biosafety Level 2 Laboratory. What does that mean? Well, according to Richard Ebright, who is a molecular biologist at Rutgers, that is approximately the same level of safety that you would find in a dentist's office in America.

So that lab, conducting research experiments on the coronavirus and how to make it transmissible to human beings resulted almost certainly in the infection of a lab researcher and the virus spread from there.

The first coronavirus virus patients in fact did not come from the so- called wet market as we heard, that was a lie. The first patients of the coronavirus in fact were employees at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, at the lab.

So once again, why would the Wuhan lab be conducting experiments like that in the first place? Well, we know that Tony Fauci had authorized payment for the research. For five years, from 2014 to 2019, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases which Tony Fauci runs and has for decades, pumped money to a group called the EcoHealth Alliance.

The EcoHealth Alliance is run by man whose name you may recognize, Dr. Peter Daszak. Daszak contracted with Dr. Shi to conduct gain-of-function experiments at the Wuhan lab.

Just before the pandemic became public knowledge on December 9th, 2019, Peter Daszak sat for an interview that was streamed online. In that interview, Daszak bragged about how easy it is to manipulate coronaviruses in lab experiments.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. PETER DASZAK, ECOHEALTH ALLIANCE: Coronavirus is a pretty good, I mean, you're a virologist, you know all this stuff, but you can manipulate them in the lab pretty easily. The spike protein drives a lot of what happens with the coronavirus, zoonotic risk.

So you can get the sequence, you can build the protein and we work with Ralph Baric at UNC to do this, insert into backbone of another virus right and do some work in the lab.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: So, just days after that was shot, it became clear that this new version of coronavirus, this novel coronavirus, what we now call COVID-19 was running rampant through Wuhan, then China and then the world.

Since then, since the pandemic began, Peter Daszak, not surprisingly, has appeared on virtually every media platform available to him to deny in the most strenuous and dismissive terms the Wuhan lab could be in any way linked to the outbreak since, of course he has very personal motives for claiming that, quote: "The idea that this virus escaped from the lab is just pure baloney," he said last year, but that was a lie. It's not pure baloney, and a lot of smart people knew that right away.

One of those People as Alina Chan, a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute at Harvard and M.I.T. She bravely wrote a paper about how the coronaviruses genome hadn't changed much over time, and that was odd, because that genome had gone through trillions of replications.

According to Chan, that fact imply that the virus was designed for human to human transmission from the outset. The former Director of the C.D.C. also clearly understood this and he, too, argued that the virus came from the Wuhan lab.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ROBERT REDFIELD, FORMER DIRECTOR, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION: I am of the point of view that I still think the most likely etiology of this pathogen in Wuhan was from a laboratory, you know, escaped. Other people don't believe that. That's fine.

Science will eventually figure it out. It's not unusual for respiratory pathogens that are being worked on a laboratory to infect the laboratory worker.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Millions of people have died of COVID-19. So it's not a matter of score settling or blame assignment to figure out where it came from. If you want to prevent the next global pandemic, you have to figure out how this one started.

And so the World Health Organization said it would get to the bottom of it. The World Health Organization, of course, is beholden to China, and so it tried to hide the basic facts of the origins of this pandemic. And to hide those facts, W.H.O. appointed none other than Peter Daszak as the only America-based representative on the investigative team looking into where the virus came from.

In what turned out to be a sham report, that team concluded that it is quote, "extremely unlikely" that the virus came from the Wuhan lab. Again, that's not true.

The W.H.O.'s investigation in the origins of the virus was fraudulent and that matters to public health globally. But one thing you'll notice is that Tony Fauci did not say that. Why? Because once again, he is implicated in it personally. The gain-of-function research that Peter Daszak was bragging about in the video we just showed you had in fact, been banned explicitly by the U.S. government.

