This is a rush transcript of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on July 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. 

This show specializes in the obvious, that’s what we do. So, tonight we’d like to begin with the most obvious observation of all — force works. 

If you decide to make people do something, if you demand they do it, and punish them if they don’t, generally they’ll do it. They’ll comply. They don’t really have a choice. 

If you tell them they have to take a dose of experimental medicine for example, otherwise, they can’t have a job and their kids can’t be educated, most of them will in the end take it. And in fact, most of them have.

According to latest C.D.C. data, 67 percent of all American adults have received the coronavirus vaccine so far, 67 percent. That is a huge number in a country like this one. Try to think of anything else that 67 percent of all adults have done recently. 

For perspective, only about 24 of the country’s population voted for Joe Biden in November and that was enough to make him the President of the United States. So, in some ways, the administration has done something amazing. Get the vaccine or else — that was their message from day one, and most people did. 

But not everyone did. There are still holdouts. 

These are not people who haven’t heard of the vaccine or can’t afford it or just can’t find a dose, it’s free. It’s everywhere, and the media never stop talking about it. Every news hour is a Pfizer commercial. 

So, these are people who just don’t want to take it. 

Many of them have already recovered from COVID and they have active antibodies. They don’t need the vaccine. Should people take medicine they don’t need? Apparently, they don’t think so. Others may have religious objections and that used to be considered a valid reason, back when our leaders acknowledged God is more powerful than themselves. Still, others, may have noticed that the vaccine was developed very quickly. 

The first universal coronavirus vaccine ever, and still to this day, has not received F.D.A. approval. Maybe that gives them pause. Who knows? 

Maybe there are other reasons, including the stunningly high death rate on the government’s own vaccine harm database or the reports of young people developing cardiac emergencies in response to the shot. Maybe all of the above, we don’t know, we haven’t asked. And actually, at this point, it doesn’t matter anyway. 

The Biden administration is no longer accepting excuses. 

On CNN this morning, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Xavier Becerra, not a doctor, a politician, announced he plans to make every last American take this drug. If you don’t take it, you’ll wind up on a government list. Watch. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: I wonder if you can answer that criticism, it’s none of the government’s business knowing who has or hasn’t been vaccinated. What do you say? 

XAVIER BECERRA, U.S. HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: Brianna, perhaps we should point out that the Federal government has had to spend trillions of dollars to try to keep Americans alive during this pandemic, so it is absolutely the government’s business. It is taxpayer’s business. 

We want to give people a sense that they have a freedom to choose, but we hope they choose to live. 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

CARLSON: We want to give people the freedom to choose, but unfortunately, we can’t. So, no more freedom for you. The Biden administration is no longer pro-choice. 

It is an odd thing to say on many levels, but it’s especially odd to say it now. This pandemic is waning, very clearly. Few people in this country are dying from the virus at this point, it is hardly a health emergency now. 

But Xavier Becerra isn’t arguing that it is a health emergency; instead, he is arguing that the government has spent so much money on the coronavirus that the Biden administration has a right effectively to go door to door and intimidate you into taking the vaccine and keep track of you if you don’t. 

The government paid, so they have that right; and if you disobey, you’re choosing death. 

So, savor the reasoning here for a moment. It’s hard not to think that we have reached a major new precedent. Something new is happening. As it happens, the Federal government spends huge amounts of tax dollars fighting all kinds of diseases, not just COVID. 

There’s cancer, AIDS, tuberculosis, hepatitis, heart disease, diabetes, and many, many more. Each one of these illnesses is its own kind of emergency. 

Each one kills an awful lot of people. In some cases, it kills far more people than COVID has. 

So, does the Biden administration have the right, based on the money they spent fighting these diseases, to your medical information? Do they have the right to know your HIV status? Why not? 

Can H.H.S. force you to take antibiotics for your TB? How about Xanax for your anxiety? Thorazine for your mania? 

And while we’re at it, why are we letting irresponsible defective people reproduce? Vagrants? Mental patients? Even QAnon people — all allowed to have children. Why is that? Why aren’t we sterilizing them? 

Sound crazy? It’s happened before on a huge scale. 

So, in response to the atrocities that have been committed in previous generations in the name of science and medicine, medical privacy, physical autonomy, the right to control the medicines you take — these are the pillars of medical ethics officially or were. They no longer are.

