Carlson: ‘Lincoln Project Was Powerful and Feared — And Now It’s Done, It’s Over, It’s Not Coming Back’

Friday on FNC’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” host Tucker Carlson speculated why the media went out of its way to protect the embattled Lincoln Project, as rumors and speculation have swirled about cofounder John Weaver.

According to Carlson, it had to do with a timeline of making it beyond the conclusion of the 2020 presidential election.

He also discussed the media’s treatment of Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY), who had avoided scrutiny for alleged missteps throughout the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Transcript as follows:

CARLSON: Happy Friday. It has been a turbulent week, at times pretty grim. But for once in this season of craziness, we have some good news for you tonight and here it is.

Two hundred and twelve years to the day after Abraham Lincoln was born, the Democratic Party propaganda outlet that stole his name has finally collapsed. Lincoln’s birthday present: the end of The Lincoln Project. We can all celebrate that.

There’s probably never been an organization sleazier or more vicious in American politics than The Lincoln Project. Naturally, it was funded heavily by the tech oligarchs in Silicon Valley.

The Lincoln Project set itself apart from most political organizations by never even addressing, for the most part, ideas or policies. Instead, they went personal, always, immediately, right for the throat. Rather than argue against what Donald Trump might be doing or not doing, The Lincoln Project instead threatened his attorneys and then spread filth about his aides.

In January, for example, one Lincoln Project executive bragged that quote, “We are constructing a database of Trump officials and staff that will detail their roles in the Trump administration and track where they are now. They will be held accountable.”

It always sounded a little more like MS-13 than a political operation.

Now, because everything is irony, there are reports tonight that the FBI is investigating The Lincoln Project specifically one of its founders, a man called John Weaver.

Weaver, you may remember because he helped manage John McCain’s run for President. He also worked for former Ohio Governor John Kasich. He is a close associate of Bill Kristol’s, of course, he is.

But in his spare time, John Weaver spent enormous energy trying to lure young boys into sex. At least one of those boys was 14 years old. Twenty-one of John Weaver’s alleged victims now accuse him of sexual harassment. It’s an awful story.

But here’s the worst part of that story. The Lincoln Project clearly had a pretty good idea what John Weaver was up to, a lot of people did.

For decades, political consultants whispered rumors that John Weaver had tried to molest little boys. Karl Rove to his credit once said that out loud. He was promptly attacked for saying it by The Atlantic Magazine. The Atlantic protected John Weaver, too.

But it turned out to be apparently accurate. Weaver’s colleagues at The Lincoln Project knew this, but they hid the truth from the public and from law enforcement.

Inside the organization, they made it clear they understood what was happening. We’re not guessing at this. Here’s an excerpt from a new piece in New York Magazine. Quote, “Beginning in September, much of The Lincoln Project staff convened in Park City, Utah where they hunkered down in a COVID safe pod until Election Day.” Can’t make this up.

“By this time,” the quote continues, “The allegations against Weaver were an open secret in the company according to former employees. One former employee said that’s when his boss warned him to avoid Weaver.”

Quote, “‘When I was told it was almost in passing, that I did not want to be involved with Weaver specifically because I am a young man,’ the former employee said.”

“One night over drinks with much of the staff, four employees recall, Weaver’s behavior came up repeatedly as a topic of discussion. One person remembers Steve Schmidt and co-founder Rick Wilson, telling people Weaver was ‘depraved’ and ‘twisted’ and that they wouldn’t want to know the truth about him.” End quote.

So in other words, inside the office, Lincoln Project executives essentially joked about John Weaver soliciting sex from teenagers.

And as if this story couldn’t get creepier or more repulsive, we also learned this week that John Weaver once operated a children’s boutique. Literally.

So the question is, why are we learning all of this now? Well, because the election is over, Donald Trump lost, so reporters no longer have political motive to protect John Weaver. Until November, the media had every incentive to promote him as a man of principle, which they assiduously did.

Here’s John Weaver on “60 Minutes.”

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LESLEY STAHL, HOST, “60 MINUTES”: John Weaver feels it’s the party that’s betrayed him.

JOHN WEAVER, CO-FOUNDER, THE LINCOLN PROJECT: I mean, look, Lesley, we’ve gone from caring about character, rule of law, defending the Constitution, a cogent national security policy, free trade. Where are all those issues?

Imagine if you travel the country for 30 years, fighting for Republican principles, and you learn it was all a lie.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Oh, so it’s John Weaver who was betrayed. It’s really about character. Really, it’s about principle.

The Lincoln Project cared about democracy, that’s why they did what they did. It didn’t have anything to do with the money they got, nothing at all to do with money. They would do it for free. They promised they would.

This subject came up a lot, and every time it did, The Lincoln Project employees seemed especially sensitive about the question of money and that should have told you something. Here’s Lincoln Project executive, Rick Wilson.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STAHL: And I’m going to quote, “Their failed strategists who are doing this for the money.”

RICK WILSON, EXECUTIVE, THE LINCOLN PROJECT: The easiest way in the world for a Republican strategist to make money right now is to shut up and say nice things about Donald Trump. So clearly, we’re in the wrong line of work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: “Clearly, we’re in the wrong line of work.” It’s all pretty funny. Of course, that’s the opposite of the truth. That always is.

Rick Wilson found the only line of work they would have him and apparently not a moment too soon. Published reports show that Wilson faced liens for hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid Federal taxes. Oh, speaking of character.

American Express took him to court for not paying his credit card bills to the tune of over $25,000.00. So for a guy like that, The Lincoln Project was a godsend, and we can’t overstate that.