There was a Federal moratorium on the funding of exactly the kind of gain- of-function experiments that went on at the Wuhan lab due to disastrous effects. So why didn't the U.S. government halt its funding of the lab in Wuhan? That is a central question and Nicholas Wade, to his great credit, looked into it. And here's what he found, quote, "Someone wrote a loophole into the moratorium. The moratorium specifically barred funding of any gain-of-function research that increased the pathogenicity of the flu, MERS or SARS viruses. But then a footnote on Page two of the moratorium document states that quote, 'an exception from the research pause may be obtained if the head of the U.S. government funding agency determines that the research is urgently necessary to protect the public health or national security.'"

And that's exactly the loophole that was exploited. Who signed off on this? Tony Fauci, possibly, along with Francis Collins, the Director of the N.I.H. invoked that special exemption in order to keep funding the Wuhan lab and the deadly experiments that were going on there, the experiments that clearly went so wrong.

According to Richard Ebright quote, "Unfortunately, the N.I.A.I.D. Director (that would be Fauci) and the N.I.H. Director exploited this loophole to issue exemptions to projects subject to pause, preposterously asserting that the exempted research was, quote, 'urgently necessary to protect public health or national security and thereby nullifying the pause.'"

This wouldn't have happened if Tony Fauci didn't allow it to happen. That is clear.

It's an amazing story. It is a shocking story.

In a functional country, there would be a criminal investigation currently underway into Tony Fauci's role in the COVID pandemic that has killed millions and halted our country and changed it forever. So why isn't there a criminal investigation into Tony Fauci's role in this pandemic?

Mike Gallagher is a Member of Congress from the State of Wisconsin. We're happy to have him on the show tonight. Congressman, thanks so much for coming on.

To read this piece by Nicholas Wade, who I who I think is as eminent as any science writer in the world, it makes me wonder why didn't we know this before and why isn't any law enforcement agency doing anything about it?

REP. MIKE GALLAGHER (R-WI): Well, Tucker, if you'll remember a year ago, when those of us were suggesting that the lab leak hypothesis just needed to be investigated. We weren't saying that it was the correct hypothesis, we were called bigots. We were called tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists.

And the problem -- and the mainstream media did everything possible to spread CCP propaganda and shut the voices of those who merely wanted that hypothesis investigated because a global pandemic completely overturned and destroyed our lives and forever changed our country.

But now we know that there may have been U.S. taxpayer funding that went to gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and the evidence continues to stack up in favor of the lab leak hypothesis. Even China's version of the C.D.C. dismissed the wet market hypothesis. So why won't the mainstream media ask basic questions of Dr. Fauci given that they have him on every single Sunday show every week?

Instead, he gets asked questions about seasonal mask wearing and how we're going to have to have 80 percent of Americans vaccinated and kids are going to have to be vaccinated. They're asking him every question, except for the questions that matter.

We need to get to the bottom of this, if for no other reason, as you suggested, we can't allow this to happen again. And more to the point, there are those proposing that we are going to increase funding from over $200 million to $1.2 billion for gain-of-function research. That would be insane, if indeed, the lab leak hypothesis is correct, as I think the evidence suggesting it, it might be.

CARLSON: I think I've misread the story from the first day. I imagined that the media blackout on the origins of coronavirus was designed to protect the Chinese government. But the U.S. government is implicated in this deeply and the story that Wade tells is of incompetence on the Chinese side, and then lying and authoritarian -- you know, the kind of predictable Chinese government behavior.

But on the American side, you see people going around a moratorium on dangerous experiments, Tony Fauci signing off on it. And those are the people, the Americans who made this possible, whose -- I would call them crimes -- are being covered up by the media in this country.

GALLAGHER: And to put Daszak on the W.H.O. investigatory team makes absolutely no sense because he has a clear conflict of interest, his entire livelihood, his entire professional reputation is bound up in the very idea of gain-of-function research.

We had other American citizens nominated to be on that team that the Chinese effectively vetoed, and they put Daszak on the team, even the head of the W.H.O., Dr. Tedros said that the investigation was incomplete and we need to examine the lab leak hypothesis.