Tony Fauci has declared them merely a political statement. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS

DISEASES: It’s easy to get, it’s free and it’s readily available. So, you know, you’ve got to ask, what is the problem? Get over it. Get over this political statement. Just get over it. 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

CARLSON: “Get over it.” You don’t have a right to disagree. You must take this medicine. 

This is a well-trod road that we’re on and it’s a scary one. We’ve seen this before, more than a century ago. In the early 1900s, officials in Boston, of course, decided to make an example of a Swedish-born pastor called Henning Jacobson. 

Jacobson refused to take the government-mandated smallpox vaccine, and in his case, he had good reason for refusing. He had already taken that vaccine, the same vaccine in Sweden as a child and he nearly died from it.

Jacobson fought the mandate. He took his case all the way to the Supreme Court, and in the end the Supreme Court ruled against him. That was a brand new precedent then as now. 

And it didn’t take long for the government to use that new authority granted by the court to force other medical procedures on the American population. 

After the Jacobson decision, the State of Virginia passed a law authorizing the involuntary sterilization of people that the state deemed to be quote “feeble-minded” or mentally ill, undesirable. 

In a landmark decision, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, whom we revere most of the time, ruled that the same legal framework that justified mandatory vaccination also permitted the government to sterilize people against their will. He was explicit about the connection. Here is the quote: “The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the fallopian tubes,” Holmes wrote. 

By 1930, dozens of American states were forcing women to undergo involuntary sterilization and in the end, more than 60,000 American women were sterilized by the government against their will. That happened, famously, and we shouldn’t be surprised by it. Things like that tend to happen when a distracted submissive population allows the government to dictate what medical procedures they get, what drugs they take. 

This is a well-known and horrifying chapter in American history, so you’d think the news media might point this out, but just the opposite. Here is a clip from yesterday in which the saddest of the CNN anchors begs this administration to make vaccines mandatory. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: What about Kathleen Sebelius, former Secretary at H.H.S., because she talks about the idea that maybe the administration shouldn’t completely abandon the idea of not — if not vaccine mandates, at least encouraging some businesses or public places to require them. 

She says quote, “I’m trying to restrain myself, but I kind of had it. You know, we’re going to tiptoe around mandates. It’s like, come on. I’m kind of over that. I want to make sure that people I deal with don’t have it, so I don’t transmit it to my granddaughter.” 

So, why not encourage, if not governments to mandate it, then some businesses at least to require it? 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

CARLSON: The media demanding forced vaccinations. That shouldn’t surprise you. They’re not in the business to inform the public, they are in the business for power. They couldn’t get jobs in finance, but this gives them a little swat. That’s literally why they have the jobs they do, and they love their new power. 

What’s interesting is that no other organized groups of sensible people who aren’t emotionally damaged like your average cable news anchor, none of them are saying anything either. Why not? 

Veterans groups, for example, have remained silent as The Pentagon floats the idea of mandatory vaccinations for all soldiers. 

Now, there is zero scientific evidence that this could be necessary for any health-related reason whatsoever, but they are pushing forward. At a briefing on Tuesday, The Pentagon’s top spokesman said that mandatory vaccinations for soldiers could be coming very soon. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

REAR ADMIRAL JOHN KIRBY (RET.) PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: Should the F.D.A. 

approve it? Then I am certain that Pentagon leadership will take a look at what our options are going forward, including the potential option of making mandatory. 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

CARLSON: Oh, making it mandatory. Have you seen this movie before? Yes. 

Those of us who are older than 22 remember it well. The Pentagon has forced soldiers to take untested experimental vaccines before, it happened in Iraq. 

Troops there had to take the anthrax vaccine. What happened? Many of those soldiers are now eligible for disability benefits through the VA. Look it up. Why? Because that vaccine caused serious long-term complications. Those included infertility, lupus, paralysis, blindness, neurological damage — those effects were not obvious at first. They took years to surface. 

But on CNN, military analysts ignore that– military analysts — and are instead begging The Pentagon to force another unapproved drug on soldiers, and if those soldiers don’t comply, they should be arrested immediately. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

STEVE WOODSMALL, FORMER DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE FOR CONGRESS: Well, the President has the power to waive that and make those vaccines mandatory and as the — he said in the past, he was going to leave that up to the military and as much as I respect President Biden, I think he has made a mistake in punting this one. 