According to the Associated Press, quote, “Of the $90 million raised by The Lincoln Project, more than half, $50 million went to firms controlled by The Lincoln Project’s executives, $50 million.

According to the Federal Election Commission, the F.E.C., in the month of December alone, that was before the Georgia Senate runoff, The Lincoln Project shoveled $1.5 million to Steve Schmidt, who incidentally bought a big new house according to news reports.

The Lincoln Project spent $38,000.00 on a private jet company. They spent $1.7 million with Project co-founder Mike Madrid’s firm and they gave $420,000.00 to co-founder Reed Galen’s firm.

I hope these guys saved the money because it’s hard to imagine we’ll be hearing much more Lincoln Project after today.

AXIOS reported that Steve Schmidt has just resigned from The Lincoln Project. He wrote a resignation letter that’s online tonight that you should read. In it, he portrays himself as the victim. It’s all about him.

And then says, he is resigning because the Board of The Lincoln Project has too many middle-aged white men. In the name of diversity, he must go.

By the way, The Lincoln Project also saw today the resignation of its spokesman and a couple of other people.

Keep in mind, just a week ago, The Lincoln Project was powerful and feared. And now it’s done. It’s over. It’s not coming back.

The lesson is: things change fast. Ask Andrew Cuomo how fast they change.

A lot of people expected Andrew Cuomo to be Joe Biden’s Attorney General, maybe the Vice President of the United States, and for good reason. Cuomo played an instrumental role in Biden’s campaign for the White House.

Cuomo helped the uni-party leverage coronavirus for political ends. He is one of the reasons that a lot of voters in November wound up believing that Donald Trump was personally responsible for COVID. Some voters appeared convinced that Trump had cooked up the virus himself in a lab deep beneath Mar-a-Lago.

Joe Biden knew that these propaganda points were helping him and he seemed grateful for Andrew Cuomo’s help.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Your Governor in New York has done one hell of a job. I think he is sort of the gold standard.

I mean, look at the way you have governors like Cuomo who are out there doing — just keeping everybody informed all day. I think, he is doing an incredible job.

I think he has been the lead horse here. I’ve talked to him frequently. He’s a friend. I think he’s doing a great job. I really mean it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: “Andrew Cuomo is the lead horse here. He’s doing a great job.” Once again, we don’t fault Joe Biden for saying untrue things. He’s just reading a script.

But in point of fact, Andrew Cuomo was not doing a, quote, “great job” as Governor of New York, more people were dying in his state than in any other state in the country. But for most of the year, nobody in the media said that out loud.

They allowed Cuomo to win an Emmy, in fact, for saying things like this —

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D-NY): My mother is not expendable, and your mother is not expendable and our brothers and sisters, they’re not expendable. And we’re not going to accept the premise that human life is disposable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: “Human life is not disposable,” says the abortion guy. Well, thanks to The New York Post and a handful of other relentless journalists who pursued this story for more than a year, we now know that in fact, Andrew Cuomo does believe human life is disposable because we knew that already.

But here are the details. Andrew Cuomo’s top aide, a woman called Melissa DeRosa privately admitted the truth in a call with state lawmakers. It’s on tape.

According to DeRosa, the Cuomo administration deliberately covered up the true number of coronavirus related nursing home deaths in the state of New York. They refused to tell lawmakers how many people were really dying.

Why did they do this? Why did they lie? Well, DeRosa explained why. The Cuomo administration was worried that telling the truth about how many people are dying in nursing homes would hurt Joe Biden and help Donald Trump. Quote, “He (referring to Donald Trump) starts tweeting that we killed everyone in nursing homes. He starts going after New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, starts going after California Governor Gavin Newsom, starts going after Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer.” Then she worried, “Trump directs the Department of Justice to do an investigation into us. And basically, we froze.”

DeRosa continued, “We’re in a position where we weren’t sure if what we are going to give the Department of Justice are what we gave to you guys. What we start saying was going to be used against us while we weren’t sure if there’s going to be an investigation. That played a very large role in this.”

In other words, we lied because we didn’t want to get caught. The most basic explanation of all. We didn’t want to help our political enemies and concede how many people we killed.

There are now 15,000 confirmed and presumed nursing home deaths in the State of New York. That’s up from 12,700 as recently as late January. We don’t have those figures because the Cuomo administration gave them to us. We have them because a few reporters like Andrew Kerr at The Daily Caller noticed that New York’s death numbers didn’t count nursing home residents who died of the coronavirus at a hospital.

We know it because places like the Empire Center, a think tank obtained a court order, forcing Cuomo to release the data to the public, which owns the data. He owns nothing. He’s a public servant, but he wouldn’t give it up until forced.

If we had listened to the rest of the media, we wouldn’t know any of this. We would only know about his Emmy. We wouldn’t know anything about Andrew Cuomo’s order that forced nursing homes to admit coronavirus positive patients.

We’d be expected to believe his excuse that all this was somehow Donald Trump’s fault.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Anyone who wants to ask why did the state do that with COVID patients in a nursing home? It’s because the state followed President Trump’s CDC guidance.

Who can we prosecute for those deaths? Nobody. Nobody. Mother Nature? God?

And you had this political conspiracy theory that the deaths in nursing homes were preventable.

I think it is all politically motivated. If anybody looked at the facts, they would know that it was wholly absurd on its face.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: It’s funny how the least competent, least honest politicians are also the most self-righteous. If anybody looked at the facts, they would know this is wholly absurd on its face.

And of course, it is wholly absurd, but not in the way Cuomo meant it. Joe Biden is in the White House, in part because journalists and members of both political parties refused to look at the facts and it’s time we assess the facts. Honestly.

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor