Tuesday on FNC’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” host Tucker Carlson opened his show with a scathing critique of the mainstream media and showcased the pro-Biden slant from broadcast and print journalists.
Carlson noted how the media were in sync on Biden coverage in a post-Trump era.
Transcript as follows:
CARLSON: We spend an awful lot of time in the show night after night trying to explain what is happening to our country, and it’s depressing a lot of the time because the answer is always the same.
America is not rotten, it’s a great place. The people who run it are rotten, so you’ve been betrayed by the people who lead you. And that’s why things are so volatile.
What you’re looking at is a crisis of our institutions, our institutions are corrupt; some of them are collapsing.
We say that a lot because it’s true, but we should be more precise. Not all of our institutions are the same. Some of them are bad, some of them are awful.
But looming above the rest is the worst of all, and that’s the news media. They’re the most corrupt. How corrupt is the news media? Imagine a drunken teenage border guard at the crossing between Togo and Burkina Faso, shaking you down at midnight as you pass through.
The New York Times is much more corrupt than that. The media are more crooked than Jimmy Hoffa ever was. They are more dishonest than your average bribe-taking building inspector in Queens. They are more treacherous than the mafia. They make cops in Tijuana look trustworthy.
You’ll get a fair treatment from an inner-city DMV than you would from CNN, ask Nick Sandmann. We could go on.
Words can barely express the truth of it. Watching the news on television makes you question the system itself. In what version of, quote, “meritocracy” can someone like Chuck Todd get rich and famous? Dumb and conventional now pass as impressive? It’s insulting.
But rather than be insulted, we’ve decided to pause for a moment and look at it a different way. Yes, the news media are profoundly dishonest. All of us lie from time to time, that’s the human condition. But imagine if lying was your job. Imagine forcing yourself to tell lies all day about everything in ways that were so transparent and so outlandish that there is no way that people listening to you could possibly believe anything you said.
Then imagine doing that again and again, and again, every day of your professional life for your entire life. Could you do that? If you could, CNN has an opening on the media analysis desk. Call them immediately.
But if you’re a non-sociopathic, normal person, the answer obviously is no, you could not do that. You could never lie like that. So you’ve got to kind of respect the people who can. They’re like Olympians in reverse.
They achieved feats so dishonorable that you gasp in horror as you watch them. But at the same time, you’ve got to respect those skills.
Take a look at these gold medalists in duplicity and ask yourself as you watch, could you say something like this with a completely straight face about Kamala Harris?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NICOLLE WALLACE, MSNBC HOST: She is incredibly successful and she does everything professionally with the utmost integrity.
CLAIRE MCCASKILL, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Kamala Harris is independent, successful, strong, but she’s also a devoted wife and she is not ashamed of that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I would say that her performance as a running mate was flawless. I mean, other than Barack Obama in my career, I’ve not seen anybody really who came in with that kind of raw material, even she fits the moment in such a powerful way.
WALLACE: She is what every working woman strives to be.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Of course, she is flawless. Kamala Harris is everything women want to be: false, hollow, cunning, consumed with political power, really a model for your daughters. Make that woman Vice President. And so they did.
And on the night they did, they celebrated. In fact, celebration might be too mild to word. What happened on cable television that night is typically, and by law, in a lot of places, confined to bedrooms and other private spaces. But that night, they did it in public, and they were proud of it. Here was prime time over on CNN.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: How are you feeling?
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: It’s — I almost can’t talk right now because of the emotion.
Everyone is welcome under this tent. We don’t care who you are. We don’t care if you voted for us or not. You’re all part of this American experiment.
It was — I was so overwhelmed to hear that. I don’t care what people think. If they think I’m biased or not, I don’t care.
And so I’m very emotional, so when you ask me how I’m feeling right now, I’m sorry. That’s all I can tell you. This is how I feel right now. I am so happy to have this platform to be able to do this. I may not have it after this, but I really don’t care. I am so happy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Everyone is welcome under this tent. They’re all invited, except the white supremacists and the QAnon people and anyone else who disagrees with anything we say, they’re all going to jail. But the rest are more than welcome to stay and obey our commands.
It was that kind of night: festive, good-hearted, magnanimous.
Months later as the Inauguration neared and the Biden family made its victorious procession into the capital city, the mood lifted even higher. “I have chills,” wrote one editor at The New York Times, she was feverish with joy.
CNN rousted its Poet Laureate from lunch and led him to the set to commemorate this moment. Here’s the sonnet he wrote for the occasion.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Those lights that are that are just shooting out from the Lincoln Memorial along the reflecting pool. I look — it’s like almost extensions of Joe Biden’s arms embracing America.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Not everyone is as poetic as David Chalian, the man you just saw. That’s why he is CNN’s political director. An ordinary journalist might not even have noticed that Joe Biden’s arms are like twin beams of light shooting forth from the reflecting pool, embracing America as a mother embraces a child.
No, an ordinary journalist might simply have described Joe Biden’s arms as toned and tawny and redolent of musk and saddle leather. Not everyone is David Chalian. But not everyone needs to be David Chalian.