I think he should show the leadership and just go ahead and waive the informed consent requirement and go ahead and make that mandatory just from a system standpoint, and then those who decide that they’re not going to take it are literally in violation of a lawful order and then they can face consequences under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

CARLSON: You can go to prison for not taking the vaccine. It’s funny, you invite someone like that on your show and then he says something like that out loud with a television camera in the room and you don’t pause and say, excuse me, that’s lunacy. That’s fascism. No one says anything. Oh, of course yes, Court Martials for anyone who refuses to take an experimental vaccine to stop a pandemic that has already ended. 

What’s going on here? It is so obviously unnecessary that it is vindictive, and it makes you wonder, what is this really about? At the very moment that the risk for young people of dying of the coronavirus has hit essentially zero, they are telling us that young people, soldiers, should be arrested and go to jail if they don’t submit to the vaccine. 

They are telling you that you will wind up in a government database if you don’t comply and the government agents could be showing up and knocking on your door. What is happening? What is this about? Sincere question. 

Alex Berenson has thought more about this and more clearly than anyone we know. He is a best-selling author. You know him well from this show, we hope. He joins us now. 

Alex, what is this? At exactly the moment you think they’d be pulling back a little bit, they got 67 percent of American adults to take it, that’s a huge number as far as I can tell. They can’t stand that 33 percent haven’t. 

Why? 

ALEX BERENSON, AUTHOR: Well, I mean, Tucker, I’d push back a little bit on the 67 percent number because if you look at adults of working age, it’s really about 50/50. It’s 18 to 65. 

So it seems pretty clear that they thought they were — 

CARLSON: I’m sorry, can you — that went over my head. We just pulled that. 

We thought we were reading it correctly off their website. What does that mean? What’s the real number? 

BERENSON: So, most people — most people — the vast majority of people over 65 have taken the vaccine. 

CARLSON: Right. 

BERENSON: Which makes sense, the risk benefit for the vaccine is better. 

CARLSON: I agree. 

BERENSON: It’s more in their favor. So, if you look at actual working age adults, it is only about 50 percent have taken the vaccine. 

CARLSON: Okay. So, that’s more at point. 

BERENSON: And that means that the idea that these — these guys were depending on corporate pressure. They didn’t want to have to have a Federal mandate. They thought that they could convince companies to, you know, airlines were not going to carry people or they were not going to — they were going to make their flight attendants take the vaccine. 

Well, in a labor market that’s tight, if half the adults of working age have not taken the vaccine, companies will back down and you’re sort of seeing that a little bit around the edges, which means they don’t have the leverage they want. 

But listen, you — I’m sort of a small mind thinker, you’re a big mind thinker. You’re thinking philosophically. I just think, this is crazy in that the risk benefit ratio of the vaccines appears to be getting worse almost by the week right now. 

We’re seeing vaccine failure on a large scale in Israel and the U.K., and Scotland. We are seeing there’s this — all this myocarditis here and everywhere else the mRNA vaccines are giving. 

Why push this — and as you said, it looks like the pandemic is winding down in general, although again in the U.K., actually, cases are way up as the vaccines apparently begin to fail, and so why push it now? 

I think that’s a really, really good question and whether it is pure vindictiveness or whether it is something else, I don’t know. I mean, I’m always reminded of the Santana quote that the fanatic is the person who redoubles his effort when he has lost his aim, and it does seem like these people have just lost their aim, and are just pushing harder and harder. 

But I will tell you this. They are talking about booster shots for people. 

They’re talking about a third dose, you know, possibly more doses. 

I spoke to somebody today and this is on my “Substack,” which people can go read if they want, which is nice because it’s totally exempt from Twitter or Amazon, it’s my own direct connection to readers — I interviewed somebody today who said I’ve signed up for the trial, I got two doses. I signed up for the booster trial, I got a third dose. My third dose was much worse than the first two, I dropped out of the trial when they asked me if I wanted a fourth dose. 

And so if this is somebody who is pro-vaccine and signed up for the trial and didn’t want a third dose, I can’t imagine what hesitancy is going to look like nationally when they try to push that. 

CARLSON: Yes. I mean, leaving aside the science, which you’ve written about I think so incisively and honestly, their behavior is scaring the hell out of people. This is so crazy that it’s shaking the faith that most Americans I think had, maybe still have in vaccines. 

Why are they acting like this? This is nuts. 

BERENSON: It is. It is nuts, and I mean, again, I don’t have a good answer for that. I tend not to believe in conspiracy. I tend to believe people, you know, there’s somebody in a room in H.H.S. saying, hey, we’ve got to get to 70 percent by hook or by crook. We’re not there. What are we going to do? 