Again, I don't see a more pressing question in the world and the fact that people in the media, people in our own government don't want to get to the bottom of it is a failure in every level. One thing they could do, Tucker, is declassify all the Intelligence immediately. The Biden administration can do that. Get it out there, full transparency.

CARLSON: This is criminal. I mean, if you were mixing dangerous chemicals in your basement and you blew up the neighborhood and killed thousands of people, you would be criminally liable for that and saying it was a mistake wouldn't be enough to get you out of those charges. This is criminal. I don't think there is any question.

Congressman, thanks so much. I appreciate it, Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin.

Speaking of amazing stories, "The Daily Mail" has uncovered text messages between Hunter Biden and an assistant who appears to have ties to China's Intelligence agencies. And in some of them that woman, that apparently assistant who had ties to Chinese Intelligence is giving Hunter Biden advice on his father's presidential campaign.

The reporter who broke that story has new information for us tonight. He joins us in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: So the White House is telling us that our southern border is closed off. We're fine. Is that true? Or are people continuing to stream illegally into this country from the south?

We have some amazing video for you tonight showing what the reality of the border actually looks like. It comes from our correspondent, Bill Melugin who has that exclusive footage. Hey, Bill.

BILL MELUGIN, FOX NEWS CHANNEL NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Tucker. Good evening to you. Yes, the Biden administration is claiming that the border, it is not open, but I can tell you that just does not match up with what we've been witnessing on the ground here in Del Rio, Texas.

The last three days in a row, like clockwork, we've witnessed migrants in large groups just crossing over the Rio Grande and illegally coming into the United States and we'll show you some of that video right now.

Take a look. We shot this earlier this morning. This was one of the biggest groups we've personally witnessed. This was a group of 52 Venezuelans who came across when the river was running a little bit lower. Some of them had young children, some of them had infants with them.

We talked to some of them. They told us they were coming to, you know, flee what was going on in Venezuela, but the problem is local Border Patrol here, they are so stretched thin, they cannot handle this. They've been apprehending more than 700 migrants every single day and what you see happening in the video is local law enforcement are the ones having to sort through these migrants until Border Patrol gets there.

Local Sheriff's Deputies and local State Troopers, and the Local Sheriff out here isn't happy about that. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE FRANK MARTINEZ, SHERIFF'S OFFICE, VAL VERDE COUNTY, TEXAS: It's tying up our resources. It's frustrating because there's no answers that are being given. There's not a -- there's not -- I don't believe that there's a plan in place.

Right now. You know, we need more manpower, we need people in D.C. to make a decision, do their job.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MELUGIN: Now the Sheriff has lived here in Val Verde County here in Del Rio his entire life and he told us that he has never seen the immigration situation this bad, ever. And just to put it in perspective for you, yesterday alone, Border Patrol tells us they apprehended more than 900 migrants right here in just one day.

Tucker, we'll send it back to you.

CARLSON: That's unbelievable. It is a huge story, Bill. Thank you very much for that.

Now, we're not exactly sure when "The Daily Mail," which some of us used to make fun of started breaking more real news than "The Washington Post" and "The New York Times," but that's clearly the case now. If you don't read it, check it out and you'll see that's true.

"The Daily Mail" reported last week on messages between Hunter Biden and an assistant who apparently has been tied to the Intelligence services of China. Those messages included advice for Joe Biden's 2020 presidential campaign. We're going to go right to the reporter who broke that story tonight.

Josh Boswell has got more for us. Josh, thanks so much for coming on. Congrats on the story, by the way, quite a story.

JOSH BOSWELL, ONLINE SENIOR REPORTER, "THE DAILY MAIL": Thank you.

CARLSON: I wonder why it fell to me foreign news source to report this, "The Daily Mail" being a British publication, but thank you for doing it. So what do these messages tell us?

BOSWELL: So these e-mails and text messages that I found on Hunter Biden's laptop are really quite intriguing. And to set the backdrop for you, you've got Hunter Biden in 2017, striking up this joint venture with a Chinese oil and gas -- a huge company -- CEFC, it's called. Now he enters into this joint venture, the Secretary General of that country -- of that company, sorry, is a guy called Patrick Ho. And, and then Hunter gets assigned this assistant, JiaQi Bao, she's a Chinese-American. She was 29 at the time, and you see at first some very normal messages, any kind of personal assistant would send doctor's appointments, hotel bookings, flight bookings.