The thing about journalism is, it’s not an individual achievement. It’s about the group. In journalism, it is the collective spirit that matters, like synchronized swimmers or certain species of insects, journalists move together in concert as a herd, if you will.
When Joe Biden writes a talking point, they repeat it, not just a few of them, but all of them in precisely the same way.
Think of reporters as the North Korean gymnastics team celebrating Kim Il-sung day in a soccer stadium in Pyongyang, they move as one. Watch this clip, for example, members of the Press Corps inform you that this new group of politicians in Washington is very different from any other group of politicians in all of human history.
Unlike the rest of them, these people are committed to something called the truth.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: President Joe Biden making it clear his administration will be nothing like his predecessor’s with a focus on truth, science and transparency.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A commitment to clarity, transparency, science and truth.
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: … a return to normalcy as the Biden administration vows truth and transparency now.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: As the Biden White House vows transparency and truth when sharing information with the American people, what does that mean? We’re going to talk about it.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: As this White House promises to bring truth and science back to the White House.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI, MSNBC HOST: … is getting back to the truth and valuing the truth.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Getting back to the truth, valuing the truth. Now, there’s a refreshing concept. Who does that remind you of, by the way? We are not being patriarchal here, but if we’re being totally honest, that sounds a lot like dad. A little blunt sometimes, but honest, a straight shooter. Solid, reliable, steady. That’s Joe Biden.
Above all, Joe Biden is a family man, he took the train back to Wilmington every night to the 10,000 square foot estate a campaign donor bought from an exchange for unregistered lobbying on behalf of credit card companies. Biden is not like the last guy.
Joe Biden’s family is refreshingly normal. There aren’t any weird sex scandals or protracted drug problems or ongoing criminal investigations you’ve got to worry about. You want to know what the Bidens are doing this weekend? A recent headline in Newsweek will tell you quote: “Joe Biden wins in Mario Kart race against granddaughter at Camp David.” It’s wholesome stuff like that, not secretly lobbying for China, not impregnating strippers from Arkansas. No, they’re playing Mario Kart with the grandkids just like you.
And at the heart of this great American family is a love story. One man, one woman in the fires of passion that changed the course of our history. Not since Anthony dining with Cleopatra in downtown Antioch before they killed themselves obviously, has a country witnessed a love story as moving and poignant as Jill and Joe’s. No, ladies and gentlemen, Jill Biden is not Joe’s caretaker. She isn’t his nurse. She is his fully equal romantic partner.
Together they are like besotted teens, yet at the same time, they are the wise and knowing parents of a nation as the headline from POLITICO on Valentine’s Day put it quote: “Historians and relationship experts agree, the first couple’s romantic gestures aren’t just genuine — they’re restorative.”
So it’s official. The Biden’s affection is totally real. It’s in no way part of a slick PR campaign devised by cynical consultants determined to hide the President’s senility by misdirection. Not at all. Their love is as real as climate change.
The POLITICO story begins this way, quote: “On a mission to rebuild institutional norms and help heal a hurting nation, Joe and Jill Biden are trying something novel after four years of the Trumps: a little tenderness.”
That’s right America, a little tenderness. The Bidens’ love is like medicine. It’s more powerful than the COVID vaccine and you only need one injection. Watch Dr. Joy Reid prescribe a whole lot more of it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: What a story though. What a great love story between Jill Biden and Joe Biden. It’s just a different kind of marriage.
This is a love match, like the Obama’s were, so I think that’ll be healing for the country, too.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Yes, it will be. The Bidens’ love will be healing for this country. It will make us whole again. It might even stop looming hyperinflation and keep the Chinese Navy from closing the South China Sea to international shipping. That’s the kind of love it is.
When you’ve got a love like that, it emits a magnetic tug. People can feel it. They seek you out like pilgrims to bask in your healing rays.
Here was the scene on the White House lawn just this weekend as reporters from across the region threw down their crutches and approached America’s reigning apostle of love, hoping to graze the hem of his garment and be healed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
QUESTION: How do you extend that love story to the American people that are feeling so down right now? So discouraged?
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Tell them there is hope, there’s hope. You just have to stay strong.
DR. JILL BIDEN, FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: It’s lifted your spirits.
JOE BIDEN: I hope you didn’t have to come out this early in this morning, it’s so damn cold.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Next time bring us coffee, too?
JOE BIDEN: That’s true, I wasn’t sure you would all be here.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We will be here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I love your dogs.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I’ll bring the doughnuts next Friday if you come back.
JOE BIDEN: Okay. I’ll tell you what, I apologize. Here, I did not taste. I didn’t even — I didn’t even have a taste. Here, come on. I promise you. I have not —
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am going to get in trouble. I don’t have my mask.
JOE BIDEN: I give you my word. I didn’t have any of it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, thank you. I appreciate it.
JOE BIDEN: Okay.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: I’ll bring doughnuts. I love your dog. And above all, how can your love heal this nation? We don’t know the answer to that question.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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