But you know, with every day that goes by, when they lie about the myocarditis data, the pericarditis data, when they lie about you know a potential third booster being needed, it becomes harder just to think that this is — you know, these are mistakes. 

I don’t know what the answer is, Tucker. 

CARLSON: No, I don’t either. The fact they are doing it to college students is one of the great outrages of my life, I will say that. 

Alex Berenson, great to see you. Thank you. 

BERENSON: Yes. Thanks, Tucker. 

CARLSON: So, the N.S.A. was reading our e-mail. We’ve told you that a number of times. Our only recourse really at this point is to file a Freedom of Information Act to beg them to explain why have you been doing that? 

So, they didn’t respond, of course. They did however respond to the journalist who made a FOIA request on our FOIA request. That didn’t take them long. 

We will tell you what happened next. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) 

CARLSON: Well, we’ve been spied on by the Biden administration. There is not a lot you can do about it. You can make noise about it and seem outraged, but in the end, you don’t really have a lot of recourse. 

You learn a lot about your democracy when that happens to you. One thing you can do is file a Freedom of Information Act request seeking any call records, texts, or e-mails that the N.S.A. got from you or in this case us, and so we did that. We haven’t heard back from the N.S.A., probably won’t for a long time. 

They did promptly respond however to some stooge at “The Intercept” which is some joke billionaire funded website. This guy filed a FOIA request about our FOIA request and then wrote on Twitter this: “I’ve obtained under FOIA the FOIA request Tucker Carlson sent the N.S.A.” So, what’s interesting is — and it really does kind of crystallize the total degradation of American journalism, “The Intercept” was founded to push back against the surveillance state. It was founded by Glenn Greenwald and now of course, they’re busy covering it up and cheering it on. 

You wonder, instead of FOIA-ing our FOIA requests — what are you going to find there? Nothing — why don’t you figure out what the N.S.A. is doing? 

The largest Intel Agency in the world. That might occupy your time, that might be a virtuous thing to do. It doesn’t occur. 

Because of course, they support it and the successes. 

Jonathan Turley is a Law Professor at George Washington University. He knows a lot about the subject. He joins us tonight. 

Professor, thanks so much for coming on. 

Now, I realize the FOIA request from “The Intercept” is a lot easier because there’s nothing classified that they need to respond to, so it doesn’t really explain why they filed it in the first place. If you’re “The Intercept” and you’ve got some creepy billionaire paying the bills, like why not get to the bottom what the N.S.A. is doing? Has that occurred to anyone? 

JONATHAN TURLEY, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, apparently not a number of people who have remained relatively silent, the people that you would expect to be raising questions. I just testified in the House Judiciary Committee on the surveillance of reporters and it was one of the few times in recent memory that there was bipartisan agreement with all of us who testified as experts, all the members in the room agreed that we needed to fully investigate whether journalists were intercepted. 

That has not been the response to this story. 

Now, there’s a couple of ways that your e-mails might have been intercepted that would be lawful. You could have been corresponding with someone who is subject to an N.S.A. surveillance or that person may have forwarded your e- mail to someone who was intercepted, but it doesn’t explain the more troubling questions of how that information was circulated? And also how your name was not masked? 

Now, you can unmask people in a surveillance document of that kind, but it requires someone to ask for unmasking and there’d be no legitimate reason to do so here. Now, if reporters were given that information, it would be even more serious because even if your e-mail itself was not classified, “The Intercept” is. 

N.S.A. and FOIA material is heavily classified. I do national security work and it takes years for me to get access to a to a FISA warrant, I should say or an N.S.A. surveillance document. So, the mere fact that they engaged in surveillance is classified. 

So, it would be a serious Federal crime. The question is, why they are — 

CARLSON: Well, yes, I mean, — well, I mean, because look they’re trying — they intimidate people. The number of texts I got today from people, wow, you know — everyone is afraid of the N.S.A. and the C.I.A., just to be totally clear. Lots of people in the last administration were really afraid of them, that’s true. I know firsthand. 

A lot of people now are really afraid of them. Do you want to live in a country where people are afraid of your Intel agencies? Like what is that? 

Why are we accepting this? 

TURLEY: Well, one of the interesting aspects of this is a lot of people are saying, well, this would be ridiculous. It’s not ridiculous. 