But then, it gets to become more and more personal, and the turning point really is when you see Patrick Ho, that Secretary General of CEFC get arrested by the Feds here in the United States in November 2017, over bribery, corruption charges and this assistant starts sending Hunter these e-mails asking what's going on? She wants detailed information on the case. Kind of strange for someone in quite a junior position.

And then you see more and more personal e-mails come out as well. She jokes with him. She tells him that, you know, the drinks are on her. She says that she has become very close to him, and she ends up with his military dog tags in her New York apartment. We're not sure why and how they got there. But there is a real closeness.

And then as time goes on, after this joint venture starts to collapse because of this arrest of Patrick Ho and also arrest in China of the leader of the company, the Chairman, you see her e-mailing Hunter with all of these strange ideas.

She sends him a bunch of essentially opposition research to help Joe Biden in his presidential bid and it's very odd for that to be coming from a 29- year-old secretary.

CARLSON: Yes, maybe it was coming from somewhere else. Amazing story. Thank you for that. Josh Boswell of "The Daily Mail." Appreciate it.

BOSWELL: Thank you.

CARLSON: Well, Michelle Obama is being oppressed again, and this time, she has a new reason. Candace Owens will assess her oppression, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Conflicting numbers out of the economy recently, all across the country, you are seeing "Help Wanted" signs. Restaurants are shutting down because they can't find enough workers and yet a new jobs report from last week shows the unemployment rate is going up. Why is that? Could it be because the government is paying people not to work? Here's how Joe Biden who has never had a job in 77 years respond to that suggestion.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I know there's been a lot of discussion since Friday -- since Friday's report that people are being paid to stay home rather than go to work. Well, we don't see much evidence of that.

Americans want to work. Americans want to work.

I think the people who claim Americans won't work even if they find a good and fair opportunity underestimate the American people

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: He has no idea what he is saying, literally none, there or anywhere else. Even his friends at Goldman Sachs who supported him more than anyone else came to a different conclusion. Here's what one economist at Goldman said, quote: "Labor supply appears to be tighter than the unemployment rate suggests." Yes, you think? "Likely reflecting the impact of unusually generous unemployment benefits."

Well, that's very obvious to people who live in this country. Henry McMaster is the Governor of South Carolina and one of the very few people ever to turn down Federal dollars for anything while running a state. He just turned down Federal unemployment benefits for this reason.

Governor, thanks so much for coming on. It's pretty -- you don't meet a lot of governors who say, "We don't want Federal money." Tell us why you did this.

GOV. HENRY MCMASTER (R-SC): Well, we are only growing more and more and I think there are four of us now, all Republicans.

Tucker, this is about as close to socialism as anything I've seen. The Federal government is just taking over, just throwing money at people. I don't know how we are going to spend all of this. That's why we just -- we can't -- this cannot be done. But we're not going to take that unemployment money to pay people for not working.

We've got "Help Wanted" signs up everywhere. We get calls and letters and texts from people from all sorts of businesses all across the state, they are looking for people to work, and the people just won't come to work because they are getting as much money or more in some cases, by staying home.

It's a counterproductive policy, and I'm afraid what the Biden administration is doing is they are telling everybody that the virus is still rampant and we are still in great danger, so everybody has got to stay home.

Well, that's just not true. I mean, we are wide open in South Carolina. We never did shut down and we have a very low unemployment rate, but we got -- we got people that are -- businesses that are looking for people actively every day and can't find them because they at home enjoying this pay and here comes more. There's no telling when this is going to end.

So we're just not going to take it.

We've given everyone until June 27th to go get a job because there are plenty of it. We got 82,000 of them out there that we are advertising around the clock. Go get a job and get back to work. That's how you build an economy and build a family and everything else.

This Biden proposal is totally counterproductive. It is going to cost trillions of dollars. It is killing incentive, and it puts us right on the road, I hate to say it to socialism, and we've got to stand up and fight against this.

CARLSON: That's true, and it degrades people. How many happy inherited money people do you know? They're all drunk. It's bad for people, no matter where it comes from. Governor, Thank you. I could listen to you talk all day. I appreciate it. Henry McMaster, the Governor of South Carolina.

MCMASTER: Thank you very much, henrymcmaster.com.

CARLSON: Amen. So high unemployment, simultaneously, not enough workers, but those aren't the only problems we're facing right now. The biggest problem may be in this nation, Barack and Michelle Obama are still oppressed. Yes, even in Martha's Vineyard.

On CBS this Morning, Michelle Obama explained that she is just sick and tired of being sick and tired.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHELLE OBAMA, FORMER FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: Many of us still live in fear as we go to the grocery store or worry about --

GAYLE KING, CBS NEWS HOST: Walking our dogs.

M. OBAMA: Walking our dogs or allowing our children to get a license. I mean, just imagine, you know, you have a son right now.

KING: Aren't your girls driving?

M. OBAMA: They're driving, but every time they get in a car by themselves, I worry about what assumption is being made by somebody who doesn't know everything about them.

The fact that they are good students and polite girls, but maybe they're playing their music a little loud, maybe somebody sees the back of their head and makes an assumption.

I, like so many parents of black kids have to -- that the innocent act of getting a license puts fear in our hearts.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: She's more oppressed even than Meghan Markle is. Will someone liberate the Obamas? We can elect them again. Time to liberate them.

Candace Owens may do that. She is the host of "Candace." She joins us tonight. Candace Owens, thanks so much for coming on.

So if Michelle and Barack Obama are oppressed, if they live in fear if this country, it is so bad that even the Obama who is elected President twice, can't live here. What does it mean? I mean, is there a future? Should we leave?

CANDACE OWENS, POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I don't know, Tucker, I think we have to launch an investigation because I want to know which nanny, which chef, which housekeeper, which chauffer, which Secret Service agent, which gardener, which landscaper is oppressing Michelle Obama, Barack Obama and their children. I think we've got to get to the bottom of it at this point.

I mean, I looked and it looks like her net worth is about $70 million. Gayle King's is $40 million. Barack Obama and her combined is $135 million.

Let me tell you something, if that's oppression, where can I get me some? The fact that people can look at the back of their head, you mean the Secret Service agents that are constantly around your children, they probably haven't even touched their own door handles in years, and we're supposed to believe that you're oppressed while the rest of the country is actually suffering?

Please, Michelle Obama, give some of that oppression to the rest of America because we sure could use it.

CARLSON: Haven't touched their door handles in years. I'm stealing that. Why -- I noticed a theme here. There are a lot of extremely rich people who are deeply miserable and desperate to have you believe they're victims. What is that? It is unfortunate for me.

OWENS: LeBron James living in Bel Air, he's a victim. Meghan Markle, downgraded from billionaire to multimillionaire. She's a victim. They want you to know that they're all victims. It's because they're trying to distract us.

The truth is that they view us as peasants. They're trying to make it seem like hey, when the peasants turn against us because we're actually robbing all of them, we don't want them to look at us. We want to make them think that we're one of us.

They're not one of us. They're nothing like us. They don't live like us. She has nothing that goes on in her life that is similar to the average American, yet she keeps trying to use her skin color, her complexion as a way to make people believe that she is suffering and she is absolutely not suffering and everyone should be aware that if you're watching this and you think that LeBron James and Meghan Markle and Barack Obama and Michelle Obama are oppressed, you are a fool. You have been fooled. They are doing just fine.

CARLSON: Just fine. I would say that's true. Candace Owens, so nicely put, as always. Thank you for coming on tonight. Great to see you.

OWENS: Thank you.

CARLSON: So Dave Portnoy, he started Barstool Sports, and then he started a small business assistance program, which helps people who are crushed by COVID, didn't make any money doing it, he just wanted to do it. Yet, a lot of people still dislike him. Why is that?