As I testified just about a week ago in Judiciary, there is an almost seasonal regularity to this, that is we have journalists who were investigated in the Bush administration, the Obama administration, the Trump administration, the Biden administration. 

And after every one of those scandals, there is the requisite apologies, promises of reform, and everyone goes away and then the cycle continues. 

CARLSON: Right. How about prison time? I mean they tried to set — speaking of run amok Intel agencies. They tried to send Roger Stone away for the rest of his life for inconsistent testimony, but none of these people, you know they thrive. They get MSNBC contracts. 

This is not sustainable. Someone needs to fix this, for real. 

Jonathan Turley, I appreciate your efforts on this. I still don’t even know what your politics are, but you’ve been — you’ve been right on this for many, many years. Thank you. 

TURLEY: Thanks, Tucker. 

CARLSON: So, it’s been more than six months since January 6th, since the

9/11 of our time, the Pearl Harbor and we still don’t know with certainty who shot Ashli Babbitt because in America in 2021 under Joe Biden, you can just kill people, unarmed women, and you don’t have to admit who did it. 

Now, we’re hearing reports that that officer has been identified. We can’t confirm them, so we’re not going to give the person’s name. What’s so interesting is that no one is interested in finding out. In fact, anyone who asks the question, “Who shot an unarmed American citizen, a veteran, a woman” — really shooting unarmed women now — if you ask that question out loud, you must be a Russian agent. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

NICOLLE WALLACE, MSNBC HOST: Well you mentioned Vladimir Putin, I mean, one of the more outrageous things he said during President Biden’s European Summit and ahead of that bilat with Putin was this accusation about Ashli Babbitt being assassinated. 

It’s a claim that Tucker Carlson picked up and said you know, Vladimir Putin has a point. Today, at 2:06, in the same hour in which his company was criminally charged, the twice impeached disgraced ex-President sent out a statement with one line, “Who killed Ashli Babbitt?” The circle is complete from Putin to Carlson to Trump. 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

CARLSON: Let’s put dumb middle-aged sad people on TV, not a good idea, but none of these people kind of get the irony at the core of all of this, which is if Vladimir Putin had his Security Forces execute unarmed women who were protesting his regime, we would correctly call that a terrible abuse of human rights. 

Who did it? We would say it’s a fair question to ask, but ask of the Biden administration and you’re a Putin lackey. So, why don’t we know basic facts about January 6th? 

Well, Julie Kelly as we told you repeatedly is one of the very few reporters who has pressed the government to answer those questions. She is with “American Greatness.” We’re happy she is with us tonight.

So, Julie, just go through — you’ve done this before, but I can’t get enough of it. What don’t we know about January 6th that the government knows? What are they hiding from us in this moment when they’re telling us we need to know more? What should we know now? 

JULIE KELLY, “AMERICAN GREATNESS”: Well, the identity of the Federal officer, let’s keep in mind that the U.S. Capitol Police Department is a Federal agency. We don’t know the name of the officer who shot and killed an American in the U.S. Capitol. 

We also are not privy to 14,000 hours of surveillance video that the U.S. 

Capitol Police — you see a common thread here — refuses to make public to the American people, maybe Liz Cheney or Nancy Pelosi can ask that in their, you know, truth task commission that they’re trying to find out what happened on January 6th. 

So those are just a few of the key questions. 

CARLSON: Yes. 

KELLY: Also why did U.S. Capitol Police let people in the door? Why did they talk to someone like Jacob Chansley who now is languished in solitary confinement in jail for six months, denied release again this week? 

Also why did police officers — 

CARLSON: I’m sorry, my apologies pause Jacob Chansley is the guy who was dressed in like Chewbacca, the Chewbacca guy. 

KELLY: Yes. 

CARLSON: With the horns. 

KELLY: That guy. 

CARLSON: Is he charged with violence? Did he commit a violent crime? 

KELLY: No. 

CARLSON: Does Vladimir Putin keep hundreds of unarmed non-violent protesters in solitary confinement for six months when they protest his regime? If he does, I’m against it, I just want to say that. Does he do that, do you know? 

KELLY: You just completed the circle again like Nicolle Wallace said. 

CARLSON: Yes. 

KELLY: I mean now, it’s Putin down to Jacob Chansley. I mean it all makes so much sense, doesn’t it, right? No, he has not committed any violent crime. The judges — so this is D.C judges, D.C. prosecutors who are torturing this man who committed no violent — no violent crime. 

But we also, Tucker, need to know why police officers were attacking peaceful protesters outside the Capitol, provoking them with things like flash bangs filled with rubber pellets, sting balls, dousing them with teargas. So, these are just a few of the questions out of dozens that we need to ask and again maybe Liz Cheney, our friend, who pretends to be on our side, can pose those questions as part of Nancy Pelosi’s commission. 

CARLSON: Yes, I mean if you’re holding people in solitary confinement in a D.C. jail for non-violent crimes, at some point, they become political prisoners. I try not to use that phrase, you know, you don’t want to hype anything or sensationalize, but at what point does it become like a political prosecution? And why aren’t Republican leaders asking that? 

I know Mitch McConnell is pretty busy. 

KELLY: I don’t know. 

CARLSON: Maybe you could ask that question. Julie Kelly, thank you. 

KELLY: Thanks, Tucker. 

CARLSON: Well, speaking of politics, we have an update tonight on a leading Democratic presidential candidate from the last cycle, the man who was going to change this country and rid it of the scourge of Trumpism, we’re speaking of course of creepy porn lawyer. Whatever happened to his career? 

Well, it’s been put on pause for about two and a half years with good behavior. We’ve got some bad news in Federal Court today, we’ll tell you what it is, next. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) 

CARLSON: Ever notice how heroes just emerge — they are not so much born, as they just appear out of nowhere and that happened a few years ago in this country and that hero went by many names. 

We called him the creepy porn lawyer because he was, but over at CNN they called him something different. 

They called him a future President. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

WALLACE: … value most. If they decide they value a fighter most, people would be foolish to underestimate Michael Avenatti. 

STEPHEN COLBERT, TALK SHOW HOST: An existential threat to the Trump presidency, please welcome attorney Michael Avenatti. 

[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE] 

LAWRENCE O’DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: No one has talked tougher directly to Donald Trump on TV than Michael Avenatti and Donald Trump is afraid to mention his name. 

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Michael Avenatti is a beast. 

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Okay, that’s true. He is a beast. 

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is a beast and he keeps popping Donald Trump and all of his folks in the mouth, repeatedly. He’s a beast and so Jon Meacham says he may be the savior of the republic. 

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I owe Michael Avenatti an apology. For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been saying, enough already, Michael. I’ve seen you everywhere. What do you have left to say? I was wrong, brother. 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

CARLSON: Those were not cable news clips, that was an IQ test and everybody on that tape failed miserably. Do not issue them driver’s licenses. They’re not capable. They fell for it hard. 

In a single week in March of 2018, if you can remember that far back, MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC News interviewed the creepy porn lawyer, a total of — I am not making this up because we counted — 147 times. Now, we’ve got to get in on that. We’ve got to interview the creepy porn lawyer. 

We had only one opportunity to talk to him in studio. Here’s part of it. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

CARLSON: You’ve profited from Stormy Daniels. You’ve done tens of millions of dollars’ worth of free media on the basis of your relationship with her, and she is working in strip clubs. You’re exploiting her, and you know that. Why aren’t you paying her some of what you’re making? 

MICHAEL AVENATTI, ATTORNEY: Sir, this is absurd. 

CARLSON: But answer my question. Why are you rich, and your client is working in seedy strip clubs? 

AVENATTI: Sir, do you have any idea how much money I’ve earned? 

CARLSON: You’re on every cable show. You’re running for President now. 

AVENATTI: You have no idea — you have no idea. 

CARLSON: Well, I know that you haven’t paid your taxes and like so many lawyers you were taking advantage of her and you pose as a feminist hero because you are shameless and the others let you get away with it. 

But you’re an exploiter of a woman and you should be ashamed of it. 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

CARLSON: So, it wasn’t the warmest interview ever and actually got even more unpleasant off air, but we wanted to give you the coda to the story. 

How did it wind up? Where is he now? 

Well today, the creepy porn lawyer met the fate so many of us knew was coming to him. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison, in this case, for trying to extort the shoe company, Nike. Although, he is still facing several separate trials including one concerning allegations he defrauded Stormy Daniels, which he apparently did. 

So, the question for us is basically a political show, is what does this mean for creepy porn lawyer’s presidential ambitions? Is he still what America needs? 

Francey Hakes is a former Federal prosecutor. She joins us tonight. 