We sat down with Dave Portnoy of Barstool, at great length. We'll show you part of the conversation, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Dave Portnoy founded Barstool Sports. He's also the founder of the Barstool Fund, which has raised nearly $40 million for small business owners. He's one of most successful people on the internet. He is totally nonpolitical, and yet, a lot of powerful people want to shut him down. Why is that? And why is he one of the very few people in all media who refuses to be silenced or destroyed?

We asked him those questions, and many others over about an hour for our latest episode of "Tucker Carlson Today" on foxnation.com. Here's part of it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: The attacks against you have been so intense and personal, I mean, has it changed your life? Has it changed your attitude? Has it changed you?

DAVE PORTNOY, FOUNDER, BARSTOOL SPORTS: It hasn't. I always remember and it goes to what you've said before, we have been built and have benefited in a way because the counterculture likes us, feels emboldened that they stick with us stronger and so there's good and there's bad.

CARLSON: But has it made you paranoid and angry?

PORTNOY: No. Because you know what? When I go on the street, 99 percent of the people I see are super friendly and the people who don't like me, I probably won't like them first. To me, they're losers, most of them, and they're crazy people.

I mean, some of the people who truly don't like me, I see what they say and I see what they react to. It's like this person doesn't have an ounce of a sense of humor in their lives.

"The Office," my favorite show of all time, all time, Steve Carell, he said he didn't think that show would be able to be made now. The jokes they made won't pass.

So you know, that's sad. But I wouldn't say it makes me paranoid. It's sad more than anything, and even doing shows like this show.

One of the things I think a lot of people who hate me don't do, which I've done is I do research. You know, I see -- just because somebody says something about a person or whatever, I go back and see, I'll dig into it rather than just trusting somebody.

We have probably four to six articles that have been written about me that if I read them, without knowing myself, and just trust it, I'd be like, this guy is the next Hitler. I would honestly believe that if I read it, but I'm the central character, so I know the context. I know everything. So I do that for everything I'm involved in.

CARLSON: The same thing happened to me. You run a sports website, but here you started your own aid program.

PORTNOY: Correct. Yes.

CARLSON: So where's this -- I mean, where's this going?

PORTNOY: Well, you know, we've done charity throughout the history at Barstool. When there's causes that happen, like I was in Boston when the Boston Marathon bombing happened, we raised a quarter million to get a guy in new house, we were much smaller at the time.

The shooting in Orlando, the nightclub shooting. We raised money for that. So anytime really, that I was in Boston, New York that a police officer was slain, we'd raise money for the family. So we've always done charity, and this was something it just -- yes, there's help. We can help.

And we jumped in. You know, it's funny, because since that, and it definitely rose, I think my profile notoriety and I don't know, if people are serious enough, they like, run for office, do this, I would never do that because you can't get anything done.

Like, it's fairly disgusting in my mind that the government didn't do something far earlier and --

CARLSON: Since they caused it.

PORTNOY: They caused it and it's not that hard. Like, it took me 24 hours to come up with this concept and put it in motion and go. Everyone should want to help small businesses. So it was disheartening to see the government not do anything. I'm glad we could help a little bit and it wasn't myself. Guy Fieri was another guy raised who raised about $25 million.

We teamed up, we helped. People want to help. People want leaders to help. They really did.

CARLSON: And none were --

PORTNOY: No nobody was coming out.

CARLSON: So you'd never run for office.

PORTNOY: I would never run for office, never in a bazillion years. You know, there's so many different things -- it's -- I like my life. I don't want to hate my life.

CARLSON: It's true.

PORTNOY: I don't need that headache, and to be honest, they don't get anything done. They just sit there and they yell at each other and everything is so political and so agenda driven, even if there is somebody regardless of party who has the most ideal and pure, like motivations, I don't think they can get anything done. I really don't.

CARLSON: I think you're right.