Francey, thanks so much for coming on, and I should say with some sincerity, I never gloat over a man going to prison because, you know, it’s sad. It’s like someone’s death. It is sad. I mean that. 

However, if there was ever a guy who had a rendezvous with a cell, inevitably, it was this guy. Was that obvious to you as a former prosecutor? 

FRANCEY HAKES, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Yes, you know, Tucker, he certainly had that defense attorney bluster, that incredible arrogance that used to drive me so crazy across the courtroom when they were performing really for an audience of one, their own client, and never for the jury and never for the judge. 

He was really just like a normal criminal defense attorney to me, but today in court, he certainly didn’t have that arrogance as he was apparently sobbing with regret and I just have to say, that’s one of the things that used to drive me the most crazy as a prosecutor, was watching the defendant next to me cry and sob because where was that emotion? Where was that regret when they were victimizing their victims? 

And here, you had — he had an extortion scheme. It’s not like I feel sorry for the shoe company, but the point is that he has got an extortion scheme to extort a shoe company. He is paying the price. Now, he is going to prison for less than the Federal sentencing guidelines recommended by the way, which was nine years. 

But still, I’m not at all surprised that he had such a rise and such a meteoric fall. 

CARLSON: Also, what about the dignity question? I mean, there are all kinds of figures throughout history who mount the gallows to their death without crying. Aren’t you supposed to kind of man up and keep your little tears inside? 

I mean, I’m sincere like whatever happened to that standard? 

HAKES: Well, where was the beast? They were all talking about how he was such a beast and how President Trump was afraid of him, and he goes into court and just like almost every other criminal, cries, when he has to face the music for what he has done. 

CARLSON: Yes. There is a connection between narcissism and self-pity. Have you noticed that? 

HAKES: Definitely. 

CARLSON: Francey Hakes, not just a former prosecutor, but a student of human behavior. Thank you. Great to see you. 

HAKES: Thanks, Tucker. 

CARLSON: Well, for a long time, everyone pretended that BLM – Black Lives Matter – was not an anti-American hate group. They just want to stop racism. 

All lives don’t matter, but they’re totally on the level.

Well, the mask is off and now, they are saying out loud what they’ve been saying behind closed doors for a long time, maybe we can stop sucking up to them and sending them millions. Maybe not. We’ll tell you what they said next 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) 

CARLSON: For a huge part of last year, you were absolutely required to pretend that BLM was about stopping racism. The group that told you that all lives didn’t matter was against racism. If you work for some big soulless company, you had to say that or they would fire you. People were fired for questioning that. 

And you definitely couldn’t point out that BLM hates America or bent on destroying it. But now, you can because BLM is saying it. 

In a public post on the Fourth of July, the Utah Chapter of BLM described the American flag as quote, “A symbol of hatred,” we are quoting. “When we Black Americans see this flag, we know the person flying it is not safe to be around. When we see this flag, we know the person flying it is a racist.” It is a total lie on every level. 

Meanwhile, CNN anchors are also admitting what we’ve known all along. They hate America, too. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

KEILAR: I think one of the more recent images that we might think of, of the American flag being very visible was people on January 6th who were storming the Capitol beating police officers with it. 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

CARLSON: You just can’t put emotionally unstable unhappy people on TV and expect it to go well. That’s the rule, CNN. 

Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, one of the wisest people we know and a master of the big picture. He joins us tonight. 

Professor, thanks so much for coming on. So, from my perspective, what we’re looking at is people with power, most of the power in our country who is supposed to be running the country, benefiting from the country hate the country. What is going on? 

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON, SENIOR FELLOW, HOOVER INSTITUTION: Yes. Well, and they never give us data. You know, it’s all vague racist this and racist that, so we have metrics to adjudicate racism. 

A minority that makes up a little more than 12 percent does not elect a President of the United States who is black. A racial society would not allow that. They would not allow Kamala Harris to be Vice President. You wouldn’t have a race in North Carolina where both Republican and Democratic candidate are black. 

And they would have disproportionate — when you have interracial crime that is fairly rare, it would be disproportionately white versus black. 

That’s not true. It’s vice versa. 

If you had anti-Asian hate crimes, it would not — it would be white people doing that, not black people in a racist society. And yet — and then they don’t give us alternatives. We need details. We want to adopt the Chinese model, the Russian model, the German model, the Cuban model, it depends what model is superior to this. 

And then there’s a class element. This is not the generation that came out of the Civil Rights movement, Tucker. Ralph Abernathy, Bayard Rustin, Martin Luther King that were assimilationists, integrationists, content of our character. They actually felt and experienced terrible racism and they came out of an impoverished circumstances. 

But my gosh, we’re listening to some of the most privileged people in the United States — LeBron James, Meghan Markle, Oprah Winfrey, and then we have Mr. Kendi or a Cornell West or Ta-Nehisi Coates, they all grew up in upper middle class families. They were this epitome of the American Dream, they had equal opportunity, they were very successful. 

It’s a very different phenomenon. This is sort of like the French revolutionaries, who were upper, upper middle class, or Lenin or the Marxists who are upper middle class or founder of BLM, Miss Patrisse Cullors, who owns four homes. 

So, I don’t think you should really take it — the idea that they are being exploited and suffering in a racist country very carefully.

And, you know, this is very dangerous because historically, we’re not the norm, we’re an aberration. This is a multi-racial democracy and they usually don’t work because the natural propensity is to identify by your tribe and superficial appearance. 

And boy, when you look at the world around us, whether it’s Rwanda or Iraq, or the former Yugoslavia, the problems they are having in a multiracial democratic Brazil or even India, we do pretty well. 

And I think these people historically are uninformed, because what they’re doing is taking us on a trajectory where we know the end and where it ends up and it’s not pretty, especially if you turn one tribe against the other and you have a war of everybody against everybody. It doesn’t work. 

CARLSON: So, the country is so racist, so systemically racist that it gave a free ride to Princeton to Michelle Obama. Michelle Obama is still mad at the country. 

HANSON: Yes, and then Obama — what does she do? She ventures out of her

$14 million Martha Vineyard estate on vacation from her $12 million Washington, D.C. estate and then she tells us that her daughter is in danger walking out on the street, when we had this existential problem of

400 people being killed over the Fourth of July — 400 being shot, 150 killed, a hundred shot in Chicago, 16 killed. 

And we were told that if we just have African-American mayors or Attorney Generals or Chief of Police, and that doesn’t seem to help and so we have existential problems that need to be addressed. 

And Michelle Obama is blaming society that’s endangering her daughters when she knows — and she wisely knows that that she’s not going to move back to her Chicago mansion. That would be very unwise given the state of safety in Chicago, and yet nobody talks about these existential problems. 

And so this race, race, race. It’s an abstraction among the elite. It’s not the concerns of the actual poor and marginalized people in the inner city. 

CARLSON: No, or of the dying middle class. Pretty soon we’re going to have an economic story about I fear, so maybe this conversation will end and we’ll start worrying about real things. 

Victor Davis Hanson, appreciate your coming on tonight. Thank you. 

HANSON: Thank you. 

CARLSON: So, we’re seeing now in a lot of places in government refusing to enforce the law, defunding the police, crime goes up, you’re forced to protect yourself, your family, and your property, but we’ve seen this before a number of times in recent history. 

In 1992, Koreans in Los Angeles were attacked because of their race during the LA riots. They defended themselves. What did they learn from that experience? Fascinating. We’ll show you after the break. 

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) 

DAVID JOO, ARMED CITIZEN: The police heard a gunshot. Everybody got back to their car and left the place. 

CARLSON (voice over): David Joo was in Koreatown when the riots broke out. 

JOO: It was April 29, 1992. I was staying in my store as a store manager. 

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: LA’s Korean community has been especially hard hit by the rioting. Yet, many inner city stores are Korean owned. 

JOO: We are pretty much on our own, so what should we do? So, you know, we watched them. We have to defend our store. 

CARLSON (voice over): And that’s exactly what Joo and dozens of other Korean store owners did. 

JOO: The only one thing in my mind was a mission, to protect our Korean people as well as Koreatown. 

(END VIDEO CLIP) 

CARLSON: Those guys were really tough and really brave and really an inspiration to all of us. So the documentary is called “Surviving Disorder.” It’s on foxnation.com right now, and we think it’s a good one. 

That’s it for us tonight. We will be back tomorrow, by the way, Friday, we’ve got an interview with one man Silicon Valley does not want you to hear from, evolutionary biologist, Bret Weinstein, an amazing conversation. 

We will be back tomorrow night, 8:00 p.m. The show that is the sworn enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness, and groupthink. 

Sean Hannity takes over the 9:00 p.m. right now. 

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