PORTNOY: And it's sad, but the political party is broken.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: The conversation went on like this. It took all kinds of unexpected turns. Dave Portnoy is famously non-friends with Roger Goodell who runs the NFL. He told us about getting rest at the Super Bowl a few years ago. If you haven't heard that story, it's worth it, and more.

You can watch the latest episode on "Tucker Carlson Today" anytime, just go to foxnation.com.

So we're told to wear masks, no one ever asked what kind of effect do mask themselves have on our health and on the health of our children? Well, not good, and that's why one mother obtained a doctor's note explaining why her child could not wear a mask. What the school did to that child next is hard to believe. That mother joins us with her doctor, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CARLSON: Masks aren't simply inconvenient, for some children, they are harmful. That is clear. But some schools don't seem to care about the harm they cause.

One mother in New York says her son who has autism spectrum disorder and severe asthma suffered behavioral and mental health problems because he was forced to wear a mask at school. The problems were so severe that she went to a doctor who wrote a note of medical exemption, but the school disregarded it.

That mother is Danielle Young. She joins us tonight with her doctor, neurologist Russell Surasky. We're happy to have them both. Thank you both.

Danielle, first to you, tell us what problems your son experienced from wearing a mask and your exchange with the school about those problems.

DANIELLE YOUNG, CONCERNED PARENT: Hi, Tucker, thanks for having me. My son is you know, coming home every day saying, "Mommy, I can't breathe." I'm picking him up and his mask is covered, soaking wet in snot and the school has just completely ignored any of these problems and refused the letter from the doctor. And yes, it's really sad that as a parent, you have to choose between, you know, your son's education and his socialization and putting his you know, putting him in danger.

CARLSON: Did the school seem to care?

YOUNG: No. They seemed -- right from the -- I mean, I brought my son to school after I sent the letter to the principal and my son was stopped at the door and told that he will not be allowed in the school.

My son was extremely upset and crying and so far, they've just said he can just do remote and that's it. So, yes.

CARLSON: Shocking. Doctor, what effects do you think a mask had on Danielle's son or other children with similar conditions?

DR. RUSSELL SURASKY, NEUROLOGIST: Well, thanks Tucker, for having us on tonight. Look, what we have here from a physician is complete medical tyranny. Here we have a five-year-old child with significant emotional and cognitive issues and forcing him to wear a mask at school significantly retards his ability to participate in class, and given how benign it is for a five-year-old, you know, I wrote a letter of mask exemption which the school should have accepted.

Instead, Tucker, what they did is they went to an outside physician at the Department of Health, a doctor who has never met the family, a doctor who is a pulmonologist, who overruled my exemption as a neurologist and said instead that Sebastian should simply go to the Guidance Office and learn how to wear a mask better. I mean, this is atrocious.

CARLSON: Well, I mean, you were clear about your reasoning, I assume, and they -- did they call you to talk to you about it at the school?

SURASKY: They did. The physician from the Department of Health called me, did not know the details of the case and simply, it was as if she already had the answer made up before she even spoke with me and I discussed with her how clearly in this case with Sebastian that the risks outweigh the benefits and she simply didn't care.

CARLSON: Yes, people are people are too afraid to act in the interest of children on this and other issues and it's extremely distressing.

Danielle, I appreciate your coming on. Doctor, thank you for backing her up in this. I appreciate it. Good luck. There are a lot of people like you.

SURASKY: Thank you.

YOUNG: Thank you, Tucker.

CARLSON: That's about it for us tonight. There is a new episode of "Tucker Carlson Today" featuring our interview with Dave Portnoy. You can get it on foxnation.com, and later this week, we'll premiere another episode from our documentary series, original series, which is worth it, we promise.

Until then, we'll be back tomorrow and every week night at 8:00 p.m. The show that is the sworn enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness and groupthink.

And now, at 9:00 p.m. Eastern, joining us from a different city but on the same wavelength is the Great Sean Hannity.

END

Content and Programming Copyright 2021 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2021 VIQ Media Transcription, Inc. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of VIQ Media Transcription, Inc. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.